While Google blew seasoned geek minds with a flood of new releases at I/O 2015 in San Francisco last week, the tech company's East Coast arm hosted its second annual Geek Street Fair in lower Manhattan's Meatpacking District to inspire the next generation of tech innovators — think science fair with a DJ and gourmet sliders.
While free and open to the public, the event was geared toward New York middle school students and designed to expose them to the variety of jobs available in the science and technology sectors.
Sergio Rodriguez, a senior in the Mechanical Engineering program at Cooper Union, introduced kids to the Cooper Union Motorsports team, a Formula SAE team that designs and builds a race car every year to compete against 120 top universities from around the world.
"We run (the team) sort of like a small business," said Rodriguez. "We contact companies for sponsorships. Our engineers talk to companies about supporting us as a STEM program or providing us with parts. It's really great for the students, really great for companies. Overall, it's an awesome program that I'm proud to be a part of."
The American Museum of Natural History, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the National Museum of Mathematics were among more than 20 participating organizations that sponsored hands-on activities, including electronic music composition on jerry-rigged mixing boards, dodecahedron construction with coat hangers and remote control snack-grabbing with a candy crane.
"Being a geek is not just sitting behind a computer," said Becca Rutkoff of Google's New York office as hundreds of kids tinkered with robots, played virtual games and — this being a Google-sponsored event in the Meatpacking District — pocketed a lot of cool swag.
Check out a video of the event below:
