Behind the ROBLOX Booth at Maker Faire 2012

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ROBLOX and Maker Faire LogosIf I had to sum up Maker Faire Bay Area 2012 in 10 words, I’d say, “a little bit of everything, nothing run-of-the-mill.” Last weekend, the San Mateo County Event Center was packed with DIY creators, tech companies, schools and organizations, showing projects from 3D printing – oddly captivating to watch – six-legged robots and hacked devices to world-record paper airplanes and armed garden gnomes.

For the record, that excludes all the stuff that required too much space to fit in a building – the giant dinosaur covered in speakers, the pedal-powered music stage and the mutated bicycles, to name a few.

Members of the ROBLOX team were swapping in and out of our Expo Hall booth all weekend. We had hundreds of gaming, technology and science enthusiasts stop by to experience ROBLOX and chat with us about it as both a game-play and game-creation platform. It was a whirlwind of interaction, but we took away some memorable nuggets of information.

For many people, there is internal drive to create; it’s an unstoppable, shared experience, but diverse in expression. This was essentially “mechanical art”. –Keith Lucas

ROBLOX Booth at Maker Faire 2012Most every child and teenager who passed by stopped at our booth, and we found that about 30 percent of them had already played ROBLOX. It was interesting to listen in on discussions, as experienced players showed newcomers the ropes and enthusiasts engaged in discussions about ROBLOX’s position in a world of Minecraft, LittleBigPlanet and Second Life. One visitor even asked whether ROBLOX is what you get at the intersection of those three games – not exactly, but not too inaccurate of an observation, considering we combine free game development, game distribution and a robust community.

It was great to see so many dedicated ROBLOX fans. ROBLOX builders are Makers. –Erik Cassel

We did notice there’s a common misconception that you need a Builders Club membership to create games. All registered users can create a game, free of charge, and we want to make sure that’s clear in the future.

We also met some smart locals, who might have a future helping us build and shape ROBLOX.

I left Maker Faire with the impression that everyone is welcome – it draws a uniquely diverse crowd – and everyone will find a fascinating project (or 10). I was underwhelmed with Left 4 Dead 2 in 3D after a minute or two, but loved the rig it was running from – a human manikin with a computer for guts and brains.

We’ll see you at the next Maker Faire. Until then, check out the Make Zine’s Maker Faire blog, which continues to post photos from the event, and a few photos snapped by members of the ROBLOX team.

Arc Attack's Tesla Coil

ArcAttack! plays "SandStorm" on the tesla coil. --Isaiah Merrill

Maker Faire Cell Tower

Maker Faire's own cell tower. --Isaiah Merrill

Computer Built into a Manikin

This is a computer. --Andrew Haak

79 thoughts on “Behind the ROBLOX Booth at Maker Faire 2012”

    • i sure hope so i dont want no new updates i like the way roblox is we dont need no roblox studio 2.0 its stupid they need to stop changing what makes roblox so great

  5. Now i really regret moving from california :( oh by the way plz give me obc lifetime!! ROBLOX IS FUN add me on roblox at spartian2327!!

  7. Wow… Just wow! This is so much better than MineCraft…. You can’t do EVERYTHING on Minecraft.

    -willbear4-Creator of-Alot of Stuff

      • Block-Block
        Roblox has circles but minecraft has creativity, i have made my point.

      • Not so much was copied from Minecraft. Roblox and Minecraft are sandbox/building games and you can survive on Roblox,if your on the right game. Minecraft has 2 modes,Roblox kinda has them,I wouldent say they did copy. So minecraft is different from Roblox.

      • How can roblox have copied minecraft if roblox came out in 2006 and minecraft came out in 2010

    • There the same things. on roblox you can BUY gear. on minecraft u cant . on roblox theres millons of games. on minecraft theres only 1.
      Awswer: Roblox is better

  11. I got a water bottle on that day…

    and David.Baszuki’s email… but he still hasn’t gottten me m account back

  12. It’s in a world of Minecraft, notice how the “world of” is not capitalized, so that’s not the title. So, in essence, it means “A place or area of Minecraft”, not getting mixed up with two games.
    Nice job ROBLOX! I like how your getting yourselves out there. It’s a great game.

  14. Although Minecraft is fun and all, Roblox has more features to it.

  15. I admit, Minecraft is fun and all, but Roblox has much more to it.

  16. cool convention i never got to go though i live in California :(
    but minecraft is fun and a little better than Roblox :)

    • In my opinion, I like MINECRAFT better. You can combine things to make new things (unlike ROBLOX’s wiring). You can do more, but it takes more time because it is more realistic. There is chemistry, animals, epic stuff like that, etc. Everybody knows that Minecraft is way better, even robloxians and blockcrap people know that but they are just hiding it. If you reply saying nuh uh! I’ll know you are lying. I know, I’m intelligent but not a nerd nerds are retarded ok I better stop here.

  19. If i would of gone I would have raised a riot to demand more nbc features…

  21. You said world of minecraft minecraft is a different game it’s WORLD OF WORLDCRAFT

    • He said A world of Minecraft, and other things. World of Minecraft wasn’t what he meant, and World of Worldcraft doesn’t even exist. (World of Warcraft, is also completely unrelated to ROBLOX.)

  22. Pretty cool stuff.
    I’d have gone, but my projects aren’t working.

  29. Your guys booth was awesome, I asked one of the devs behind the graphics about enabling Ambient Occlusion lighting and he told me how to activate it and it really worked! They also gave $10 Roblox cards and water bottles out for free. They had an awesome booth.

  30. Nice! I thought that the Maker Faire was more than 1 day- that’s how other events have gone. XD. Surprising that only 30% of people played Roblox before.

  34. Awesome news! I am always looking out for where the ROBLOX team is going because it is my dream to meet one of the ROBLOX team members in person. But sadly I don’t know where the maker fair is and probably won’t be able to go anyways ):

    • me to i would love to meet the ROBLOX team and see where the maker fair is!…but i know an idea to find the maker fair the idea is to check it on google chrome so it might work so try it.

  36. good job
    add more features that arent exclusively for builders club and maybe people woulnt have the misconeption that only builders club members can make games