I have three words for you: Robot Petting Zoo. Even if you cannot actually pet the bots on display in MetroTech Plaza outside NYU’s Polytechnic Institute this Saturday, the fact that you can observe a mechanical menagerie of snakes, fish, birds, and humanoids, while drinking super evaporator cocktails–whatever those might be–is enough to pique my inner geek. It’s all part of the mostly sold-out World Science Festival taking place throughout the city this week. Saturday’s Innovation Square, thankfully, is free and open from noon to 8pm, plenty of time to take a journey inside a virtual spaceship built for hundreds, as Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields narrates your space quest; play Johann Sebastian Joust with lightsaber-like wands; and see Quantum Levitation in action. All of which means your where-to-take-the-kids-on-Saturday problem, should it arise, has been solved.–N.D.
