Cool nerds from across the region convened Sunday for a first-of-its-kind carnival for start-ups in Philadelphia.
More than 1,200 engineers, investors, students and artists signed up to spend the sunniest hours of the weekend challenging and celebrating more than 100 start-ups and small businesses that showed off prototypes and perfected products they hope to bring to mass production.
The site: Pennovation, the University of Pennsylvania-affiliated business incubator and collaboration space on the grounds of the former DuPont Co. paint factory. The event: a small-scale production by Maker Faire, a California-based tech-show presenter.
NextFab, a Philadelphia-based makerspace chain offering member tenants the use of 3D printers and other digitally controlled cutting, shaping and reproduction machines at three sites in the city and Wilmington, accounted for more than a quarter of the…