Nerdy in Newcastle
I travelled up to Newcastle, checked into my B&B and headed straight out to the pub. There was a plan of the various UK hackspaces to meet up and drink some beer, and on walking through the door I discovered the chosen venue was a nice ale house. That was a relief as I don't know Newcastle at all and didn't know if I was going to end up in a trendy bar. Given it was a Friday night the venue was spot on. I grabbed a pint and spotted Tom Scott in the corner. I said hello and was introduced to various people from different hackspaces around the UK, along with a couple of folks from the US. None of the Leeds hackspace people I knew had turned up by that point so I was in a strange town, in an unfamiliar pub and drinking with people I'd known for minutes. Nothing to worry about, it all seemed rather friendly and cool, but definitely had the 'adventure' feel to it.
I started chatting and it became apparent that the crowd were going to move on to another event called datarama. While not being completely sure what it was about I was told it was along the lines of a participant driven geek presentation thing.
After finishing the pint I follow my new friends to the star and shadow cinema which appears to be a community driven independent cinema set up in an old warehouse. It's a worrying cool venue and they had a self run bar serving ale out of boxes (like a bigger version of boxed wine). This was the venue for datarama and after grabbing a pint I settle down to see what was going to get presented.
First up was Mitch Altman, who gave a quick chat about how he went from inventing TV-B-Gone as a geeky project to running his own company. Quite fascinating and inspiring that something as quirky as a keychain could pay for him to live his life and generally have fun.
Second up was Tom Scott. He gave us a presentation of a fictional near-future sci-fi story that I think wouldn't surprise a lot of people if it did happen. It was a repeat of a presentation that he gave at Ignite London, and here's the video from that:
Click to viewThird up was something that even I figured was unusual but still fascinating. Cathal Garvey gave a talk about DIY Bio, something I didn't even knew existed. This is taking the Biology science that is done by big companies who can spend lots of money on equipment, and finding a way of doing it at home in a nerdy DIY science way. To help out he's designed a centrifuge that could be made by most hobbyists at home rather than spending five grand on the things like BigCorp would. He also explained other aspects of DIY biology including how to get the chemicals you need and even briefly covering how to go from buying a squid from the market to having a tank of glow in the dark alge!
There was time for a break, which is when the Leeds hackspacers turned up. Apparently they'd got to the pub just after we'd left and even though I tweeted we were moving on, I didn't mention the actual venue I was going to. With datarama sometimes happening at a different venue it meant they'd gone to the wrong place first. With me not checking for tweet responses I didn't know this until they turned up at the right place.
After the break we had a presentation from Alistair who told us about how Mr Duck came into existence.
We also had a presentation from some guys who are making a single board open hardware computer which sounded kinda interesting. Unfortunately I can't remember enough to bring up some links at the moment, maybe I'll sort that out later.
After being a bit more social in the pub across the road we wandered back to find somewhere more central to keep drinking. Unfortunately after trying a couple of venues and finding they were shutting I decided to call it a night and grabbed a taxi to the B&B.
A night where I made random new acquaintances and discovered that you can do biology at home, that was quite random.
And there's more.
Even though the bloke running my B&B said it the busses at the end of the street were every ten minutes, when I got to the bus stop I realised they were more like every half an hour, and I'd just missed one. As I was only about a mile away from the city centre I decided to walk there. It actually took me about an hour to get to the first venue as I was not just a mile or so away, but I was also on the wrong side of the city centre.
According to the website the maker faire was being held in two venues, the Discovery Museum and the Centre for Life. I proceeded to the Museum first and discovered there wasn't much there.
Just a man made out of bottles and a steam engine.
Inside there was a couple of stalls, one of which had someone making birdhouses and another stall with electric bicycles. I was slightly gutted as I thought this awesome makers faire might just end up being a washout. I checked twitter and found that my Leeds pals were in the other venue and having an awesome time. I quickly departed and headed to the Centre for Life.
Entrance
While taking the photo of the banner these two were handing out flyers for the event and thought I might be from the local paper. I assured them I wasn't but they were happy for me to take their photo anyway :) These people were happy and friendly and they pretty much set the theme for the day.
Real paperboy
The first tent I found in the courtyard had a couple of interactive things for kids in. This one of which was the old 80's classic computer game Paper Boy converted to use a real pushbike :)
drunk phone robots
First up was three drunk robots with telephones for heads! I probably should have taken some video of these, but I didn't think to at the time.
Brush bots and 8 bit stuff
Then we had some mini dodgems made from hand brushes, along with a propeller (a cheap processor) powered handheld game console.
Rubot II
Then was the really quite awesome Rubot II from www.mechatrons.com.
This robot apparently holds the world record for solving a rubiks cube.
Cyberspice
An interactive angry knitted chtuhlu. Mel had also made an ethernet interface for a BBC Master but the lack of wifi at the venue let this one down. There were also the interactive ear rings.
sugru
Then swung by the sugru table and fondled their product. This is rather clever stuff though I can't think of a use for it at this moment.
Mitch Altman
Then there was Mitch Altman's table with loads of blinky light goodness.
There was some stuff on Mitch's table from another guy whose name escapes me, but he does some quite cute animated hearts and a shield for the arduino that has a lot of leds (the LoL shield).
Midi Octopus
I have no idea what this was.
Smiley faced pram tank
Showing hacks and makes don't have to be overly complex to be fun. I love this and it's just made out of cardboard, a couple of motors and an old joystick. The smiley faces make it work so much better!
Sparkletube and Nixie Clocks
Interesting displays to give you that old school feel to your project.
Interactive LED coffee table
This table reacts to movement and 'sparkles' when it detects it. Apparently cats both love and hate it :)
FriiSpray
This is done by some folks from Leeds and has been shown at light night. It's an electronic version of graffiti spraying, but done using rear projection, UV LED equipped spray cans and a wii-mote. A very nice end effect.
Ball Barring roller coaster
Nothing else but wire, ball bearings and plenty of patience.
The Subsonic Submarine
a interactive sound installation with some great ways to take part. Look at those switches! I sooo want a mad scientist type throw switch :)
HARP
A harp without strings, just LEDs and sensors.
Dalek
This chap built a fully functioning dalek and didn't even have a garage. He had to wait until good weather on his days off to do the big work like cutting wood and fibleglassing. He'd never done any of that before either. Just by following the guides on the forums this is what he managed to achieve. Awesome.
He did have to explain to some little kids how he couldn't make these to sell, or the BBC would get him. He also tried to explain the difference between the new series daleks and the genesis ones but I don't think the kids were listening at that point ;)
Makerbot
A 3D printer that you can build for around 600 quid. It didn't seem that reliable when I saw it printing though.
Hexapods
Hexapods are awesome. Also a little expensive :(
Oomlout
Oomlout's uk presence (also known as Aaron) was there showing off what an arduino can do by powering a rather large 5x5 LED display.
BBC backstage's immersive display
In an experiment with immersive displays the BBC set up this room where all the walls had a peripheral display projected on them which matched up with the content on the TV. The effect was very good and this video doesn't really do it justice. The wall imagery was projected by a projector at the back of the room projecting onto a dome shaped mirror.
Human Zoo
This was labelled as a human zoo, but the performance co-incided with when a steampunk band were meant to be playing. There somehow also seems to be a connection between where the child is touching the window and the logo appearing on the rear of the cage.
Jacobs Ladder
A requirement for any evil genuis :)
Tesla Organ
What do you do with two massive tesla coils ? Play tunes on them of course!
The actual tune starts around 1:30ish. I think this was actually them configuring the setup. It might start sounding a bit familiar around 4:30ish.
If you just want to hear the Blue Monday bit.
Is this 'no good' by the Prodigy ? It's played on frickin lightening what ever it is :)
Single wheeled balance skateboard
Powered skateboard
Power tool drag racing
All in all it was a fun but tiring day.