Makers and Hackers: South
Post categories: Event
| 15:29 UK time, Monday, 9 March 2009
Last Saturday, Backstage was a sponsor of , a simultaneous event to Makers and Hackers North, mentioned by Ian in his previous post below. It was a one-day competition for hackers, electronics tinkerers, designers, artists and hobbyists to create 'a household item of the future' in collaboration with the other attendees who met and formed teams on the day.
As people arrived it was great to see kit such as a sewing machine, felt, beads and ribbon appearing alongside arduinos, resistors, servos and boxes of electronics. After introductions, we split up into groups with people we had just met and discussed our ideas, thinking about how we could collaborate.
Over the next 5 hours we consolidated our ideas and threw ourselves into making by hacking, sewing, soldering, gluing and bejeweling. At the end of our marathon session our creations were voted in two categories: public and expert.
The two winners were:
• A LED arduino bracelet that alerts the wearer when a new Twitter or email arrives.
• A Yamaha sound module triggered by arduino with an RFID reader to play individual MIDI tunes. RFID tags embedded into key fobs triggered the kit into action which played tunes that could be heard individually or together as a mix, reflecting who was in the building.
Runners up included:
• A chair spin counter, i.e. it counted how many times you spun round on your office chair, the team took this home to finish.
• An arduino driven, tactile clock device that would tell the user the time in the dark, using textured surfaces.
• An arduino clock alarm that would tip confetti on the user when it was time to get out of bed.
The winners creations will be taken up to Newcastle to be exhibited at on the 14-15th March. A great day was had by all, also many new friendships were forged and interests ignited.
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