Monday, October 16, 2017

16th Egham Raspberry Jam write up

It happened and people turned up 😃

So, yesterday, 15th of October was the 16th Egham Raspberry Jam.
I looked back and the first was January 2013.  This was after atttending a couple of the original Milton Keynes Jams at The National Museum of Computing  who have recently started up their Jams again.

The company I work for is very kind and over the past 4 years has allowed us to use the canteen on the ground floor for the Jam.  This was a big open space and worked really well.  With the companies growth we've moved nearly everybody into a shiny new building next door and most of the building the Jam was hosted in has been decommissioned. 

So, last week in the run up to the event I was talking to the facilities team about hosting the event and they were 100% committed to making it happen.  Then on Wednesday I was told the canteen had no power anymore and could we use the meeting room, which is exactly what we did.
The space we had yesterday is 2 meeting rooms that can have their adjoining wall opened up to make one big room.
This gave us a nice big space to run the Jam and allow people to mingle.

On arriving and checking the room out it became clear that the power sockets are out a good bit from the wall.  They're in locations for tables to be placed over them for workshop type sessions.  You'll see in the pictures below the space behind the tables  Does mean the people who brought projects were very comfortable and not squeezed up against the wall.

After packing the car, a final shopping trip to get something spooky and some sweets (I always try to have sweets on the day) and lunch at the nearby Burger King we arrived at the venue with 45 minutes to go.  Loads of time.
All packed. Ready to go.

OK, maybe one more thing required.

And of course a little bit of food to fuel me for the day
 When I pulled into the car park Joshua from Gwiddle Hosting had already arrived.
Gwiddle are a great enterprise that offers free web hosting to students from primary to university. So, if you're a student or even an educator looking for a place your students can host their content online then talk to Gwiddle.


Joshua is the one on the right

Even before I had begun unpacking my car others arrived.
David Sweeney brought a few really interesting projects with him.



David had a panel of flashing LEDs with no micro-controller or even a 555 timer. All done with resistors and capacitors. Very clever.

A wrap around RGB LED display with a scrolling message.  This got some attention on Twitter after the event.


Then who can't resist a 'mouse' made from tins with an ultrasonic sensor and LEDs as well as a wild clock where the hands seem to have a mind of their own.

I think it's a mouse.  Mainly going by the nose.


Wild clock and also LED Rubiks cube to solve


Thomas Stratford took on the challenge of making something scary and brought Halloween themed flashing lights.  These came from the local pound shop and with a small transistor circuit can be controlled by the Raspberry Pi


We like things that light up and make noise



Matt Sendorek brought along his Scratch controlled Robot Arm and some other bits and pieces that I didn't get a chance to investigate (next time, definitely next time)

Scratch controlled robot arm

Deep in discussion
Llewelyn Fernandes from Think Create Learn had some of the robots with him and was explaining that they teach people to program them to solve complex mazes and paths with dead ends

Wooden robots, not a 3D print in sight.

Business cards at a Jam. A rare sight.

Loads of notes and information to support the content

The Surrey & Hampshire Makerspace came along with their musical octopus and 3D printed octopus as well as a real, live 3D printer that was working away during the event.
Also, SH Makerspace is hosting their first Raspberry Jam on the 12th Of November at The Boileroom in Guildford. It's free to attend just register on the Eventbrite page.  

Musical octopus using a Makey Makey and Scratch

3D printed octopus. Very impressive

Somewhere in there is a 3D printer I promise






Oscar had his CamJam EduKit 1 running. 



There were also a few other projects that I didn't get a chance to take individual photos of but if you watch the video below you'll see them.

Peter Jones and his son had a Raspberry Pi controlled Lego Train with RGB LEDs.



In addition to all this fun there were workstations setup for people to follow tutorial worksheet to learn to flash LEDs on the 4tronix pi-stop, cause mass destruction in Minecraft using TNT blocks and make the 8x8 LED matrix on the Sense Hat Sparkle different colours.  These workstations were never empty. So, hopefully a few people went home with extra skills.





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