USASEF 2014: Report from the field

Splat-shaped, acrylic give-aways engraved with the HacDC logo and domain.
HacDC member, condew, laser cut and engraved 2,042 “splats” of which 1,148 were given away to visitors to our table.

On Friday 25 April, Arte Technica reported:

Thanks to the generosity of Gary Mauler and Robot Fest we really do have an awesome location. Condew’s Arduino LED and hydrometer demo was in fact the highlight of our exhibit today. And the splats he made are going fast. They’re such a hit! Hope you can meet Danish, he is great with the crowds and has also decided to do add his own Arduino demo for our exhibit on Sunday.

The highlight of our day, after the close of Sneak Peek Friday, was a personal demo at our exhibit by the co-Founder of Backyard Brains. Ag4ve, condew, Danish, myself and eventually nearby exhibitors and even passers-by, witnessed an Giant South American Cockroach (Blaberus giganteus) turn right and around, and again, because of a miniature open source neural interface controlled by an iOS app.

FYI—Backyard Brains is looking forward to mirage335’s BioSignal Amplifier demo this weekend, and would enjoy a “Hangout” with other Biohacker enthusiasts at HacDC if there’s interest.

Last but not least, today’s heroes are Lee (N4TCW) and ITechGeek. Lee and his ARRL team literally opened doors for and helped HacDC quickly get to its destination. ITechGeek really busted his hump for us. He setup our very noticeable RasPi server with hacdc.org and wiki.hacdc.org and ALSO went to the space at 05:00, waited, and then helped with multiple transports. Of course, also of note was the staging by condew, Dan B., ag4ve and myself, but ITechGeek and Lee were singularly instrumental in getting us this far.

So even with a couple hours of sleep, all in all a good start.

The festival lasted through Sunday and our table had an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 visitors.