Saturday six shop members(*) made the six-hour round-trip drive
to attend UPENE 2010 in Norwalk, OH. It was free again this year,
but advance sign-up was required with a limited the number of attendees.
This year there was a theme: to build and bring a robot built around/using the Propeller.
HackPittsburgh members who had attended last year thought that this year was
a bit smaller in terms of demos/tables. (Perhaps folks thought that if they didn’t have
a robot they shouldn’t demo, but it is hard to know why there was a difference in turnout.)
Parallax gave each attendee a goodie bag, containing:
A Parallax Proto board and a ColorPal color sensor.
Lunch and dinner were again provided free this year.
Due to dietary issues we skipped the free meals and ate elsewhere.
Three were probably a dozen folks who’d set up tables. Most of the robots were
pretty simple, entry level ‘bots. I got the impression that most of the folks
responding to the theme hadn’t built a robot before. Notable among the
demonstrators was the father of the organizer, who had a home-made robot
arm (about human sized). Most of the other robots were small wheeled vehicles.
Of the robots on display, only a few were operating.
Another demonstrated system of note was a head’s up display that could be
“painted” on to a spinning propeller (the kind attached to an airplane). This product
was not centered on a Parallax Propeller, but used one to generate
the image being painted. RGB lasers (three) are used to “paint”
the spinning propeller and an IR laser/sensor is used to find and track the prop.
Informal talks started around 3pm. Matt spoke at 4pm about the shop
and the balloon project and how we’re thinking that a Parallax Propeller
could make our future balloon projects easier. After his talk a group
of about 8 people gathered around to ask follow up questions.
Just before dinner, around 5pm, Matt, Josh, Sayan and Isaac had to leave.
After they left, the last speaker (from Parallax) talked about an upcoming product
that is a Propeller and ethernet and SD card ‘website on a stick.’ It’s probably
going to be out next year at about $50 each. Friar and I stayed for that talk
and since I had bought tickets for the raffle, we stayed for the drawing.
Raffle prizes included several Parallax Propeller products, including a
Professional Developer’s kit. No one from HackPgh won anything in the raffle.
They also did a small hand’s on “What do I do with this Propeller thing?” session after
dinner that we thought might be interesting. When we found out it was aimed at
beginner programmers we decided not to stay for it. and left around 6:30pm
We stopped at a nearby Bob Evans for dinner on the way home.
I am glad I went. In addition to the free hardware, I bought several small kits that
various attendees were selling (interfaces for the proto board mostly).
There was also a “free table” where people could put things they didn’t want any
more and other folks could pan for the discarded “gold.” Several times the Parallax
guy would dump some high quality stuff onto the table and there would be a mad
dash and feeding frenzy.
Thanks to the organizers and volunteers for all the work they put in
to make this event happen! Thanks also to Parallax for their goodie bags and the cool
stuff they donated for the raffle. I think they footed the bill for the food and drinks as well.
Matt made a point of letting the organizers know that they really need
to contact more hackerspaces. We talked about having a HackPittsburgh
demo table at next years event, but I don’t think any promises were made.
—
(*) – Matt S, Josh, Sayan, Isaac, Friar, and Doug. Sam, a member of @MakerAlliance, hung out with us for most of the day, and went with us to lunch. Sam found out about UPENE from Matt S with only about two weeks to spare.
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