I spent most of Saturday at #thingscamp4 hosted by Martin Howitt, Lucy Knight and Simon Gough. It was ace, as most things with "camp" in the title are (except GruesomeMutilationCamp of course, which I tend to avoid). I was glad to see they got some money from UKGovCamp as well as helping to evolve the agenda setting process.
I say "most of Saturday" but I arrived just before lunch and left at 5pm, so it was more like the biggest single thing I did on Saturday. But of course it was not one single thing at all, but many interesting conversations and processes.
Of the sessions, I sat in on the IoT 101 bit as long as I needed to be satisfied that my 101 knowledge was covered. It's so tricky with that sort of thing, because it's a huge subject and as soon as you start to talk about examples, the conversation can quickly get diverted into the details of the example rather than covering everything, but Chris Hunt did a grand job.
Then I went into the session on finding Parking Spaces. I don't have a lot to contribute, as a non-driver and all round individual-car-curmudgeon. Broadly paraphrased, the subject was "What decentralised ways might there be to help me find a parking space when I drive into a large town or city" The bit of the conversation I heard was a bit more centralised than I'd expected, mostly what data local authorities have and why it's really hard and a quick trot through some of the ideas that haven't worked (eg mobile phone accelerometers that interpret all forms of rapid motion as driving, sensors that get frozen etc).
I stayed in my seat for the change of session to talking about making a mesh network out of a little device called microbit - we had three and only an emergent understanding of what a "mesh network" is or how we would demonstrate that we'd achieved it. One of the Michaels (sorry didn't get details) plugged in first and hacked this code together, which two of us copied so that we had three microbits talking to each other at least.
When you press one of the buttons it listens for the others saying "Hello" and replies with "Received" - the word get spelled out on its LED display and then they kept going, so basically, we had one card at a time saying "Received" and then another one would say it and then the other and so on. We didn't get to understand why it kept repeating or really have a good idea of what was actually going on. It was hacky like that. But fun to work in a quick, collaborative way with a bunch of people.
I listened a little to a final session about voice activation and accessibility, but then I also got distracted by a message from the real world and had to go off to attend to that.
I also had a nice conversation with Rob Miller from Hackney Council bonding over the ridiculousness of performance measurement in Local Government and sat staring at some code that he couldn't find an error in, pointing unhelpfully while struggling to read the screen.
So all good, I learned something, helped someone and met some new people. Hurrah for ThingsCamp!
Great write up, Lloyd. We enjoyed Camping with you. I learned a huge amount about mesh networks in that session. I need more microbits...
ah this sounds fun! I want to code microbits with Lloyd!!! little gadgets saying hello together.... now thats a future I can get behind!
I was inspired by thinking about how to merge this kind of thing with what we're doing on Steemit, little gadgets that create posts that entertain. I'm all about the little gadgets! I must do something about organising SteemCampUK, I need some Basil time.
PS Basil Thyme has to the be name of your new vlog show
haha! YES
would camp over here in norfolk, but there wouldn't be an internet connection! However I can provide land....
Sounds like fun. I enjoyed the local Raspberry Pi Jam instead. Microbits look like a great way for kids to get into hacking little gadgets.
local jams for local people are always the best :) yeah, I had a go with a microbit when it first came out, but there's nothing like being in a group and having a challenge to really help you get your head round it.
Camping is better with amazing activities i see you had no dull moments at all
it was great, all sorts of fun people and ideas.
Love the distinction between real world and camp world. I remember writing a blog post (one of my first) about a similar dichotomy after hearing Ernest W Adams (also with a Guildford connection, I notice) giving an excellent talk about games development. Would be good to see sessions about How Can I Find a Safe Cycling/Walking/Public Transport Route as well as where can I park my car. After five carless years, I bought a car for work purposes, but I find I rarely use it and the stress levels of finding a car parking space in town means that I go for the bus and taxi-if-necessary option far more often. I was interested in a discussion once where participants assumed that owning a car offered more choice and more options, everyone was very puzzled at my query, "but does it?".
Thanks for sharing, interesting and thought-provoking. Only sorry that I have mistimed when my vote contributes a meagre reward.
thanks for that reference, looks like some of his talks are online and yes, turns out Guildford is pretty much the Hollywood of games development.
I love getting out and just being with people thinking these thoughts, it's great growth.