Career Zoo, Coding Grace, and the magic that happened
2016-Feb-21, Sunday 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chebeYesterday (Saturday 20th February) Career Zoo was once again held in the Convention Centre. It had a couple of themes, one of particular interest to myself; women in tech. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the powerhouse that is Coding Grace got in touch, organising a mini wearables hackathon in the middle of the whole thing. Uh, yes!
We spent the day in an indoors white-picket-fenced picnic area next to DAQRI, our generous sponsors. Playing with toys, battling software, sharing resources, talking to curious attendees, and having a great laugh.
Most of the toys came from Adafruit, and I was quite proud to notice that they are completely out of stock on Floras! (At least partially our fault.)
While I worked away mastering neopixels, colour sensors, and bluetooth modules, others tamed neopixel strips, motion sensors, heart rate sensors, soft potentiometers, soft circuit layouts, and soldering.
Time flew! The day seemed so short that when the doors closed, we were thrown off our benches, and the after party had begun, we found ourselves still hacking away. (Surprisingly comfortable floor.)
Disaster nearly struck as the batteries ran out of power. None of us had thought to bring chargers. The Floras don't have inbuilt on board charging, so I pulled out my Seasonal Winter Jumper to use the Lilypad Simple to charge the battery. But it's an old one, and we didn't have an FTDI connector. So we looked up the pinout, connected the Live and Ground pins with crocodile clips to ... Huh. To jump leads into the 5V and GND pins of an Arduino board, which was finally connected by USB cable to a laptop. Where there's a will there's a way, as they say.
Where else have you ever seen anyone charging a skirt from a jumper? And it was totally worth it!
A huge thank you to my fellow subversive hackers;![[twitter.com profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
whykay, micktwomey, saoili, meaigs, taraannosaur, norette, NaoimiGillis, and everyone I got to talk to during the day/night for keeping me so entertained! And Coding Grace, DAQRI, and Career Zoo, for making it happen.
We spent the day in an indoors white-picket-fenced picnic area next to DAQRI, our generous sponsors. Playing with toys, battling software, sharing resources, talking to curious attendees, and having a great laugh.
Wearables mini hackathon picnic in progress
Photo by CareerZoo, source
Most of the toys came from Adafruit, and I was quite proud to notice that they are completely out of stock on Floras! (At least partially our fault.)
While I worked away mastering neopixels, colour sensors, and bluetooth modules, others tamed neopixel strips, motion sensors, heart rate sensors, soft potentiometers, soft circuit layouts, and soldering.
Adafruit app setting neopixel colour over bluetooth
Photo by chebe
Time flew! The day seemed so short that when the doors closed, we were thrown off our benches, and the after party had begun, we found ourselves still hacking away. (Surprisingly comfortable floor.)
If we just try...
Photo by CodingGrace, source
Under Tara's skirt
Photo by chebe
Yet more hacking... (now with added wine)
Photo by CodingGrace, source
Disaster nearly struck as the batteries ran out of power. None of us had thought to bring chargers. The Floras don't have inbuilt on board charging, so I pulled out my Seasonal Winter Jumper to use the Lilypad Simple to charge the battery. But it's an old one, and we didn't have an FTDI connector. So we looked up the pinout, connected the Live and Ground pins with crocodile clips to ... Huh. To jump leads into the 5V and GND pins of an Arduino board, which was finally connected by USB cable to a laptop. Where there's a will there's a way, as they say.
Most improvised battery charger ever
Photo by chebe
Where else have you ever seen anyone charging a skirt from a jumper? And it was totally worth it!
Tara ready for the Ball!
Photo by CareerZoo, source
A huge thank you to my fellow subversive hackers;
Hack-ter Party
Photo by CodingGrace, source
