Robot Adventures!
We are now a couple of weeks away from our robotics hackathon and I hope that you are as excited as we are to build a robot in a weekend. Preparations are in full swing: we are ordering and gathering electronics, equipment and tools; finalizing our schedule, rounding up our mentors, judges and volunteers and overall hustling to make sure this becomes an awesome event for you. So what you need to know and how you can help us:
Registration: If you have not registered, you can do that now. Registration is open. We recommend that you recruit a little team and register to build a robot. You will have more fun in a team rather than by yourself. If you are interested in participating but do not have a team, please let us know and we will introduce you to other participants in advance of the hackathon to make sure you connect ahead of the event.
Kit: we are finalizing the kits we will use during the hackathon. If you have already registered, you will be receiving an email from our team to give you an opportunity to tell us what you will be building during the weekend. We would like to make sure that you will have the parts you need as well as let you know in advance if there are any parts we can't provide so you can source these before you arrive.
Teams: You will have more fun if you are working in a team. If you have registered on your own and would like to get find a team mate, let us know. We will connect you with any registered participant looking for a team mate.
Judges, mentors and volunteers: We build robots for fun and glory of course! Your robots will be judged by our panel of distinguished judges and you will get to take home an awesome prize - this will be a surprise of course so stay tuned for our announcements closer to the hackathon. During the weekend, a number of hardware and software mentors will be on hand to assist you with any challenge, answer your questions and assist you in any way they can. Don't be afraid to participate in the hackathon if you are new to robotics and have little experience; we have structured the hackathon so we can support you.
Pre-hackathong workshops: We will be running a series of crash courses on Friday evening (November 23), you will have the options of participating in an arduino primer workshop, sensors and circuits and motors and mechanics.
Schedule:
Friday 6:30pm - 9pm
- Meet your fellow hackers, find teammates if you haven't registered as a team
- Check out the kit (you can bring your own stuff too!)
- Come up with a cool idea for a robot to build or share one you have. It doesn't hurt to come prepared with an idea of what to build!
- Hear about what other participants want to build
- Have a beer on us, a grilled cheese sandwich, and ice cream
- Participate in an arduino primer, sensors and circuits or motors and mechanics crash workshop. These workshops are designed to teach you the basics if you have never worked with an arduino or circuits and sensors. These workshops will serve as a refresher if you have forgotten how all of these work.
Saturday 10am - 10pm
- Get organized and start building (we have kits for teams of two or more, if you want to work alone email us and we'll tell you what to bring)
- Find out about cool tools and techniques from our experts and mentors
- Build! Build! Build!
Sunday 10am - 4pm
- Finish your robot
- Show it off at 1pm to our select judges
- Win a prize
- Join us for a post robo drink
Sponsors:
Welcome our awesome sponsors! Without you, there would be no hackathon. Thanks for supporting Get your bot on and helping us further build a robot enthusiast community.
How you can help!
We are still looking at fund raising over $5,000. And here is how you can help us:
Sponsor hardware: one of the most costly component of a hardware hackathon is (of course you guessed it!), hardware costs. You can help us off set our hardware costs by choosing to sponsor hardware. The full list of hardware we are acquiring is available. You can help support our hardware acquisitions at all levels. Please be generous!
Meal sponsor: we are still looking for breakfast, lunch and dinner sponsorships. There are no weekend hackathons without food! Help us by sponsoring a meal for all the participants. Saturday breakfast, lunch or dinner are open for sponsorships. Please get in touch if you can assist.
Become an event sponsor: We have opportunities to sponsor starting at $250. Full details are available and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch. We would be happy to work out a partnership and relationship to support our sponsors and help offsetting the costs of the hackathon.
As you probably know: we are a volunteer group of robot enthusiasts who want to make it easy for anyone interested in learning about robots, building a robot or just getting their hands dirty with robots a possibility. Please help us realize this dream!
What are teams building?
So far we have heard of teams building:
- A smartie sorter: this robot will sort a bag of smarties by colors.
- From our wildlife fans: an articulated panda. This won't be a life-size panda but boy will it move around! Who said robots couldn't be an animal :)
- An LED cube!
What are you building? We would like to feature your idea ahead of the hackathon so get in touch!