As featured in The Oban Times, no less!
Well, last time there were about 7 of us, 2 from the island, 5 visitors. This time 20 people came visiting and there were 3 from the island, a recently returned resident came to see what all the excitement was about. The Cobbled Cow folk did a fantastic job of feeding the masses and I can't help but think Alan who works there enjoyed the challenge of feeding such hungry techies.
The MacBook invasion was amusing and at least two people said "for such independant thinkers, there seems to be a common theme" or words to the effect of. There was also a 'sheepbook'.
This...contraption is the future touchtable:
Up on that wooden platform is a projector and an overhead projector mirror to direct it at the table. Hanging from it is a dismantled XBox Kinect.
Alan was sorting out power for it, so this ladder spent a day being walked under:
Alan enjoyed himself up the ladder, even taking photo's from his vantage point. I'll linky if he ever gets to posting those somewhere.
Along with all the techie stuff, including about 10 sets of Arduino development kits, there was also some fibre crafting. Fiona, Alan's wife, brought up her snazzy (but very short!) new Japanese weaving loom and set herself up in the auction hall:
You change the sheds using those pedals, rather nice to operate if you're not 5'10". I ended up a bit stiff after hunching. Fiona also taught a techie how to make felt:
(Photo of finished felt stupidly forgotten!)
The lady felting decided she wanted to put some RFID tags in and will be programming those when she gets back to Wales. So not only was felt made, it was techiefelt!
Tech wave was Thursday through Monday and seemed to be thorougly enjoyed. Nights weren't spent with us all crammed in Alan and Fiona's living room, instead Thursday night was somewhere, I don't know because I went for an early bed. Friday night was curry. I believe the tech wavers defeated the curry house but they argue that the left over rice and naan meant they won. I say it would have gone if we hadn't all devoured the curry that goes with.
Saturday night was hosted by Lancaster house, Sunday was Cardiff house (all those from Lancaster stayed in one house, Cardiff stayed in another house. Sunday was curried fish, mushrooms, rice, chicken and some tomato on toast with a lovely dressing of some sort. It started with three groups spread through the various rooms but eventually we all gathered in the living room where The Box Game was played.
I hadn't played that game since University. You take a box, in this case a cereal box, and place it on the floor, each person has three attempts to pick up the box with their teeth/lips while only touching the floor with their feet, no other body part may touch the floor. Cardiff won, but only just, Tiree got to the final round (piece of flat card on the floor) but our competitors either couldn't reach (me) or couldn't get it to come off the floor (returned student) Alan did very well and got down to about 8" of box, not bad for someone who's never tried that before. The winner from Cardiff showed us all up though, she just stood up, flexed, stood with card. Only one male managed the final round, also from Cardiff; 'hairy Steve', who also gave a presentation on design on Saturday.
All in all, a most enjoyable weekend was had. The weather mostly cooperated and only rained 1.5 days of the available 4.5.
Sorry for the delay in posting, it's taken me this long to get my thoughts in order. I'll post a crafty post soonish, then next week will be about flying, I'm off to Glasgow again and this time I'm taking the camera!
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