At 5am on the 5th March I got up and drove to Cambridge for two great days of Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend was a fantastic weekend organised by Michael Horne and Tim Richardson and supported by a whole army of volunteers from the Raspberry Pi community.
I spent the Saturday at my show and tell table which was very popular.
The two main projects on show were my RFID Minecraft project and my first attempts at home automation with DeskMate2000. Both projects were very well received and I had a steady stream of people all day building things in Minecraft with my RFID cards. My big bag of sweets were also a big attraction for many of the younger people!
Saturday afternoon was interrupted with a short presentation on the use of Raspberry Pi for outreach work which although not massively attended people were genuinely very interested in what I had to say.
The evening party was great fun and there was plenty of Pizza and cake for everyone. I had a rather nice pint of beer which ended the day off well.
Sunday morning started with a Raspberry Pi Party breakfast at the Travelodge – not sure what everyone else thought of us!
Sunday morning was spent doing one of my favourite jobs – helping and leading workshops on GPIO / sensors and robots!
The afternoon was spent marshalling in the lecture theatre which basically meant making sure people didn’t speak for too long and their microphones were working properly. My highlight had to be fitting Dave Honess with a radio mic as he prepared to speak on Astro Pi – the story so far. There seemed to be an opening that would fit the receiver perfectly but was not really suitable to be used on his space suit!!!!!!!!
It was a great weekend. I went home tired but very happy. What was my best moment? That is easy – buying Flotilla!
Here’s to 2016 and all the great Pi stuff that will happen this year.
Happy Birthday Raspberry Pi!
