It is impossible to remember and type down everything from the event at once so this post will be updated as time goes on and should be treated as a WIP. I did not end up writing a daily post for several reasons, including problems with WiFi connection, 2 Ethernet cables being used by the entire village, and getting back to my tent at 23:00 + every night with no “free time” in the day. I was having way too much fun to bother with WordPress.
I did NOT end up finishing the Cyberdeck 🙁 the laser cutter I had access to was not working due to the hot weather disrupting the water cooling. So the thinkpad got to come with me instead 🙂 and helped me make some cool but incredibly basic first timer demo scene graphics! The lab coat was ACCEPTABLE in time to take with me and wear, which was excellent for the sudden drop in temperature every evening.
I was a member of the Biohackers village and I got to camp with some very cool cyborgs who I had previously interacted with online only. And spiders. They were not joking about the spiders. I gave up attempting to keep them out of my tent and simply coexisted in harmony with them. I had so many meaningful interactions and conversations with members of the village and curious people who stopped by to ask questions. Resting and spending time in the village was just as rewarding as everything else. I miss everyone already.
Copious amounts of flamethrowers, lasers, fog machines, and LED installations meant the site looked awesome at night. NullSector was fantastic, so much energy despite everyone working under the blazing sun all day. I managed to hand out about 70 glowsticks to those who hadn’t already got enough flashing and fluorescent accessories, but those are rookie numbers, I’ve gotta pump those numbers up next time. I’ll aim for about 150. I was pleased that the PolyGen portable power generators accepted one of my RFID implants, but they didn’t have a very good read range so I had to wave my hands around them several times to trigger them which made me look like an idiot.
The talks and workshops that I managed to attend (despite winning no places in the lottery) were great, but the schedule was so packed it was impossible to see more than about a quarter of the things I wanted. I got to make a titanium spork, an EMF detector, a lino stamp with the biohack.me sigil, and a mini noise maker synth thing which I got to play with the next morning using Leigh Hackspace’s equipment. Thanks for letting me wake you up with violent screeching and beeping noises. I’m going to go back and watch the talks that I missed since a lot of them were recorded and archived here 🙂 I’m pretty sad I missed out on seeing Hackers, but it seems to be trad to show it every time. Possibly the best event I witnessed was the burning of an effigy of Muskrat. The cheers as the flames decapitated him were louder than NullSector right next to us.
The days were incredibly hot and bright while the nights were very cold. It didn’t rain at all (and still hasn’t since I left…) but the site had several wooden frame “doorways” that sprayed you with water as you walked through, which was very helpful. As the event went on, the increasing number of new electronics I had to remove from my person before going through made it feel like an airport security gate. The food vendors were pretty great, and Club Mate helped make up for when I forgot to eat. Oh, and freeeee breakfast at South London Makerspace! I felt extremely grateful for those bowls of cereal and toast when my alternative was cold beans straight from the can for the third meal in a row.
I brought home lots of trinkets, including everything I made at the workshops, several stickers, a hexpansion from the day market that I still have yet to solder, a really cool magnet viewer for my magnet implants, a couple of reverse-pickpocketed laser cut rabbits, a walking speeding ticket, and a pair of wired earbuds from the swap shop. I also gave away trinkets- about 10 of the pin badges were dropped off at the trinket trade box and two were given out to people who I met.
Update from 29 July: I got around to soldering the hexpansion, and my next step is to make a lanyard for the badge. Oh yeah, the badge! The spaceagon design is really pretty. I didn’t really have time to play around and learn how to make it do interesting things because I was so busy, and I couldn’t wear it because I didn’t have a lanyard for it (I thought the “full badge kit” would come with one). I also couldn’t download the correct app (???) to take part in the gchq game. The only fun thing i actually got it to do was making fun background sounds while i was playing with my mini synth. I’m going to try and make up for lost time as soon as I get the WiFi to work properly.
Small selection of photos on next page!