Palo Altonale Workshop

End of October, Marcus and I gave a two day workshop on sensors, Internet of Things and Arduino. It was for people who had small to no knowledge about electronics and programming, so not for the average geek. The aim was to show how easy it is to build things that interact with the physical world. It was hosted at the Good School.

First day was training. With small examples on sensors and outputs we saw how easy it is, to collect real world data and act upon them. After that we connected the Arduino with a WiFly-Shield to the interwebs. At the end of the day all had an Arduino running, that did a search on twitter and if someone tweeted your name, an LED light up. Not bad for the first day.

Second day was free tinkering. Everyone could come up with ideas for projects. We gave some guidance of would could be achieved until the end of the day and what not. Then all started on developing their projects. Marcus and I had a lot to do in answering questions and giving hints into the right direction. At the end their was a presentation where all proudly presented their project. And they were really great. All teams came up with something that really worked, none failed. What a success.

That was a fantastic experience, having so many people together, tinkering and having fun. All of them were really engaged and fully committed to their projects. I took a couple of pictures, and guess what, all people you see on these pictures are smiling and enjoying what they are doing.

Pictures at Flickr.