EMFCamp

On Friday, I arrived in a field in Milton Keynes, pitched my tent and draped it (and a nearby tree) with robot bunting, and hooked up to a power supply. This was for EMFCamp - "A three-day UK camping festival for people with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, geeks, scientists, engineers, artists, and crafters." (Or Geek Glastonbury as the BBC seem to call it).

There were various talks and workshops happening between Friday and Sunday (see the talk schedule), and hopefully they will appear online soon as well. I went to interesting talks on: The demo scene: the biggest digital art movement you've never heard of (Matthew Westcott); Introduction to Esperanto (Gavan Fantom); Make yourself into a zombie workshop (Kate Oliver) (where I learnt how to embed random things in my face (I ended up with an LED and a battery on my face held on with spirit gum, liquid latex and wax! (see photo) and how to make fake blood out of golden syrup), This Pilsner Tastes of Doom Metal – Music Recommender Systems and Beer (Ben Fields), Big Pharma (Ben Goldacre), Programming is terrible. Lessons learned from a life wasted (Tef), and Lightning talks (various people).

I also saw Gavan fly his homemade quadrotor really high! (And also almost got hit by someone else's one.) I saw a giant Pacman (and ghosts) in the field, and hung out in a bar underneath a motorway bridge, which had a dinosaur skeleton and many excellent and interesting people to talk to in it.

Really looking forward to the next one in 2014!