The Southend Raspberry Jam has swiftly become one of the best Raspberry Jams in the country. Its relaxed atmosphere and a high quantity of knowledgeable people concentrated in one place makes it one of the ‘places to be’ in the Pi world. On Saturday, from 10-5pm, I shall be attending for the third time and I’m really looking forward to it. This is their sixth Jam and they’re getting really good at it!
It’s always nice to go to a Jam and not be organising it, for one thing, although this time I might be helping out on some of the workshops, which will be interesting as I’ve not done it for a looooong time.
They’ve got an interesting mix of talks including:
- A 15-year old’s perspective on how the Pi has changed his life (Zach Igielman of PiPiano fame!)
- LifeBox – an ecosystem of LEDs – not Conway’s Game of Life.
- Chatbots and WikiData.
- Advanced Python Programming
- Object Orientated Programming with Python
and several workshops including:
- Mozilla Digital Badges
- ScratchGPIO hackathon
- Android App Inventor
- Python Minecraft AstroPi
- Microbit/Codebug
As you can see, Southend’s strength is in its ability to mix Pi-centric talks and workshops with non-Pi stuff, giving a nice rounded experience to the event.
So, if you’re in the area (or if you fancy a trip to Southend!) head on over to Eventbrite and pick up your (free) tickets!
I _think_ I’m 15 😛
Seems I’m always 14 because I was when I did PiPiano 🙂 Does this mean I’ll stay young? xD
Doh…
I’m new to this but would love to organize a jam. Do participants bring their own hardware?
Different Jams can be very different. Some Jams are hyper-organised like Cambridge and Southend where a lot of equipment is provided. Others are just a bunch of people bringing their own equipment to a smaller venue. Some are a mixture. It’s really up to you to decide what you want it to look like 🙂 Anything I can do to help, or advise, give me a shout 🙂 mike@recantha.co.uk There’s some advice (which I wrote with Ben Nuttall’s assistance) available on the Foundation website here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/jam/how/