{"id":12068,"date":"2015-03-08T10:40:50","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T10:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=12068"},"modified":"2015-03-08T10:34:42","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T10:34:42","slug":"the-story-of-the-raspberry-pi-big-birthday-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=12068","title":{"rendered":"The story of the Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A little belated, but I’ve been so busy this week! Some of the photos were taken from this post on the Raspberry Pi Foundation site<\/a> – I think Ben Nuttall took them!<\/em><\/p>\n

The Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend seems to have been a tremendous success. It went\u00a0as smoothly as it could possibly have\u00a0done and we received some great verbal feedback throughout the weekend. Here is my personal account of the set-up and running of the biggest Pi-related event ever.<\/p>\n

Friday<\/h2>\n

It all started on Friday night with myself and Tim Richardson (@geeky_tim<\/a>) arriving at the Cambridge Computer Lab (aka the William Gates Building). We found\u00a0work had already begun – all the tables for the Show-and-Tell, front desk and Marketplace were already laid out (thanks Martin!).<\/p>\n

We just had to unload. This required two trips from Potton – we\u00a0just had so much stuff! We had all 20\u00a0CamJam Pi workstation kits (and monitors – 4 huge boxes of monitors and keyboards), 9 CamJam fold-up tables, 14 roll-up banners, 3 gigantic\u00a0PVC banners, the Pi Wars obstacle course, a load of stuff that had been shipped to us by German vendor Watterott ahead of their arrival, plus numerous support boxes.<\/p>\n

After the second trip, Tim headed off to Pi Towers whilst I started to set-up the rest of the building. Fortunately by this time we had a few helpers (who I won’t embarrass by naming here – you know who you are!) and we were able to make a start on putting name labels out on the tables, setting up the front desk and workshop areas. Tim eventually arrived back with a car full of Foundation lapdocks and Pis and an awful lot of drink for the Party.\u00a0Also arriving around the time was Henry and the fantastic, wonderful Talking Throne.<\/p>\n

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We were able to get one of the workshop rooms set-up with 13 Pis but, due to a mix-up, the other room was locked. We didn’t panic, though, we just did all that\u00a0we could\u00a0in the time that we had. The balloons also arrived (some of which you can see above) including an enormous arch which spelled out “Raspberry Pi” (see below). The venue was soon full of the smell of balloons and the sound of half a dozen geeks resisting the temptation to breathe the helium. \ud83d\ude42 I’d like to thank Loony Balloony<\/a> for their wonderful work!<\/div>\n
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Photo:\u00a0Clare Macrae (I think that’s Mike Czerski on the left, Neil Matthews in the middle and me on the right – do I look a little tense to anyone? – And I spot David Whale on the far right in the red top!)<\/em><\/p>\n

We left around 7.30pm (I think!) and headed back to Potton.<\/p>\n

Saturday<\/h2>\n

Saturday started bright and early at 8am at the Lab and we were\u00a0soon joined by the first of our brilliant volunteers. I really cannot say enough about the volunteers who gave up so much of their time at the weekend. Some of them saw very little of the proceedings on Saturday because they were helping us to make the event as good as we possibly could. Everyone who was at the Big Birthday Weekend owes them a great debt of gratitude. So, if you were a Marshall or Workshop Helper, please wear that badge of honour with pride!<\/p>\n

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We had a few things left to do: the second workshop room needed to be sorted out and the huuuuuuuge PVC banners needed to be hung up. Originally they were going to go between trees outside the building, but Martin\u00a0had the great idea of hanging\u00a0two\u00a0from the balcony so people could see them\u00a0as they walked round the side of the building and Tim\u00a0had the idea of hanging\u00a0another inside the venue in front of the Throne.<\/div>\n
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Photo: Tim (centre) and Andy (right) gettin’ busy with the banner (Taken by Les Pounder)<\/em><\/div>\n
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People were soon arriving to set-up their Show-and-Tell and Marketplace tables and it began to get very busy.<\/div>\n
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Photo: David Johnson<\/em><\/div>\n
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In terrifyingly short order, the public began to arrive. Our Front Desk team worked their socks off scanning tickets, giving out free Official Raspberry Pi cases (which magically arrived with Tim on Friday night):<\/div>\n
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Picture courtesy of RasPi.TV<\/em><\/a>.<\/div>\n
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… and handed out schedules for the weekend (thanks Sam Alder for your great design work for the Weekend!):<\/div>\n
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Around the same time, the intrepid, nay the incomparable,<\/strong> Lisa Mather arrived with Amy and Dan, together with a van-full of swag for the party and a load of equipment for the construction of Andrew Robinson’s bullet time rig<\/a> and also the Raspberry Ripple (a Raspberry Pi logo-shaped reaction game in which huge buttons light up and you have to press them as fast as possible). Everyone descended on them to help unpack. Huge thanks are due to the team for bringing the rig – it was fantastic to have it at the event.<\/div>\n
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Photo: Bullet Time Rig (taken by Les Pounder)<\/em><\/div>\n
Here’s an explanation of the rig that was done some time ago:<\/div>\n