[vcf-midatlantic] Young Innovators Faire

[Douglas Crawford]

On 1/3/2016 7:50 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>>> Fresh off demoing at the Young Innovators Fair
> Big thanks to you, Chris F., and Todd G. for representing us there! Generally speaking how did it go?

The YIF a huge success.  Attendance was close to 30,000 people!
A very nice affair.  In my opinion, not necessarily "high tech" in a lot 
of regards.
I believe their definition of Innovation is quite broad, including many 
art, craft and fabrication
products.  Well that's probably healthy and appropriate for the ages.
But I was astounded that probably 90% of the kids coming through had not 
even HEARD of "Arduino".
And I'm not sure I saw ONE exhibit featuring Arduinos, though I did only 
rush through it quickly.
This was contrary to what I expected.
There was a great Raspberry Pie development product, however,  I'll 
mention in a new thread.

BUT just the same, our exhibit was a SMASH much like at NY Maker.
We garnered a ton of exposure for VCFederation and especially for 
VCFEast and even InfoAge.
Lots of folks photographed our signage and our computers and expressing 
they really wanted to come to VCFE.
Three of us were kept busy non stop and there were people there till the 
last minute of the show.
And Todd, Chris and I had a great time.

I'm making a IMGR album and will be gathering our photos together: 
http://imgur.com/a/Ntc8T

Now for some details:

The signage i made did the job.  I'm looking forward to having a really 
large nice banner made.
We also need to have some good signage for the exhibits to tell what 
folks what they are looking at.
I think it would make the exhibit a bit more interesting and 
educational, especially for the casual
looker that we don't get to talk to.

We used risers for a double-decker layout.  It worked for us, but 
limited the access to the upper
machines - because of shoulder space, not height interestingly enough.

Here is what we showed:
C64 running Ms Packman and Donkeyking carts with Chris's great home made 
arcade quality joystick.
         In my opinion, that kind of joystick is REALLY GREAT for public 
exhibition, for durability and
         sheer joy to use.  Yes it put the joy in joystick.  :)
Vic20 running Space Invaders cart
Osborn I running basic programs. Everyone loves the quirky little tube 
you know.
IBM PC with the lovely long persistence monochrome tube running Mummies 
(character Berserk) and Train layout simulator
     ... but the PC also booted to a menu that allowed them to also run 
QBasic (popular!) and VisiCalc
Kaypro II running Catchum
Lawrence Livermore Labs Trainer - billed as a 1976 vintage "Arduino",
             about a half dozen particularly interested folks entered a 
thirty machine language instructions to
             make the display count in hex and LEDs count in binary. The 
loved it.
TRS-80 Model 4 running Model III mode, StarTrek displays, Invasion 
Force, and Dancing Demon.
MAC SE-30 running Lemmings, Crystal Quest, and MACMAN
(Yes, that makes three version of PACMAN on three different platforms)
and.... a fan favorite for the event...
A Sears SuperPong with 1980's color TV.

In retrospect, we should have had an Apple II there.  Perhaps instead of 
the Kaypro.
My bad.  I would have run Prince of Persia if I thought of it.
We had only one casualty, my Kaypro II drive system conked out.
That was it.  Everything else was flawless.