[vcf-midatlantic] Young Innovators Faire

[Jeffrey Brace]

Thanks guys for being the Philadelphia contingent of VCF! It's great to
spread the word of VCF to other areas! It sounds like you had a lot of fun
there too!

On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 9:05 PM, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
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