notes.md

#Notes Some general Q&A. This is a mix of my experience and some of what Chris Williams communicated to me

How many people do you need to run the event

We had 6 people for 70-90 attendees. This felt like a good mix, as long as everyone is familiar with the technology, event, etc.

How do you deal with potentially dangerous tools? Soldering Iron, Hot glue, Drill, Dremmel

CodeMash required a waiver relieving liability if someone gets hurt. Many events go without. It is a good idea to have one. for the work. Considered a waiver, just haven't done it.

What tools to avoid? Circular saws, power lathes, etc?

Stick to simple tools. Dremmels, yes. Battery Drills, yes. Circular saws, no. If you can easily cut off a limb, avoid it.

What building supplies do you avoid? (high power motors?)

As long as someone takes the responsibility for it, we let them. Thermal plastic, for example.
High powered motors with spinning projectiles have had a history of being very dangerous. We had an example of this. We recommend against using anything that can fly off so fast that spectators can't react.

What is the largest number of participants you've had for a nodebots event?

400 NodeBots/boats/etc JSConf 170 over two days at CodeMash

Did people wind up joining teams? What size was the team? How many teams at that event?

RobotsConf: Curating the event. Set the tone up front. CodeMash: People paired a lot. Teams that paired tended to have a better experience.

Have you done events where there were multiple competitions? Autonomous maze robots and sumos in the same session? How did that go?

It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Getting people interested? Scope the goal to this.
Biggest thing we run into is that hardware doesn't work. Find a "Windows" person, etc. Stick with easy wins. Make sure it is abundantly clear that this is a beginners event. Get messaging on point. Have a good getting-started guide. The "zero-to-bot" experience is really important. Some people don't know how to use a breadboard. Expect that.

Where do you purchase servos at volume?

Alibaba. Hit/miss. Off-market continuous SparkFun volume pricing AdaFruit volume pricing CodeMash: eBay

What kind of logistics advice can you give? Tables, workstations, etc

Build units in the middle. Pariphary is the questions, tooling, etc. Give people 3 linear feet per person. NodeBots take a lot of space. 6 people on a 6' table, or tables back-to-back.
Just make sure people have space to spread out, build, debug.