I spent most this weekend at Mind Camp. A 24 hour geek oriented event inspired by FooCamp and BarCamp. 140 or so people with a wide degree of skills and focuses showed up with laptops, gadgets, and sleeping bags in hand.
The format of the event is very ad-hoc. Session tracks were ironed out on large pieces of paper taped to the walls. Rooms outfitted with entire whiteboard walls
were available to sketch out ideas and explanations. Anyone could and were encouraged to hold sessions. Topics included things like Space Elevators, AJAX, Coffee Hacks, lock picking 101, and Municipal Wireless Networks.
Sessions were interactive and discussion based, less talking head or powerpointy (new slang?). This made for a lot of really good sessions and follow up break out sessions in the hallways and various empty offices. Most people in the feedback sessions agreed that the hallway conversations they had were some of the most memorable moments of the event.
I think my only criticism of the event is that at least half the participants went home in the evening instead of camping out at the event or staying up all night with those of us who did.
I met a ton of people, saw a lot of old friends, and all in all had a great time. A couple of the fun things that come to mind:
- Hanging out in the kitchen making espresso talking about storing data on the wire, and OPN (Other Peoples Networks)
- Playing Werewolf for almost 4 hours straight. Its a variation of Mafia, a group game that is a highly addictive experiment in physchology.
- Driving around the robot from the Titan Robotics Club.
Links:
MindCamp tagged photos on Flickr
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[...] I briefly mentioned Seattle Mind Camp 1.0 when I attended about 6 months ago. Seattle Mind Camp 2.0 is coming up in just over two weeks. They are seeking to expand their geek diversity , so if you can think someone that should been there last time and wasn’t let’em know. [...]