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| 1 | +#Notes |
| 2 | +Some general Q&A. This is a mix of my experience and some of what Chris Williams communicated to me |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +## How many people do you need to run the event |
| 5 | +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. |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +## How do you deal with potentially dangerous tools? Soldering Iron, Hot glue, Drill, Dremmel |
| 8 | +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. |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +## What tools to avoid? Circular saws, power lathes, etc? |
| 11 | +Stick to simple tools. Dremmels, yes. Battery Drills, yes. Circular saws, no. If you can easily cut off a limb, avoid it. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +## What building supplies do you avoid? (high power motors?) |
| 14 | +As long as someone takes the responsibility for it, we let them. Thermal plastic, for example. |
| 15 | +High powered motors with spinning projectiles have had a history of being very dangerous. We had an example of this. |
| 16 | +We recommend against using anything that can fly off so fast that spectators can't react. |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +## What is the largest number of participants you've had for a nodebots event? |
| 19 | +400 NodeBots/boats/etc JSConf |
| 20 | +170 over two days at CodeMash |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +## Did people wind up joining teams? What size was the team? How many teams at that event? |
| 23 | +RobotsConf: Curating the event. Set the tone up front. |
| 24 | +CodeMash: People paired a lot. Teams that paired tended to have a better experience. |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +## Have you done events where there were multiple competitions? Autonomous maze robots and sumos in the same session? How did that go? |
| 27 | +It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Getting people interested? Scope the goal to this. |
| 28 | +Biggest thing we run into is that hardware doesn't work. Find a "Windows" person, etc. Stick with easy wins. |
| 29 | +Make sure it is abundantly clear that this is a beginners event. Get messaging on point. Have a good getting-started |
| 30 | +guide. The "zero-to-bot" experience is really important. Some people don't know how to use a breadboard. Expect that. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +## Where do you purchase servos at volume? |
| 33 | +Alibaba. Hit/miss. Off-market continuous |
| 34 | +SparkFun volume pricing |
| 35 | +AdaFruit volume pricing |
| 36 | +CodeMash: eBay |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +## What kind of logistics advice can you give? Tables, workstations, etc |
| 39 | +Build units in the middle. Pariphary is the questions, tooling, etc. |
| 40 | +Give people 3 linear feet per person. NodeBots take a lot of space. 6 people on a 6' table, or tables back-to-back. |
| 41 | +Just make sure people have space to spread out, build, debug. |
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