Dorkbot Bristol

Went to the 2nd ever Dorkbot Bristol last night with Chelle and Jamie. The main event was a presentation given by Adam Nieman about Space Signpost. This essentially is a signpost for the Solar System. You select the planet of your choice and the sign moves to point where that heavenly body happens to be and tells you the distance to it on the led readout. This demanded a visit. After that was demos given by Carolyn Ryves, John Honiball and Tom Bugs. Carolyn showed us PedalPower which is a bike-powered generator and managed to blow up quite a large ballon. John showed us an led gadget that made sounds as you waved a wand around in the air and Tom demo’d his Drone Machine which was a box with switches and dials that made some crazy sounds.

After some nachos, we dressed up for the cold (I pulled my sleeves down) and headed off to find Millennium Square and the Space Signpost. This is a cool piece of kit and we probably could have played on it for hours if it wasn’t so cold. Unfortunately, it pointed in the wrong direction to do the Uranus gag which is probably just as well. After that, we made our way back to the car and drove all the way home.

Anyone who isn’t aware of Dorkbot, it’s described as “people doing strange things with electricity”. There’s been one in London for quite sometime so it’s nice that it’s finally hit the South West. If you like doing strange things with electricity or even just looking, they really are well worth a look.