6 times! Really! 6 times!!
The best science hack day of the year was back, 2nd to 4th November 2018, with another new venue (or maybe spiritual home) the magnificent Motion Lab in Treptow, Berlin. Around 60 scientists, artists, developers, designers, and renaissance-types came together to pitch projects and team up for 48 hours of rapid prototyping. We provided machines (laser cutters, 3D printers, crafting shiznits) along with access to the Science Hack Day library of hardware awesomeness (micro-controllers, motors, textiles, body sensors…), as well as inspirational interventions and lightning talks from members the DIY/Science Hacking scene.
how it feels to be shdb18 crew
It was a long weekend full of ideas, noodling, and hacksperimentation with favourite old and new science friends. After the great experience of organising in a large team in 2017 – rewarding and exhausting in equal measure – we came back with a lean and efficient minimal crew of 4 and a similarly lean and efficient budget. Learnings from 2018:
-
- Berlin and SHDB has grown an amazing family of open, friendly and experimental science hackers over our 6 years of existence. It managed to be both welcoming for newbies and like a big sciency reunion at the same time.
- Finding funds for this kind of even is getting increasingly tough – companies seem less inclined to sponsor events that don’t explicitly ideate around their products, but public funding is still only really available for more targeted or commercial initiatives. The need for interdisciplinary community-building that opens the way for potential civic or cultural collaboration, as well as commercial innovation, is still not well understood.
- However, you can do a lot with very little money if you know what to focus on. And what you should focus on is hardware and FOOD!
From sequencing the pizza genome with expired Oxford nanopore MinIONs to a mini climate chamber for home-grown mushrooms and a clock that factors in the gender pay gap to time the working day… check out full documentation of all the hacks on our website.
Lucy Patterson 