Post Hack-a-thon Weekend
Hack-a-thon Weekend! I was really nervous going into the weekend (July 24-25) because a group of people I had never met before were traveling all the way to the Techstars Bunker and giving up their weekend to build on our stuff. Before GearBox I ran a web development company and I had launched several large scale sites but when there are people physically standing in front of you twiddling their thumbs if something doesn’t work it’s a totally different experience. Saturday morning came around though and we ended up having 15 people show up! We started out a little shaky (partially due to only 2-4 hours of sleep a night the previous week) but people were patient and within only a few hours nearly everyone had successfully connected to one of our devices. What really astonished us though was that a few of the people that showed up had never even programmed for a mobile device before and by the end of the first day they were building basic apps and controlling our devices! We continued on Sunday and by the end of the weekend some of the more experienced Android developers had some really impressive apps working. Overall the weekend was a great success, people said it was a lot of fun, and we’re excited to host another one soon!
I wanted to thank everyone that came out and for providing the ongoing feedback on our API. We will be providing balls very soon! I also want to thank SparkFun for hooking us up with some sweet swag to give away and for giving us a plug on their blog. Thanks!
Here are some photos:
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Leo, 
jonah and 2 others are discussing. 
heef, 
Jordan and 4 others are discussing. 
HRoberto and 4 others are discussing. 
Seth Forester, 
. would the balls be able to glow different colors entirely all the way around? That would be great, and to be able to change the color to what you want at anytime, also might be great for team based games. Also (and maybe this is what you’re doing?) it would be awesome to never have to open the ball up, or plug a cable into it to charge. A bowl shaped charging base using a wireless power type of technology would be ultimately awesome! Though the capabilities of replacing the battery in case of a battery failure might be ideal depending on how much a ball will cost I suppose. I’m also assuming they would all have a unique identity of some sort to prevent getting your balls mixed up with someone else’s? lol. Such as linking/pairing it to your IMEI number on your phone and requiring a password to change it if needed. Anyways looking forward to seeing more on this in the future, I certainly love the idea of owning one of those balls! 
Christine Wilson 12:52 am on August 4, 2010 Permalink |
I enjoy following you and Adam during such an exciting endeavor. I couldn’t be prouder or more amazed at the things you are doing with your lives. Keep going forward!!!!
Kyle 4:35 pm on August 6, 2010 Permalink |
I wanted to stop by this when I heard about it from Sparkfun, but having a baby boy doesn’t allow for much time. I was already interested, but then saw that the head dude is a Techie?? I got my BS Physics & Math in 2002 from NMT. If you’ve seen the Physics Trebuchet, a buddy and I started that project
. So now I’m very interested. Not sure if there’s much I can do, but I’ll definitely offer some volunteer help! I live in Westminster, so I’m not far.
Ian 9:15 pm on August 6, 2010 Permalink |
Word. I never saw the Trebuchet when I was there but it looks awesome! Sign up for our news at http://gearbox.me (I promise I don’t spam) and definitely come to our next hackathon weekend. The last one was such a great success we’ll definitely be doing more of them!
jonah 8:39 pm on August 6, 2010 Permalink |
im super exited
how will we be able to buy? online? in stores?
will it work for ipod touch?
Leo 8:30 pm on August 8, 2010 Permalink |
Very Very cool things you guys are doing. So interesting! Just moved back to Italy from Denver. Wish I knew about you guys before. Good Luck. I will be looking forward to your progress.