The MC for the day was Dr Laura James, who kept everything running to time and well managed, and the venue was excellent with everyone well fed and watered. There was a real sense of community, with lots of areas of maker and hacker culture represented. In terms of both audience and content, it felt like one of the more diverse technology events we’d attended.
The Festival Day finished with drinks, nibbles, and music in the bar, while the early evening talk on Tesla coils was set up in the main room.
Derek Woodroffe (Extreme Electronics), whom we featured in issue 16, delivered this fantastic final talk of the day which not only looked at the technical aspects of Tesla coil construction but also its history and Tesla’s work. Culminating in an audible rendition of Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ played by two larger Tesla coils – a memorable finale!
Saturday marked the start of the OSHCamp weekend, and attendees piled in to hear the talks. The talks were focussed and technical, but all speakers went to great lengths to make their talks as accessible as possible. Many of Saturday’s speakers were also scheduled to run workshops on Sunday, and were therefore laying out some theoretical groundwork so that attendees on Sunday had some theory knowledge ready to apply.
It was an excellent day, with subjects ranging from Ken Boak’s talk on the TTL Gigatron computer through to the architectures of RISC-V chips. The Wuthering Bytes festival continued over the following week.
Thanks to the organisers, speakers, hosts and the sponsors for putting on a great festival. Wuthering Bytes are keen to hear from you if you have an idea for something you would like to run at next year’s events – get in touch with them via the festival website: wutheringbytes.com
