From Wikipedia: The procedural framework consists of sessions proposed and scheduled each day by attendees, mostly on-site, typically using white boards or paper taped to the wall. This approach and has been dubbed to play on words, The Open Grid approach. Session times and spaces are not finalized until the day of the event.
FooCamps and BarCamps are based on a simplified variation of Open Space Technology (OST), relying on the self-organizing character of OST. Other than in classical conference formats, BarCamps and OST rely on the passion and the responsibility of the participants, putting them into the driver’s seat.
We’ve enabled comments on this page so you can chat up your ideas for sessions.
For newcomers, what we plan to do during the intro/opening session of BarCamp, is go around to everyone, and ask them 3 things they’d like to learn, and 3 things they could teach/share with others. From this, all should follow. If someone mentions something you’d like to learn, make a note of it! Talk to them after the opening, and ask them to lead a session, and commit to going to that session. If someone mentions something they’d like to learn, and you can teach them, talk to them, offer to lead a session, and ask if they’d participate.
Does this make sense? I hope so… We may also use some of the ideas we implemented at PhotoCampMilwaukee to gauge interest in topics, by way of a “vote of interest” next to the session grid. This can help determine if there is a lot of interest in a specific session idea.
Update: Sept. 28, 2009“Regular ordering is now closed to allow time for the vendor to ship the materials at a reasonable rate. You are still welcomed to listen and watch as the participants work on animating their BCMKE4 mascot robot! If you still really want to participate and are willing to pay for the fast shipping please see http://mkebots.org for a list of SKUs you’ll need to order directly from the vendor.”
UPDATE: “In order to participate in this session you’ll need to order the kit listed on the http://mkebots.org page. I need to place orders for the hardware in the kits on Monday, Sept 28th. Past that date, it won’t be be possible to participate in this session.”
For the full description of this session, please visit The Milwaukee Robotics Club Website
I (Royce Pipkins), will lead a session on programming the Arduino microcontroller and interfacing it to a variety of outside devices.
Home Automation, Automotive Interfacing, Animatronics, Electronic Art, Hobby Robotics. At the heart of many of these sorts of technologies (and many more besides) is the diminutive yet powerful microcontroller. A microcontroller is a tiny computer system on a single chip that opens a vast world possibilities for those initiated in the art and science of microcontroller programming.
The Arduino is a very low power system-on-a-chip computer and code library that has made it easy for folks the world over to create their own automated electronic projects.
With heavy promotion from publisher O’Reilly’s Make Magazine, the Arduino has gathered a large and loyal following. Besides easing the technical barrier to entry into the microcontroller world, Arduino derives a great deal of power just from its large and helpful community of experimenters.
Arduino Programming will be a 2-3 hr workshop where interested folks will get a helping hand into the world of Arduino programming and interfacing.
In the workshop you’ll get an overview of programming with the Arduino library as well as an introduction on how to interface the Arduino to a number of common devices such as LEDs and Servos. You won’t be an Arduino master at the end of the class, but you will have a good basic foundation upon which you can build your skill set.
It is assumed that most in the BarCamp crowd will have at least some programming experience, so the principles of programming will not be covered in any great depth. The software portion will focus on using the IDE and using the Arduino hardware interfacing libraries.
The course will be held at BarcampMilwaukee4. (Saturday is my goal) In order to take the course you will need to bring a laptop or portable computer (Mac, Linux or Windows) with an available USB port. Please install the Arduino Software on your computer prior to the workshop to maximize the amount of learning versus installing.
[...] Sessions [...]
I’d be willing to do a session on some combination of Emacs, Lisp, and Scheme. I’ve been working with these for a little more than a year; while no expert, I’d be glad to share what I know and perhaps have others add their knowledge, too.
I’ll do a session on timebanking.
I will be talking about Natural User Interfaces (Multi-touch, Speech, etc). I am currently in the process of writing a learning platform using multi-touch, GPS information and a mix of technologies. I also probably will probably be talking about iPhone a bit as long as my broken iPhone continues to work or I decide to finally break down and buy a 3GS. Stupid Glass Screen:( Cracked
Proposal: Why I don’t/can’t/won’t use open source at work/home/school
I’ve been using open source for well over a dozen years, and I love it, for many reasons, but I also love quality, ease of use, reliability, and other things that open source is sometimes lacking. I’d like to frame a discussion beyond the typical “Use open source software in place of this closed source software!” talking point, and get to the heart of *why* some of us who love open source, often do not use it.
I’d also like to propose a robot hacking session (or group of sessions) … basically an open area with good lighting, some tables and chairs, and power … where people can work on and talk about their robots … homebrew and Lego Mindstorms … etc.
We need to have another “Bring a Bucketworks to Madison” session since the one at PhotoCamp failed to produce results.
If someone could do a session on open source hardware, that’d be awesome.
I’m gonna keep it rocking with a discussion on creative commons and other intellectual property law issues. And I may want to lead one on twitter and self organizing hyper local instant communication and what it means for society.
I’m thinking about something along the lines of “Hack Your Life: Getting away from the internet to add balance to your life”. Talk about what it means to productivity and your mental well-being to schedule time for yourself away from your computer.
I would like to add this to the discussion: Don’t be afraid to do some beginner’s sessions! You have far more expertise than you realize, and part of the magic of BarCamp is that the stuff you know a little about added with the stuff your colleagues know a little about makes for a whole lot of collective knowledge.
On the other side of the coin, if you know a lot about a subject, consider running an “intro” session before your advanced sessions.
If you think you might want to put on an “advanced Joomla hacking” session, think about doing an “Intro to Joomla” session first. You’ll find that running an intro session will help feed the advanced session.
To piggyback on Gabe’s comment, I would love it if someone could start a beginner’s session on Mobile Development. I’ve not done anything with mobile and can’t decide where to start. Have you done anything with Flash Lite or a platform specific solution (iPhone?)? Or maybe you’re just making HTML/AJAX interfaces for smaller screens? What’s a good place to start? Really if you’ve done anything at all with mobile, I’d just like to hear about your experiences.
There are a lot of things I know “a little about”, as Gabe says above… so I’d be happy to share or start a discussion if I knew what people might be interested in.
For example, I could do a beginner’s session on CSS columnar layouts. Or a walk-through of an install of Gallery (http://gallery.menalto.com/). Or lead a job-hunting techniques discussion starting with what’s worked for me, and, hopefully, expanding to what’s worked for others of you who want to contribute. Any interest in these things?
Also – I might not make it to the Intro Session, which might make it hard for me to participate at the session planning stage … which is why I hope more will speak up here in advance of BarCamp.
I’d like to see a session on user experience / interaction design. As the tools (HTML5, jQuery, .NET) streamline the creation of applications, understanding — from procedural to tactical — the qualities of good interface and interaction are going to be critical. There are a lot of people out there with a lot of ideas, and I think it’d be great to get them in a room and discuss what works and what doesn’t. I recently took over a UX Book Club in Milwaukee — would a 1-2 hour “book club” meeting fit the BarCamp Milwaukee mold? Since you’d need to read the book, it’d have to be planned pretty far in advance.
For teaching, I could probably do a beginners guide to progressive enhancement in web development w/ HTML, JS, CSS introductions. Might be interesting to have debate on the pluses and minuses of it versus graceful degradation.
I could probably hold an intro session in jQuery and would love to attend an advanced session.
Love this idea! Really hoping for some great sessions!
nz
Barry (and others!) this is the place to say it! Oh, and the registration form! IF you filled it out, you put in your interests… What we will try to do is go through it, and mention the topics of interest for the people who can’t make it to the opening session. Maybe during the dinner break we should welcome new Campers (people who couldn’t make it to the morning intro) and ask them to speak up… thoughts?
what would barcamp be without a “fly by the seat of our pants” photowalk?! i’ll “organize” that.
i also may be leading a session with @Pezzettino .. that may, or may not, be a video collaboration with people at @podcampphilly (or beyond)… details to be figured out soon (read: made up on the spot)
Yo Tapps! I did mention *something* to the Cream City Flickr Group about a BarCamp PhotoWalk… so once you get the details, we should let them know about it.
I could lead a “How to Get Started with Joomla” session and a hands on working session for people who need help with their Joomla based sites.
I can talk about anything social media:
Basic Community Management
Brand Monitoring 101
twitter tactics
Building a scalable social web
the concept of doterati.com
Harnessing the Ning platform
Social media misconceptions
Personal Branding 101
I also have an ignite presentation I gave early in the year – I could extend it from 5 mins to 20
Cheers,
Mark Krupinski
I should be on hand with everything you ever wanted to know about Drupal but were afraid to ask.
I could do intro-level stuff or more advanced, or recaps from DrupalCon Paris.
I could also talk about generic PHP stuff, or possibly some Javascript/jQuery although I’m not quite as strong there.
I will be hosting a session or two on package design. I will get technical and demonstrate how to use Illustrator to create the die lines and even do the damn design. There will be enough technical nuts and bolts for you to make a factory ready design.
Blister packs and clamshells I will touch on. The bread and butter of retail.
I’d like to see a web developer tip and toolshare.
Vim or Emacs Ninja? TextMate or Eclipse fan? Xdebug, Continuous Integration, TDD (BDD)?
Let’s share some tricks that’ll save us all some time.
I have a broken computer at home, and I’m poor. So I was thinking of making it a contest. I’ll bring the comp in and whoever fixes it gets a prize! I’m thinking an Apple Store or Best Buy gift card, or a choice of one of them. Any thoughts?
See you guys then!
I can do a session on section 508 compliance. I just need to find a way to make it less dry.
I’m an editor and a writer, so BarCamp is always a challenge for me when it comes to producing sessions that will be of interest to folks. Here are a few thoughts for this year:
A session on the link between speculative fiction and technology.
A session on digital diaries
Maybe a session on writing effective online content
Any thoughts on those would be great. Feel free to email me.
I can also do a session on the health, humanity and environmental reasons to go vegan if people are interested or curious. I doubt it would be for the weak stomachs and probably wouldn’t be good to do right before/after a meal.
@Greg Tarnoff – I’d attend your session on “health, humanity and environmental reasons to go vegan.” I’m about 90% vegetarian now, and I think it’d be fascinating. I’m interested in the specifics of technology, but I’m more interested in the larger context. Now that we have this mind boggling tool (the Internet) how do we use it? What’s our goal? Can we do more with less as Buckminster Fuller would say?
Lyndzi, is it a Mac, or a non-Mac? Does it run Linux? We’d probably need more details on exactly what is broken. Also, is it ok if we turn it into a robot while we fix it?
Pete – Dinner-time second welcome session might be good for us late-arrivals.
Boone – I am interested in many aspects of writing and editing, so I would participate in any of those sessions.
Greg – I’m a vegetarian. Would love to hear the latest reasons for veganism as ammunition for the questions people always ask me about vegetarianism.
I would definitely attend Joomla and Drupal beginners sessions. And I’d attend any level Javascript / JQuery session – I’m pretty sure I’m just using the tip of the iceberg there.
I could run a “FireFox Add-ons for Web Development” session, if there’s interest. I’d run it more as “Here’s what I use” and then hope that others would contribute with their ultimate FireFox (or other) configuration.
Barry, a “FireFox Add-ons for Web Development” session sounds cool… I wouldn’t mind a tips/tricks sharing session on such a topic.
Clint: I can be others that add their knowledge about Scheme: in a separate session or whatever, lets coordinate *something*.
I’d like to give a presentation about Cross Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities in web sites/apps. Its impact is somewhat underestimated and it’s very widespread.
Second session – Humanism – does our society support such a thing anymore?
I’ve got some more brainstorming to do, but I’m planning to do something along the lines of “Adventures in Technical Publishing,” with war stories on getting computer books to press.
Three session ideas:
1) Tips and tricks for running a medium-size Drupal site (40-50K pageviews a day) on a small budget using the right modules, some Drupal hacking, and AWS – Would assume basic Drupal knowledge, and focus on modules, configurations, and patches that improve performance. I could split this into two sessions if people would like to delve into AWS as a separate session.
2) Apache Wicket + Hibernate – A Java Web Application stack that doesn’t make you secretly wish you were using Rails.
3) Debugging – How to find and fix bugs faster – Lyndzi, I’d be happy to use your computer as an example of how to apply a consistent debugging process and attempt to fix it in real time during a session. Otherwise, I’d probably just have a round table about difficult bugs you’ve encountered and fixed or maybe that have lived on despite the debugging effort, and how people go about trying to squash bugs in their daily coding lives.
I, too, have a broken computer (Windows, about 5 yrs old), that I’d like to have fixed (or at least diagnosed).
Any support for/reasons NOT to set up an area for “can anyone tell me why this doesn’t work” stuff?
Similarly, +/- a “here’s some bits and pieces of crap I don’t need — help yourself” materials, and a plan to get the remainders to a recyclery after the event? Anyone know of where such a recyclery would be found?
I’m been thinking about hamiltonian paths and optimizations for finding all of the paths in a 2-D grid for any given start/end point, with obstacles. I can also talk about other basic pathfinding/search algorithms if anyone’s interested in AIs for games, mazes, field traversal, etc. That would likely include floodfill, A*, depth first search, etc.
I used to tutor/teach C/C++ and java and can do a crash course on the languages, gdb/ddd, etc. If anyone wants to help, I have a lot more experience with C/C++ than java. I used DJGPP in the 90’s but haven’t coded on Windows since so someone else should talk about that
Perhaps I should schedule that before Royce’s robotics sessions.
Session proposals were much more organized in previous years. What happened?
Would anyone be willing to do a session on ELGG?
Tegan, for the computer part recyclery, we could talk to Greener Milwaukee, as they are supposed to be there helping with refuse/recycling issues.
Marie, Jeramey from Fresh Coast Ventures was the only person who offered to do the web site, and he built it in WordPress this year. Did you want to volunteer to do it next time?
Barry – LOVE the “My Fave Firefox Fadd-ons”
Mike – Finally, I get to hear about someone ELSE’S adventures – particulary these days, when the big box bookstores are more interested in selling stationary, videos and stuffed animals than, you know, books.
Me – I’d like to do a session on estimating software development projects. I did a lot of that in the last decade, but, as Dylan croons, “Things Have Changed.” Still, the basics have not. The theme of my talk would be: “When you’re tasked with a new widget to ‘do’, and then are asked, ‘How much will that cost? Approximately – and I promise I won’t hold you to it.’…. how do you answer that question?”
Anyone interested? Anyone?
I, too would enjoy the Firefox Fadd-ons session. And, Whil, the estimating session would interest me (but to be honest, could easily lose me to another low-tech topic).
@Ashe Dryden – A session on balancing technology and the other aspects of life would be *great*. I’d attend, and if you want I could contribute to the presentation. My girlfriend quit Facebook for a month as an experiment. I’ll do the same in Nov.
@Boone Dryden – I’m very interested on a “session on the link between speculative fiction and technology.” Maybe the topic could be the “philosophy of technology.” Some people/ideas we could explore:
Kevin Kelly
Ted Nelson
transhumanism and critiques
Singularity University and critiques
More topics
[PT 1] I live in Indianapolis, but I’ll be in Milwaukee for the weekend. Tuesday October 6 the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries are hosting a contest I created called the Digital Literacy Contest. Students will compete to search the Internet. Cash prizes and free food.
The point is to create a discussion about how the Internet is affecting our minds. How does intelligence change when we outsource functions of our brain to technology? Is it a mental prosthetic?
I’m writing a book on how the Internet is changing the human experience. I’d love to lead a very collaborative brainstorming session on how the web is changing any of the following aspects of the human experience:
attention span
intelligence (is Google making us stupid or smart?)
privacy (NSA wiretapping, Total Information Awareness, Facebook funder connected to CIA’s In-Q-Tel)
[CONT. BELOW]
[PT 2]
sense of space (William Gibson’s ‘cyberspace‘)
politics (Iran protests, smart mobs, the transparency movement)
sexuality (how is hyperreal pornography changing sexuality?)
relationships (propensity to idealize people by interacting online)
economics (what digitization means for content creators)
More info
If there’s any interest, I could do a brief session on homebuilt CNC machines. I just started a meetup group on this topic (ie, just today), and it currently has no members other than me, so spread the word…
Also, I’d like to get some people’s ideas about phone keyboards as general-purpose input devices. Someone told me recently that his kids type as fast on their phones as they do on a full sized keyboard. Does that mean that this kind of keyboard will soon be acceptable as the main input device for a netbook-type computer? Is the idea of a chord keyboard finally obsolete? BTW I’ll bring a “Frogpad” chord keyboard in case anyone wants to play with it (http://www.frogpad.com).
I’m going to back-out of the idea of doing a session on Emacs, Lisp, and/or Scheme. If the opportunity arises to do something impromptu, I will (granted, that is the spirit of BarCamp).
I’d be happy to run some sort of computer EMS session for those with breaking/broken hardware to at least try and diagnose whats going on. Been doing it at work for years. Not much mac-xperience though.
Between my cousin and I we could have a good station set up for some set time.
Jacob, I’ll be there, as well as other Mac-hackers if needed.
OK, I’ll do the publishing thing; needless to say I’m always inclined to attend writing-related sessions. The Fadd-ons session is likely to be quite popular–count me in too.
Although my co-author did all the “basic” stuff for this book, I’d also be happy to do a Beginning WordPress session–or maybe Mike S and I (and a Drupal person?) could host a combined beginner’s tips-tricks session.
Daniel P: I also love the big picture, mind-expanding sessions like the one(s) you propose.
And hey: I could bring in my printer that won’t feed paper anymore.