3/12/14: Packing for the big bang in Birmingham.
From 13th March to 16th March ECS will be represented at the Big Bang Festival in Birmingham. We will be doing a number of things:
- Erica the Rhino will be there for the full four days (more about packing for Erica’s holiday to Birmingham will be coming later in this post).
- On Friday, there will be Student Robotics, where participants will have the chance to have a go at robotics.
- On Saturday there will be the chance to go to a mockup cleanroom where they will get to learn about nanotechnology.
I will be using this blog to tell you about the daily adventures at the Big Bang but also keep an eye out for my tweet updates. Follow me on @rees_p.
I mentioned earlier that @EricaTheRhino was heading up to Birmingham. It took a lot of preparation to get her ready for her journey. This all started around 3 months ago. The Erica team got together to discuss what needed to be doing in order to make her ‘people friendly’ and not temperamental technology wise. A number of changes were made by a fabulous group of people. These are significant changes:
- Changing the screen to the side of Erica to a touch screen. This means that it is easier to interact with. One screen was placed higher on one side and lower on the other to make it easier for people of different sizes (!) to interact with her.
- A lot of the internals were changed in order to make Erica more robust and travel friendly.
- There is a separate touch screen which gives an indication of how Erica is feeling and allows Erica to be feed her, its also possible to tickle her and move her ear.
- There is also the added functionality of being able to tweet at Erica in order to change the light colour.
- We upgraded the plinth Erica is on to make transport easier.
- If you look inside Erica you will notice she is much tidier! We have decided that when she travels its easier to take the board out so this allows us to do that.
- We have also added the option to use a wired internet connection for increased reliability. This has proved to work really well.
- We have upgraded the LEDs so they work better.
- The speakers have been upgraded so her roar is much louder
Erica had to packed in bubble wrap and got to Birmingham safely:
3/12/14: Packing for the big bang in Birmingham.
From 13th March to 16th March ECS will be represented at the Big Bang Festival in Birmingham. We will be doing a number of things:
*Erica the Rhino will be there for the full four days (more about packing for Erica’s holiday to Birmingham will be coming later in this post).
*On Friday, there will be Student Robotics, where participants will have the chance to have a go at robotics.
* On Saturday there will be the chance to go to a mockup cleanroom where they will get to learn about nanotechnology.
I will be using this blog to tell you about the daily adventures at the Big Bang but also keep an eye out for my tweet updates. Follow me on @rees_p.
I mentioned earlier that @EricaTheRhino was heading up to Birmingham. It took a lot of preparation to get her ready for her journey. This all started around 3 months ago. The Erica team got together to discuss what needed to be doing in order to make her ‘people friendly’ and not temperamental technology wise. A number of changes were made by a fabulous group of people. These are significant changes:
- Changing the screen to the side of Erica to a touch screen. This means that it is easier to interact with. One screen was placed higher on one side and lower on the other to make it easier for people of different sizes (!) to interact with her.
- A lot of the internals were changed in order to make Erica more robust and travel friendly.
- There is a separate touch screen which gives an indication of how Erica is feeling and allows Erica to be feed her, its also possible to tickle her and move her ear.
- There is also the added functionality of being able to tweet at Erica in order to change the light colour.
- We upgraded the plinth Erica is on to make transport easier.
- If you look inside Erica you will notice she is much tidier! We have decided that when she travels its easier to take the board out so this allows us to do that.
- We have also added the option to use a wired internet connection for increased reliability. This has proved to work really well.
- We have upgraded the LEDs so they work better.
- The speakers have been upgraded so her roar is much louder.
You can tweet @EricaTheRhino certain colours like Red, blue or pink and her lights will change to that colour. Or you can follow her and she will tweet you,
You can tweet @EricaTheRhino certain colours like Red, blue or pink and her lights will change to that colour. Or you can follow her and she will tweet you.