[Sketching19] Sketching in Hardware 2019, Detroit, August Update

[Mike Kuniavsky]

Hi! I hope you're having a great summer! We are in the home stretch of 
organizing. We've signed the contracts, booked the restaurants, planned 
the activities, paid for the insurance and, most importantly, you have all 
agreed to attend. We are really excited that you're all attending, and 
I'll attach a list of who is coming to the end of this email so you can 
see who "you" are.

There are a couple of really important things in this email, so please 
read it. It'll be a pretty fast read.

CONTENTS
  - The hotel block is full
  - Please take the participant questionnaire so we can plan childcare and
    food
  - Presentation topic guidelines and questionnaire
  - Science Faire!
  - Welcome packet!
  - THANK YOU Sponsors: Supplyframe, Particle, Lemnos Labs, ThingM, 
Beagleboard
  - Attendee list (so far)


THE HOTEL BLOCK IS FULL
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our block at the Aloft has filled up and they have no more rooms at the 
negotiated rate. Our apologies if you had planned to reserve a room at the 
rate and did not get the chance. We estimate the number of people who will 
want to use the hotel rate, but sometimes we underestimate, which may have 
happened this year. There are other hotels nearby and a number of great 
AirBNB options, including one on an urban farm. Email and we can send you 
links.

PARTICIPANT QUESTIONNAIRE
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is really important. If you haven't filled out the participant 
questionnaire, please do so right now. We're organizing food and childcare 
(which we encourage everyone who needs it to take advantage of) and we 
need to know how much of each to get. We're also booking a tour of Third 
Man Pressing on 10/2 and we need to know how many people will be there.

Participant logistics questionnaire:

https://forms.gle/nJb2QwH3zfbxCZHMA

PRESENTATION GUIDELINES
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The primary goal of Sketching in Hardware is to create a community that 
extends beyond the dates of the event. The rules that everyone has to 
present is in service of that goal, so by the end of the event everyone 
knows something about everyone else.

At the end of the questionnaire above I have some questions about whether 
you'd be interested in presenting with others or participating on a panel. 
However, I assume most people will be presenting on their own, so I'm 
sharing the general presentation guidelines with everyone.

The tl;dr version is: 18 minutes, about something you're incredibly 
excited about RIGHT NOW, please fill out the form below.

Here's the somewhat longer version:

  - The format is quite open and the content is up to you.
  - The two most important qualities in the presentation should
be that you talk about something that is exciting to you and, if possible, 
something that you haven't talked about elsewhere.
  - Your presentation should be 18 minutes long, and no longer. We are 
going to be strict about time limits because the schedule is packed.
  - If you would like to team up with someone and present together, that is 
totally fine and we can give you a little extra time to present together.
  - Please minimize biographical information. If you'd like to present a 
retrospective of your work to set the context, please keep it to 3 
minutes, but the bulk of your presentation should be about something new 
or something old that's totally awesome.
  - Please limit any video you show to 1 minute or less, unless it's so 
awesome that it can't be contained in 1 minute. In that case you can play 
it for 3 minutes.
  - Please contact me if you have any questions about what a good topic 
would be. I'll be happy to jump on a call or bounce ideas in email.

Your audience will be technically sophisticated, but not necessarily 
engineers, so please calibrate the technical content of your presentations 
accordingly.

You don't need to provide an abstract, but I would really like you to give 
me a tentative title and short description. Since we don't publish any 
paper guides, these will be flexible until the minute you step on stage, 
but it really helps when I'm creating the schedule.

Presentation questionnaire:

https://forms.gle/ch3DNbmGpoXqzA6R7

SCIENCE FAIR!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Please bring technology, demos, half-finished ideas with wires hanging out 
to our Science Fair on Sunday afternoon. Thanks to the generous folks at 
the David Whitney Building, we'll set up a place where you can install 
your work and demo it. The format, as the name implies, is science 
fair-ish, with the goal of getting an opportunity to get extended hands-on 
experience with new technologies and to demo to your fellow sketching 
attendees.

If you plan on bringing something to Science Faire, please check the 
appropriate box at the end of the presentation questionnaire.

WELCOME PACKET
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We're trying to consolidate all of the key information in a welcome 
packet. As we share information on this list, we'll update the packet. If 
you have thoughts about what should be in it, please let me know!

Here's the link:

https://tinyurl.com/sketching19-welcome

SPONSORS
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A HUGE Thank You to our sponsors. This year it's really important.
  - Supplyframe
  - Particle
  - Beaglebone
  - Lemnos Labs
  - [totally secret sponsorship by unnamed large technology company]
  - ThingM

SKETCHING 2019 PARTICIPANT LIST
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Alasdair Allan
Kevin Anderson
Ana Arriola
Jeevak Badve
Justin Bakse
Matt Biddulph
Kipp Bradford
Aleksandar Bradic
Leah Buechley
Vanessa Carpenter
Cezanne Charles
David Cuartielles
Pierluigi Dalla Rosa
Melissa Daniels
Laura Devendorf
Carla Diana
Blair Evans
Paloma Fauntley
Jules Fennis
Bjoern Hartmann
Steve Hodges
Tom Igoe
Debera Johnson
Wendy Ju
Eric Klein
Jason Kridner
Mike Kuniavsky
Tod Kurt
Gabriella Levine
John Marshall
Nikolas Martelaro
Carlyn Maw
Joselyn  McDonald
Amon Millner
Yoichi Nagashima
Ayodamola Okunseinde
Nadya Peek
Linus Persson
Dan  Radomski
David Scheltema
Star Simpson
David Sirkin
Harry Souders
Evan Strasnick
Jeff Sturges
Zach Supalla
Paula Te
Joshua Walton
Anita Wilhelm
J.D. Zamfirescu

Thank you and I'll see you in September! Please let me know if you have 
any questions!

-- 
Mike Kuniavsky
mikek at sketching-in-hardware.com