Nodebots Day Houston

Recap: 2016

Houston's Nodebots Day 2016 is over and it was a great time, with over 65 people in attendance!

With Saturday's temperatures climbing to 100° it was a welcome break to spend the day inside the University of Houston's Classroom and Business Building hacking on hardware and talking shop. After coffee, donuts and introductions we covered the basics of the hardware we would be using throughout the day and got everyone through an exciting milestone - blinking and LED! In the hardware world blinking an LED is pretty much the equivalent of "Hello, World".

Things picked up quickly after lunch with everyone getting down to the business of programming their boards and interacting with the hardware in increasingly complex ways. The capstone project for the attendees was building and programming their own robot, built using laser-cut wood chassis, servos and a variety of small parts provided in each kit. For some this meant building their own keyboard controlled interface, for others this meant a web application communicating over web-sockets from their phone. The real goal was to get people excited about the possibilities in hacking on hardware with Node and the results were very exciting.

After a break for dinner and conversation we closed out the day with a bang, facing off attendees "sumo-bots" against one another in a tournament-style bracket. The goal being to push your opponent's bot out of the ring before they can do the same to you. It might make more sense to instead watch a video of the action, courtesy of Ryan Gill:

For an attendee's perspective you can also read about the event thanks to Justin Gosses. You can view a full album of photos from the event thanks to Alan Lee.

Welcome!

Come be a part of an International NodeBots Day hosted here in Houston, TX. July 30th is the NodeBots day for 2016, which is an annual event where people gather together to hack on, or learn to hack on, hardware using Javascript. For additional information on the event, please visit: nodebots.io.

The event is organized by several houston community leaders including Node.js Houston, Houston Robotics Club, and Houston IoT Meetup.

For additional questions, reach out to us on the NodeJS Houston Slack group under the #nodebots2016 channel. Register an account here

Location

Venue: University of Houston

University of Houston Classroom and Business Building
4742 Calhoun Rd. Houston, TX 77204

Parking: There is no free parking for this building, but:

• There are plenty of metered parking available near the building. It is a flat rate of $3 per day to park.
• There are a few garage lots near by, see: this PDF, we will be located in the CBB building in front of Cemo Hall.

Agenda

Tickets

Sponsors

Nodebots Day is organized by the community with the mission to promote technology here in Houston. Sponsor slots are still open and available, and your contirbutions would greatly impact the event! Contact NodeJS Houston to become a sponsor and keep Houston's local tech community vibrant!

FAQs

• What is a NodeBot?

Nodebots are hardware controlled with JavaScript. This includes robots and IoT connected devices.

• What will I learn?

You'll learn how to control hardware using Node.js and the johnny-five library.

• Is this a Hackathon?

No. We dont have prizes. There are no stakes.

• Do I have to have any experience with Robots or Programming?

No, you don't. You do need to bring a laptop computer with NodeJS installed.

• Can I bring my kids?

Yes, kids are welcome. If you will be sharing hardware, please purchase a hacker ticket to cover their lunch.

Resources

Want to get started with JavaScript and hardware? Here are some of our favorite resources:

• node-ardx - tutorials for using using an Arduino with node and various components
• nodebots workshop - a tutorial in the nodeschool 'workshopper' format that requires a bit of terminal knowledge to get started.
• sumobot tutorial - slightly dated video tutorial on assembling and programming a sumobot
• Johnny-Five - a high level JavaScript library for working with hardware