Gadgetoff 2009 unleashed an intense series of kabooms, zaps, chomps, and kerplurks rattling 400 attendees on the beautiful 83 acre Staten Island grounds September 25th while slinging Lenovo laptops with a trebuchet, cooking hot dogs with Telsa Coil Towers, riding jet fueled 5g merry-go-rounds, writing code drunk for autonomous cars legally, and thrashing a series of incredible lectures and demos throughout the day! Welcome to the Gadgetoff 2009 Experience: Boom!
Robots rumbled in every corner ranging from dancing tai chi robots to tiny micro toy hex bugs that jittered their way into everyone’s pockets. The gigantic mechanical Mondo Spider chomped it’s way through the lunch gardens while on lookers enjoyed delicious alcohol infused sorbet. Dean Kamen of DEKA brought his breathtaking and ingeniously engineered “luke” arm (video) and toy inventor Brian Walker tinkered with large crossbows and rockets made to launch humans 20 miles across the air! Invisible inks, toys, gadgets, art, fire, illusions, magic, and disruptive ideas scorched the island while participants roamed in excitement and curiosity!
Just as I experienced last time, Gadgetoff invited the coolest hand’s on creatives to celebrate the Smart and Useless for an unforgetful day in disruptive goodness!
My adventure brief after the jump! (lots of pictures and videos)
The TED conference has transformed dramatically over the years thanks to the launching of TEDtalks which I’ve posted on several times. This past year, TED launched another brilliant event called TEDx which allows individuals to host their own local unofficial TED like events. Since March 2009 several events have taken place around the world. How awesome!
A few weeks back, I attended the TEDxBoston event which I wanted to post about, but had no videos to share. As of today, TEDx videos from around the world can be viewed and shared on the TEDx YouTube Channel as well as play lists from each location like TEDxBoston. I’ll post the TEDxBoston videos after the jump, and make sure to watch the last video with our favorite Ben Zanders conducting the Youth Orchestra of Americas.
I’m off to San Francisco for a Weekend Wedding, so I’m posting my weekend links a bit early. If ya’ll have any must see, eat, go to events in SF this week, please let me know.
Besides the crazy busy month in work and odd distractions, I’ll be catching up to many of the suggestions sent in and posting again soon. Or as I’d like to think, I leaned back briefly, just like President Obama did in this awesome picture in the White House.
I’m off for the week to TED2009 for this years theme “The Great Unveiling”, but this round I’ll be in the satilite space in the new Palm Springs location. I won’t be blogging too much, but you can follow me on twitter, or if your there, let me know and we’ll meet up. Check out the full TED schedule here or my previous TED adventures.
I’m off to SF later this week again. Hopefully the weathers less foggy. I checked out the Seward street slides, Twin Peaks, and 826 Valencia last time. Any other places to scoop out or must try food spots??
It’s been an awfully busy month with projects, some ping-pong action, lots of lectures, and a few great conferences coming up (GEL, Art Center). Sorry for the lack in posting, but please keep sending in goods.
