Maker Faire report... and garden went berserk! (Patreon)

Berlin was stressful at first, but very rewarding at last.
The deadlines last week let me skip the night from Thursday to Friday all together. In the train to Berlin I was able to get 2h of sleep and started to prepare my presentation for the next day.... You heard right.. I didn't have anything at this point, yet. But I always did it like that and somehow came trough. In Berlin I stayed in a cheap Hostel (9€/night)close to the event and continued to prepare the presentation. At 3am I was so exhausted I couldn't continue anymore and went to sleep. At least I had prepared 43 slides with some pics and the text. It was sufficient but far from good at this point.

At 6 I woke up and couldn't sleep. Don't know why.. I was probably to tired to sleep anymore :-D
I started to prepare some short clips since it was all about multimedia. Went at 9 to the Maker Faire to check if I was even able to show video with sound at all. 

The organization wasn't that great. I didn't get much information upfront.. In January I was asked to bring some of my creations since there will be a YouTuber booth. Last week I did all the preparation to set up the game consoles, oscilloscope, bring the light saber and even sourced expensive replacement parts from Germany to get them shipped fast enough. Then two days before the event I wrote a mail that I'll need a m² for my exhibits. The email was bounced: Philip doesn't work there anymore. I mailed to another contact I had and got the reply: "There won't be a YouTuber area". I asked back: "Should I even bring my stuff then?" ... no reply. At this point I just thought: "screw you" I go by train and leave everything at home.  Even at the event I never met a responsible person (I guess they all have been busy) and didn't get a "thank you" for coming at my own expenses and giving the talk... Not that I would demand it the appreciation of the attendants is enough but it would be polite. They asked me to give the talk. Why should I bother next time?  ...just for a small impression of the organization. 

Back to the presentation day. I met the technician and was able to test video and sound. Everything was working. I sat down and continued to prepare the slides, cut some clips and add them to some slides.  Interestingly the day before I discovered that Libre Office Impress wasn't working in presentation mode, even after an update. Adobe PDF wasn't able to play the linked videos. But an installation of Open Office did the job :-)

10 mins before the first speaker was finished I was done with an OK state of the slides (still could have add some nice background images I prepared). My presentation was next. The theater filled a bit more. I would say it was around 40 people.. not a TED talk but still many interested viewers. I wasn't anxious at all... I never am when publicly speaking anymore. When hat to speak in front of the class in school I had almost shit my pants. But I learned that there is no reason to be afraid if you know what you are talking about .
I asked the people if anyone knows my channel and 2/3 did. This was surprising. I went on with my presentation 43 slides were too much for 30 minutes but I didn't like to skip a part. The presentation was more or less an overview of the multimedia capabilities I worked on since December. Everything with I²S and DACs. The gags landed, the people enjoyed and I got my applause. Was finished after 29 minutes with no rush and was able answer one question. ...I'll never learn my lesson preparing in time if it end up being so good.
There is no recording.. it was German anyways and I didn't show anything you didn't see in my videos already.

After that I met @DaveDarko and @TinyLEDMatrix which were super nice and they also introduced me to other people. There seem to be a Maker scene I wasn't aware of. Thankfully many of them already new my channel so it was easier to make friends. I also have been recognized by other people, some of them took selfies. Probably will never get used to this. I don't like to be treated like a celebrity. Many of them have built much more impressive stuff than me. 

The exhibition was quite similar to the one of the last year. Not much new stuff but it was really cool to see all the kids doing the workshops. It's really a super cool event to attend with kids. Probably many of them will get hooked and become the makers of tomorrow.

In the evening I met Christoph. He is a Patron from Berlin and we had a nice chat. Then we joined the other makers in a beer garden close by. It was nerdy and very enjoyable. @MayerMakes who was also there even recorded the evening https://youtu.be/x2SOeduGIjk .
Later we went to a root beer bar in the City. At this point I was a zombie already having like 5h of sleep in the past three days and some beers. Left at 11pm to be on time at the place of a friend I was sleeping that night. Too bad. Going there I even fell asleep in the train but didn't miss my stop....
The next day I had a super nice breakfast and went back to the event. Met some more nice makers. Had a chat with Andreas Hölldorfer. He made this 3D printed robot arms but stopped posting on his channel. Unfortunately missed to meet Homofaciens..

Monday my train was going back at 3pm so I had time to visit the self-driving bus at the EUREF Campus and relax a bit.

After arriving late at home I quickly watered the plants.  WTF.. the pumpkin plant went berserk. The next day I checked them again. Thankfully, the containers don't have a hole at the bottom yet to drain water and were able to store much for the hot weekend I was away. Some smaller pots were really dry and the sunflowers limp but they recovered a bit over night after the watering.

The yield was crazy. Apple sized radish! I also took on the fight against some pests. But that will be shown in a video...

And now back to editing...