About NodeBots Day

Nodebots day is a community oriented event aimed at bringing people together to play, learn and collaborate in the area of robotics hardware and programming.

NodeBots is about playing with technology and focussing on designers, developers and students who come from primarily a web background and get them playing with more physically oriented technologies. This is done through robotics because just about everyone loves building something that moves, but making a physical thing respond based on human interaction is a critical facet of the next generation of smart devices.

What do sponsors get out of sponsoring the event?

The main thing sponsors get is brand exposure to the community. All of our sponsors have presence in all communication about the event including:

• sign up pages and event pages
• official nodebots day website
• nodebots day international directory
• all email correspondence that goes out to participants which is approximately 5-8 communications ahead of the event and 2-3 afterwards.
• highlights during start of day briefing and finishing up show and tell / workshops

If desired, sponsors can have a table with materials on it at the event so participants can find out more. For those partners providing product / equipment for participants, we are also happy for partner staff to run sideline workshops for participants to learn more about how to use and play with those devices - though this is elective on the part of the participants.

Finally all sponsors are very welcome to send members of their team to the event so they too can participate in NodeBots day and hopefully bring back some of the event content to the sponsors business.

If you'd like to discuss sponsorship or partnership opportunities please get in touch with Andrew Fisher.

Why do we need sponsors?

Quite simply it's about cost. All mentors and organisers of the events work for free, giving up their time to organise and participate on the day, including funding their own travel interstate to do so. They also contribute their expertise in developing software, platforms and educational material for participants to learn with. All of this is made open source for the benefit of the community in Australia and internationally.

NodeBots events are intended to be run not for profit in order to provide access to anyone who wants to attend with no exclusions as a result of their ability to pay for the event or materials to use during the day.

To run these events, we need space, internet, some food and drink to keep people fuelled and equipment for participants to use. All of this has a cost and our sponsors help by either providing these things directly or by providing funds to go towards them.

We aim to run each event at nominal cost to the participants so that we can make them affordable for students, kids and members of the community who might not normally have access to work with robotics hardware.

We can't provide cash - what else can we do?

Here are the sorts of things we need with representative costs associated to each of them:

• food for participants and mentors to keep everyone going through the day (Approximately $500 at each location)
• space to operate in (between $1000-5000 for each location)
• wifi and equipment to locally mirror software that is needed so we are less reliant on internet (can be additional cost of up to $500 for a day)
• consumables - wire, fabrication stuff etc (approximately $250-$500 per location)
• kits - experimenter and robot kits to teach with which can be used ongoing. (Experimenter kits are $50 each and robotics kits are $100 each).

Our company makes X product - can we give them to your participants?

You sure can. Devices like the Spark Core and Parrot AR drones have been provided to other node bots days in order to generate interest within a community that will naturally hack on them and make them do interesting things. If you have a connected product and you want to see what people can do with them then there are a few options:

• bring some along and allow people to play with them during the day - maybe give a couple away for the neatest ideas done with them. NICTA and Ninja Blocks have done this before.
• provide one to everyone attending the day - this is a good way to get feedback on your product as well as people playing around building ways to interact with them
• provide a means of participants to get involved with a beta or discounted versions of Hyde product to make them more affordable.

Can I sponsor one location or all three?

For the NodeBots Day on 26 July we are looking for partners who can support us across all locations as we are trying to manage equipment / consumables collectively in order to get the best pricing due to volumes and lead times.

Having said that, if you are an organisation that is local to one of the event locations then we will be very glad of your support.

We are also looking for ongoing sponsorship partnerships for the other subsequent events we will be looking to run over the next 12 months in each location.

Previous sponsors.

Previous events would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors. These include:

Equipment

• NICTA - supplying educationally oriented electronics to teach with

Space

• Web Directions in Sydney, the York Butter Factory in Melbourne nod the State Library of Queensland all provided space and internet access to host events in those cities.

Other

• thoughtworks have financially supported Events in Melbourne and Brisbane that helped lower costs to participants.
• Melbourne and Brisbane community run hackerspaces contributed time, resources and equipment to help lower costs for fabricating components for participants.

More About NodeBots Day

As technology becomes more ubiquitous and networks become cheaper and more accessible, the number of smart devices available in our environments is going to skyrocket.

NodeBots Days are designed to be inclusive and welcoming environments where people can play, learn and experiment in a safe environment and collaborate with others of similar skill levels as well as learn from more experienced mentors, many of whom are working with this technology every day.

NodeBots day started as part of JSConf in the US in 2013 and spread around the world with the inaugural event in Australia being in Sydney as part of the 2013 International Nodebots Day in July. since then events have been held in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne as full days as well as hacker space workshops.

Over this time over 120 people have participated in a NodeBots event in Australia building everything from robotic arms, sumo bots, heart beat monitors and a multitude of other contraptions during these days.

In 2014 we are looking to increase the number of participants and for the first time will be running events concurrently in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney on July 26 2014 with well over 100 participants expected on that day alone.

We are also looking to establish ongoing local community events and meetup groups for people to continue on and share their knowledge with others. Finally, the goal is to expand the footprint of events to other cities and regional areas in Australia to make these events as accessible as possible.

Let's talk further

If you'd like to discuss sponsorship or partnership opportunities please get in touch with Andrew Fisher.