I got up around 8 and took a quick run then headed back to the venue.. Many of the hackers had stayed up all night.. thye were making good progress I think . 

we had to do a little teaching on soldering safety after soemone melted through the solderign irons cord with their iron 

the venue was split in half, the other half was a gamign bar.. really a cool place 

Around lunctime.. my dear friend Rafe came by.. It was so great to see him.. it was fun showing him what I did for fun. Rafe is a mathematician (was the head of the math dep at stanford for many years) We had a good time comparing the ways that  math and engineering rech out to younger students. I think there’s much we can learn from the concept of ‘math circles’ that the math community has used for almost 100 years.. its an idea that came out of the soviet unioon for identifying early talent.. 

It was great hanging out with rafe.. we took a walk and got bon-mih and caught up.. he really is one of my oldest and dearest friends. 

then I was back in the grind at the hardware table. the thing I learned most was that I in handing out hardware, I got to hand out hardware advice.. I learned abotu each teams projects from start to finsh. I was so impressed with how much electronics many of these kids knew 

Late night I got out my musical tesla coil and hookediy up to the Vermein project that my freind  Va nan d I created several years ago (http://ibm.biz/veremin) /. that was good fun

at midnight we had a surprise birthday part for one of the kids who was turnign 18.. I played happy birthday on the tesla coil.. we had cake !

I stayed till about 2AM .. and when back to the hotel for sleep
so far so good !

 

nite all. nite sam
-me