Prepare for Pi Day!
UPDATE: The Pi Day event listing is here.
With the date formatting used in the United States, 3/14 is considered Pi Day, so it’s a great excuse to get Raspberry Pi enthusiasts together to share what they do. Not only are we officially participating in Pi Day at SXSW in Austin, but we’d like to support and promote any kind of jams, bake-offs, user groups, showcases, or workshops that are taking place on March 14th throughout the United States.
There are a few events that are already confirmed and I’ll highlight them below. If you’re organizing a Raspberry Pi-focused Pi Day event that you’d like us to promote, please click here to submit your event information. We’ll do another blog post leading up to Pi Day — ahem — rounding up all the events happening across the country so that Raspberry Pi fans can find one near them.
Austin, TX
Members of the Raspberry Pi team (including Eben, Liz, Rachel, and yours truly) will have a stand at SX Create, which is part of the SXSW Interactive festival. We’ll have a few demos and hands on activities that we’re excited to share. We’ll also be surrounded by companies, products, and organizations all related to hacking and tinkering with technology. Even though we’re especially excited about Pi Day, we’ll be there for all of SX Create, which runs from March 13 to 15 and is free and open-to-the-public.
Bay Area, CA
Our friends at the absolutely fantastic Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA are planning a big Pi Day bash and they’re looking for Raspberry Pi projects to showcase. Here’s what they have to say about it:
We will be hosting a Raspberry Pi Maker Showcase from 3pm to 6pm. We are seeking out innovators who are interested in exhibiting their work and sharing their Pi creations with the community. If you are interested in exhibiting at the showcase, please sign up here.
Little Rock, AR
In Arkansas, a third annual bake-off will take place on March 14th at the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub. Organizers David J. Hinson and Tony Bates of Arkansas Geek Central had this to say:
Students, makers, and creatives are invited to bring their Raspberry Pi creations to compete for prizes, prestige, and most importantly bragging rights! In addition to the project competition, workshops and labs will be held for people just getting started with the Raspberry Pi, and for those interested in learning how to get the most out of their Raspberry Pi creations.
Visit their site for more information about this Pi Day event.
Your Event Here
If you’re planning a Pi Day event, let us know about it so that we can tell the rest of the Raspberry Pi community where they can find you. And if you’re excited about the prospect of bootstrapping your own Pi Day event, it’s not too late to start planning.
36 comments
Alex Bradbury
What are my Pi day plans I hear you ask? I was probably going to join in on the frivolity by tweeting something stuffy about how ISO 8601 is the one true date format. Don’t tell me I don’t know how to have fun.
paddyg
Alex, sadly the year 3141 isn’t destined to have 59 months so the iso 8601 pi day will not happen
Andy
Are you absolutely sure that some time in the next millenium we haven’t moved the Earth far enough out from the Sun (to mitigate global warming) that there won’t be that many months in the year?
AndrewS
I guess Alex would have to wait until 28th June, 31415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164 ?
By which time ISO 8601 will no doubt have been superseded by a different standard…
fnord
Agreed. I am always baffled by anyone who thinks not using ISO 8601 or the metric system is a reasonable thing to do.
John
Is anyone doing anything in Washington DC? Anyone else want to organize a meetup?
condew
We’ll have a Raspberry Jam in D.C. on February 28. Alas I do not think we could do another only 14 days later.
John
Hey Condew, what about a simple meetup somewhere in the area?
Tom West
Pi Day in the UK is the 31st April, of course.
John
Wow, why is that? Seriously?
John
OH wait! 31st of April. Or 31/4. Or 314. Or 3.14. What a strange and interesting land you live in . . .
Andy
Of course, Pi Day never actually comes in the UK
Liz Upton
Thank god for pancake day.
W. H. Heydt
(Hmmm….no reply tag for Liz, so I’ll do it at this level…)
Otherwise known as Shrove Tuesday? (And more familiar in the US by the Francophone equivalent, Mardi Gras, or even a derivative Latin version, Carne Vale, as Carnival.)
Liz Upton
That’s right. In England its formal name is Shrove Tuesday, but everybody calls it pancake day. I like our tradition better – I’d much rather have a nice plate of pancakes than have to do the things you have to do for beads…
Pluto
Actually in the US it’s called Fat Tuesday, but more commonly known as Mardi Gras.
bertwert
US date format is weird…
Month/Day/Year makes no sense,
Day/Month/Year is better!
Though I am Canadian :-)
Neil
Actually, this year is even better:
3/14/15 or “3.1415”.
To get any more digits you’ll have to travel back in time to 1593.
Pluto
You can pin down a specific time… 3/14/15 9:26:53.589
Archisman Panigrahi
Why not 22/7 ? 22nd July
Neil
That would be both rational and irrational.
JohnG_UK
Hear,Hear!
PI is something like 3.1415926536….
22/7 is 3.142857143…..
The error in using the latter is about 0.04%
W. H. Heydt
It’s even better this year than most. Given the penchant for only using the last 2 digits of the year (aka “the Y2K bug”), this year it’s 3/14/15. Next year is “better”, being 2/14/16, but this year it falls on a Saturday. (In 2016, it falls on Monday, which is not so convenient for most festivities.)
Shannon Spurling
I was just looking for a good day in early March to have a Jam. Asked my brother and a couple of other friends if the Saturday of the 14th would be good. My brother e-mails me back that it would be perfect because it’s Pi Day…. 3.1415… Boy I’m oblivious sometimes. I’m with Liz. Much rather have pancakes than trying to give away all those stupid beads. I’m an engineer by nature and degree.
Tony
My birthday is on Pi day, that makes me Pi guy I guess, maybe a Pi2 as a birthday gift? ;) hehehe
Cheers guys!!
Eric Olson
Hm… Isn’t Pi 2 day June 28?
Dustin
I wish ya’ll were there last year when I was in Austin for SXSW. Wish I could make it out this year. http://imgur.com/QBAt5Q9
Marc Sloan
Glad to see Hendrix leading the way in Arkansas!
Wish I lived closer to my Alma mater to attend.
Peter
Surely Pi day in the UK should be 22/7 {pi as a fraction}.
Timothy Clough
Is anybody else going to be celebrating 2015-02-21, the night they award the Golden Raspberry Awards? The Razzies, as they commonly known, are in recognition of the worst in film, and are (normally) presented the day before the Oscars.
Joseph Petek
We need some Pi Events in Colorado! Colorado is the best, but it is hard to find a get together like this locally. I am jealous!
Kika Derbyshire
It would nice to have a Pi event in Colorado.
Lorenzo
Once and for ever Pi Day is coming soon.
Limited Edition – Get this shirt & hoodie before it’s gone.
http://goo.gl/RHOLN9
Josh Krull
If you’re in the St. Louis, Missouri area we are holding a Jam downtown for Pi Day!
Tim Rowledge
The cool thing about being on the Pacific coast is that we are 8hrs behind UTC so 9:26 is a decent 1:26 in the afternoon. Thus the Makerspace Nanaimo event can begin at 3/14/15/9:26
Thank you, don’t forget to try the hotdish.
Greg Simerlink
The US Air Force Research Laboratory is helping to host a Pi Day Maker Faire in Dayton Ohio!