Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend 2017
The Raspberry Pi Foundation and Code Club will soon be five years old, and we want you to join us at the beginning of March to help us celebrate. Tickets are on sale now!
This time we’re shaking things up a bit, with a new venue and a new format for the weekend. We’re still building on the huge successes of previous years’ parties, thanks to the invaluable support of our community members.
The celebration will be held at Cambridge Junction (a five-minute walk from Cambridge train station), on Saturday 4 March from 10:30am to 6:30pm, and on Sunday 5 March from 10:00am to 5:30pm. It will feature talks and workshops for which you can sign up, as well as drop-in sessions that allow you to get hands-on without the need to register, so there’s something for everyone. There will even be cupcakes and free goody bags for all partygoers! Tickets cost just £5 for over-16s, and under-16s go free.
The full exciting schedule for both days will go live in the new year, but in the meantime check out our events page for more details, including a form you can fill in if you’d like to be involved by running a workshop or talk, by volunteering as a marshal, or by helping out in other ways. We look forward to seeing you there!
34 comments
karan
YAAY!! Now that’s what I wanted !!
Dougie Lawson
Why under 16s? My currently 16 yr old still in full-time education gets to 17 a month early.
You can’t leave school at 16 now. So why are over 16s classed as adults?
Liz Upton
Sixteen-year old kids have a lot of rights and responsibilities that 15-year-olds don’t have. They can join the army, ride a moped, get legal aid, have a sexual relationship and get married. They can claim benefits, and earn the minimum wage. They can leave the parental home and live alone. We think it’s an appropriate place to draw the line. However you are supported, at 16 you can (or should be able to) start making decisions about how you allocate your funds.
Conversely, we recognise that a lot of people aged over 16 (and over 21) are on low incomes, or are in full-time education. But we have to draw a line somewhere, and, like many, many other organisations, we’ve chosen 16 in this instance. The tickets are very inexpensive (and actually cost considerably less than what you’ll come home with). Of course, whether or not you attend is up to you. And your son.
dalearn
+1! go Liz!
Frederick Vandenbosch
Ordered tickets for my wife and I, see you on Saturday!
Nick Young
Looking forward to meeting some many people for real.
Let us know about volunteering too.
Ed Bryan
Quick question! Are both days going to be the same or are there different workshops/talks over the whole weekend?
Alex Bate
They’ll be some similarities but the schedule, on the whole, will be different.
Ed Bryan
Okay, that sounds good. My son loves his pi and will enjoy both days!
Andy Batey
Do people who have volunteered to help on the days just not order any tickets for their free access or should we be doing something else?
Note that Firefox (at least 50.1.0 on Windows) does not show the ticket purchasing dialogue.
Chrome works fine.
Liz Upton
No, it’s free entry for volunteers, so we’ll be in touch! (And FireFox say they’re working on that – it’s a bug.)
Jonathan Pallant
D’oh. Bought tickets anyway! Can I give them back if I don’t need them, so that someone else can come?
Liz Upton
Drop events@raspberrypi.org a line, and we’ll see what we can do!
Olivia Robinson
Registered volunteers will receive free entry to the event. Those who have applied to volunteer will be contacted in the new year about the status of their application. If you are unsuccessful, we would still love to have you at the party, but you will have to buy your own ticket through the website. We do not expect tickets for the party to sell out before volunteers are contacted.
Any other questions please email events@raspberrypi.org
Alan Mc (Irish Framboise)
Woohoo. See you all there. Glad you’ll be there @Frederick & Mrs Vandenbosch ;o) Fabien (Code Club France), Babbage & I + the #CodeClubMobile will be crossing the Channel and heading up to Cambridge from France!
It’ll be my third party in a row and, if it’s anything like the previous years, I’d advise you all to get along to it too =o)
Frederick Vandenbosch
That’s great news Alan, looking forward to seeing you again! :D
Raspberry Pi Staff Jonic
Oh nice I can get Five Guys for tea! :D
Matt Sendorek
Ticket Ts&Cs say “No recording equipment – including cameras – may be brought into the venue.” – is that real?
Liz Upton
I’m 99% sure that’s not the case – the venue is often used for concerts, and I’m guessing that particular term is a hangover from that. I’ve asked our events folks to check tomorrow; and to ask the venue to alter the T&Cs for this party if that’s really their rule for everything! (We want you guys to be able to take video and pictures as much as any of you do; the depth of community coverage from the birthday party is a highlight of our year.)
Peter Harwood
I had trouble buying tickets on my iPhone, (something to do with cookie settings, I changed them but it still didn’t fix it). Any way, all ordered via the laptop. We’re really looking forward to it.
Liz, Great response to the question regarding the 16 year old above btw. The swag in the goodie bag is usually worth well over the cost of entry anyway.
Thanks to everyone who organises and helps out at these events, you are all very generous with your time and energy, it is much appreciated by my son and I. See you all there!! :)
Chas
Happy Birthday! And awesome offers. I love the Raspberry Pi so much :)
PS: I am typing this on a Raspberry Pi 3 :D
Randy Connelie
Why, yes – I *am* looking at spending US$1000 to celebrate a $35 computer.
How to justify this with my wife… :)
Liz Upton
Well, Cambridge is a beautiful, ancient, romantic city; how about a short vacation with a Raspberry Pi interlude?
Randy Connelie
It would make for a memorable anniversary trip!
Elfen
Should expand it to a international even like the Barnes & Noble event earlier this year. The R-Pi has been a Global Influence since it came out.
Mike T.
Sold out? Button to buy Tickets doesn’t seem to work..
Liz Upton
If you’re using Firefox, try a different browser!
JPW
I think you might have overloaded the “www.junction.co.uk” website :-)
Masafumi Ohta
Great! I now thinking of going there to see the event :)
Alex Stallman
Hello,
Any idea what sort of age groups of children the activities and events will appeal to? I would like to introduce my 5.5 y/o daughter to the joys of computing. She loves robots, rockets and anything Lego…
Ta,
Alex
Liz Upton
There will be plenty there that’ll appeal to somebody your daughter’s age – please bring her along!
Graeme
I’d loved to be there .. and bring the whole family (inc. 17, 15 & 13 yo) … but it’s a bit far to come from New Zealand!
:-)
Mukundan
No Saturday slots , see you on Saunday :-)
Angelo
I wish there was a greater community here in the USA that I could take my daughters (8,7,4) to something simular.
Personally from the electronic Bulletin Board era of dial-up peer host, I understand that there is a quiet community of techies that goes below radar. Harnessing the social networking of it seems key.
As a parent today I strive in introducing my children into Command Prompt style OS skills. I started with TRS-DOS with Basic on my tandy, now each of my daughters have a pi zero and share their skills with eachother on scratch and terminal running python scripts for their phats (rainbow, scroll, pi-glow, sense-hat).
Unfortunately not all public schools here are techy savoy enough to understand this value.
I wish my daughters could find a simular community experience like o had in the eBBS period of the 90’s.
We used to have software swapping (pirate parties) get togethers and such. Through a friend in this community in 94-95 did I install my first Linux. It was 16 1.44mb floppies and a 386-sx33mhz i had assembled with mostly used or second inventory parts.
This was around when the 486 & 80486 dx-66 mhz was introduced. I was around 14 by this time.
If it had not been for this community my interests & exposure would have been greatly limited. Hopefully as this new community grows we can hope for a simular influence.
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