Hey folks 👋

I had a booth at the Maker Faire Ruhr in Dortmund, and I want to tell you about it.

How did I end up there?

I read the German Make newsletter and at some point I saw, that they asked for exhibitors. I thought: "Why not show the PokyPow and Home Assistant?" I was an attendee there a couple of years ago and it was a fun crowd.

I filled out the application and a couple of weeks before the Maker Faire I got accepted!

Maker Faire Experience

My booth had a good location. People had to pass by in order to get into the big venue space.

My setup: A 10 Inch Rack, the top screen showed a Home Assistant dashboard that people could interact with. The lower screen was attached to a gaming PC. I basically built a Steam Machine with NixOS.

The system booted right up into Steam, and kids could play a couple of kid-friendly games I had preinstalled. While the kids played a game, I explained what the PokyPow does to the parents.

When they were done listening, people could hit that satisfying big red button, and my Home Assistant would print out a fresh flyer with a thermal printer. That was a nice gadget!

Conversations

Most of the time my booth was full with people. That was very taxing for my voice, but I guess it was a good sign!

People got attention because of a few things:

• The 10 inch rack was a magnet
• The touchscreen
• The 3D printed Home Assistant lamp
• The Recipe printer, printing a flyer for the PokyPow or a shopping list
• and especially for kids, the second screen with the my old XBOX 360 controllers

The sign said: PokyPow: Parental Control for the Gaming PC with Home Assistant

I saw kid around the age of 13-16 pushing their parents away 😅 Those were the people I called to my booth directly 😉

We talked about how Home Assistant could either create fixed schedules for kids to freely use the gaming PC or any kind of desktop PC. You could also configure Home Assistant to have some kind of PC time allowance. Either way is fine.

Parents, Games and Kids

Some kids were immediately drawn to the gaming PC and parents were not happy. With most of them I had a very thoughtful conversation and talked about the stigma of games. Then there was some genuine interest.

I had kid friendly, casual, fun games installed, mostly co-op, meaning you had to work together or against each other:

• Untitled Goose Game (Multi-player/Co-op)
• Moving Out (Multi-player/Co-op)
• Overcooked (Multi-player/Co-op)
• Boomerang Fu (Multi-player)
• Wanderburg (Single-player)
• Human Fall Flat (Multi-player/Co-op)

After seeing, that their own kids had to work together with 2 geese, without giving them any instruction, we had good conversations.

I for one believe, that most games on smart phones are garbage and have a lot of addictive gambling mechanics in them. Loot boxes, I am looking at you. It is not all of them and yes, there are PC games that have the same problem. The latest FIFA for example might get a 16+ rating because of that! A game about playing football ⚽
But there are way more quality games that are just fun and do not want to make kids into addicted lunatics on PC than on smartphones.

Bypassing the PokyPow

There was one very smart kid around who actually put Home Assistant in the home of his parents. I believe he was around 14? The parents had no idea about Home Assistant and he stuck around for a while and we had a great conversation! 🙂

• What if I cut power to the PokyPow?
  • You can notify that the device is offline.
• What if I remove the PokyPow?
  • Same, notify that the device is gone.
• What if I just remove the cables from the PokyPow, that it stays connected and then power on the PC?
  • You could trigger a notification from your router, that the PC is online. These days offline games are rare 😉

In the end:

You can not solve social problems with technology.

Should you go to the Maker Faire?

Yes, it is a great experience with kids! I think they need to be around 5ish, depending on your kid. There are a lot of kid-friendliy workshops, crazy things driving and flying around. Unfortunately, I do not have top many pictures, since I had to be on my booth the whole time.

What is the outcome of this event?

I learned, that the PokyPow was reliable. That made me very happy.

I could build a small demo setup in the 10 inch rack relatively quickly. It looked decent and people were very interested about that setup.

I got a few contacts. One invitation to be at the Maker Faire Hannover. Still thinking about it.
Second, the German Make magazine was interested about an article. Let's see, if that will work out. No biggie if not.

If you are interested in the 10 inch rack build let me know via the comments. I will write up that in a later post.

Have a great rest of your day!