Deciding to do OpenSauce was a very impulse driven decision. I really loved the first one last year in 2023 and was amazed at all of the wonderfully creative people that I met. So I knew I wanted to go again. But this time I decided to push myself a bit and try exhibiting some of my projects I have been working on for a long time.
This is going to be a bit of a different than my normal projects, but wanted to share my thoughts and experience. I have recently realized I have ADHD and started recognizing things and behaviors that make a bit more sense now.
Lead Up
It all started when I posted some updates to my Pieca camera project on Twitter (still not calling it X). One of the organizers saw it and suggested that I apply to exhibit. I was hooked, but I have never done anything like this before outside of a professional setting or school setting. So my anxiety started shooting up but I was also really excited at the opportunity.
When I got that exhibitor acceptance, it all started to become kinda real. I wanted to show off everything but realized that it would be better to keep on one theme. Looking back at the other booths during the event, they had maybe one or two stand alone projects or were a team of people. I decided to show off 3 of my projects at once, kinda a mistake but I will get to that later.
I decided a bit late in the process to make something brand new for the event as well. I had been actively mulling over the next iteration of the Pieca camera and decided to bite the bullet and build a whole new design for the convention.
The problem was I was really excited and wanted to show off to everyone. That dopamine hit sent me into overdrive pushing me to make something and consuming my attention, sometimes at the cost to my work but also at the cost to my well being and my personal responsibilities.
I designed, re-designed, and re-re-designed the mechanics for the pieca camera. Added whole new features, updated electronics components, and built whole new software. It was thrilling but also all consuming. I spent countless hours hyper fixated on a single goal.
As the event got closer that drive increased with the looming deadline, and I hadn’t even thought of how I was going to display my projects. Then as life does, when it rains it pours. The week before OpenSauce my partner had a family emergency and we were preparing to travel to LA. At the time my focus was split in 3 directions not to mention my day job. My brain would not let me put one aside, and all the while I could hear the ticking clock of the OpenSauce load in date.
Thankfully I had at least prepared someone to help me, a booth buddy. And boy was having help a god send at the event. Just that little time it takes to use the restroom or get food makes running a booth at an event difficult by yourself. He was amazing and gave me some time away to roam around to see others exhibits. So get yourself a buddy and bribe them with a free ticket if you are planning a booth next year!
I also didn’t think out my booth layout before the event, just wanted to have everything on the table. But I did manage to order a banner with my website and QR code. That was indispensable, it allowed me to point curious attendees to all of my other content online. I also had the benefit of my YouTube channel and the videos I had created on my projects. I used those as bait, playing locally downloaded versions on loop using my Macbook, iPad, and portable monitor. I then printed a few images of my work and the video thumbnails to help people learn about the projects.
Ok, so getting back to what I wanted to showoff. I have so many projects, it’s kinda insane that I have so many to choose from. Its like I am finally realizing that I have done a lot of work and produced things that people learn from and search every day. I finally whittled it down to three of my photography related projects to keep on theme with the pieca camera.
One was my iOS app 36Exp which is a film camera emulation app for the iPhone. I ended up showing this one off by having my old iPhone constantly running the app over the 3 days of the event. Showing off the different features in real time. Then people would walk by and see their image on the screen and want to see what it was about. I then had the youtube video playing, a printed picture of the thumbnail with a QR code to download. I also had printed out images taken using the app as references.
I had so many people love the images and were incredulous that they were shot on iPhone. I even a former publisher point one out that caught her eye which I am still processing haha. it was also cool to see people come up and after I gave the pitch would just immediately download it! I know it’s only $2 but really made me happy to see others enjoy something i have worked on enough to purchase it. I was also really surprised to how many people were shooting old film cameras at OpenSauce so I think I found a good audience.
That leads me to my second project which was my Infrared photography. I 3D printed a filter mount to attach to an off the shelf camera I figured it was a good candidate. Some people knew right away that the images were infrared but others were surprised at the other worldly appearance of the red foliage. This project used BW infrared film and a special 3D camera to produce infrared Tri-chromes. These are a combination of 3 images layered on top of one another in photoshop. This project resonated with a lot of photographers that have dabbled in film but I think it was a bit difficult to process for those outside of niche photography circles. I used my looping video to explaining the compositing process which I think helped considerably. The videos really came in clutch on thins one!
Ok and now to the main event, the Pieca camera. This is the one that most people were interested in and I spent the most time explaining and showing off. Because it uses the raspberry pi, 3d printing, and is a camera I think it hit almost anyone in the OpenSauce audience. I had updated the the mechanical design last year before Supercon but had not released any of the info because I just haven’t had the motivation or energy. But for OpenSauce I wanted to update the electronics to use the 1in sensor I was able to acquire. I will have more posts on details coming soon for the mechanical updates and electronics. But here I want to address the drive I had during the lead-up to the event and the response I got as a result.
I really put a lot of time into the update to raspberry pi 5 and more than a few iterations in cad and 3D printing. I spent a few weeks running long prints, testing fit and finish, assembling and re-assembling, integrating software, and much more. I felt a lot of pressure to get the thing running before the event and spent most of the day before applying finishing touches. Staying up late and loosing sleep. I poured my soul into it.
Thankfully I didn’t need to travel very far to get to the event or fly. But getting all of the tools, cables, power strip and power bricks still took time to organize. I threw all of it in a pelican case and some 3D printed prototypes in a file box. Then, along with my banner and desk mats, this would kinda be it.
There were a lot of other clerical things that needed to happen for agreeing to exhibit but they did a pretty good job communicating needs and kept everyone fairly informed through a handbook and a responsive discord. But I do wish there was more of a forum for next year so that commonly asked questions would be more visible.
Day 0 Friday and Load in and Party
This day flew by. I got everything packed up, backpack full of projects, and drove down to pick up my booth buddy that afternoon.
This year the event was going to be 4x as large as last year so they moved it from the SF Pier to the Cow Palace event center. I think this was a really good move. Way more space, easy parking for exhibitors, and a really cool main stage.
We parked up, got the badges and started loading in. I was in section A, right off the main stage, but after a few rearrangements and zip ties I had basically everything setup to go. I quickly realized I needed to have more printouts so that would be a task for that night, and that this would also be the only time I would get to see others projects. I was running around the place and got to see so many cool booths and had some really good talks with my fellow exhibitors.
To get the party started they had everyone clear the building and go through metal detectors. This was kinda stupid for the exhibitors as all of our stuff was already in the building… but I kinda understand it for process reasons and to limit the attendees to the party, which was only 2 per booth. But we were out in the sun and wind for like an hour.
Once we got inside we took our chance to buy some merch but I was quite disappointed that they didn’t have the embroidered sweatshirts from last year. We did get 20% off as exhibitors so that was a nice perk!
Food that night was some interesting Colombian hotdogs and there was beer that you could buy. the rest of the time was just exploring, chatting, and a bit more prep. At the end I packed up my expensive stuff, Macbook, iPad, iPhone, and Pieca cameras and left everything else for the next day.
It was fun but I was already loosing my voice from talking over the music. I came prepared with throat lozenges but this weekend I was already guaranteed to have voice issues. I then drove home and just went right to sleep.
Day 1 Saturday
it is go time! I woke up early so I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep, but I needed to print out the video thumbnails and infrared trichrome images. No fancy photo paper just regular paper seemed to produce good enough results. I also added a QR code to the 36Exp app image so people could download directly.
There was a bit of time set aside in the morning for the exhibitors to get ready and I used that to re-setup the computers, pieca camera, and iPhone app demo. Now ready to go I took the time to do a little video of my booth to get people interested because any later and my voice was going to be toast.
I met so many people interested about my projects it was quite amazing. I also got to meet some friends that I have interacted online but not in person. I don’t think I could remember or even express how wonderful it was to run the booth. But I basically didn’t have any time to explore other booths or listen to panel talks. I let my booth partner explore and experience OpenSauce but was thankful for food and bathroom break reprieves.
I had a long amazing talk with Will Whang the designer of the 1 inch Eye, a one in sensor module for raspberry pi 5 and CM4 module. This is the module that made me want to re-design the pieca camera. It makes using the 35mm lenses way easier as the crop factor is more reasonable.
I also got to meet Jeff Geerling and discussed everything from raspberry pi, sensors, cameras, film, and much more! it was kinda surreal given I have watched him on Youtube for a while now.
Another person that I didn’t expect to come by my booth was a Chad Capper from Flight Test all those years ago. I had a really cool discussion about my projects but also about how Flight Test kinda brought me into doing electronics and hobby projects and just a bit of reminiscing about the early days of that youtube channel that helped so many people.
There were even a few people that were so excited about the Pieca camera that they wanted to buy one, or kit, but I want it to be something that people can build themselves. So I’ll be spending some time to release build guides soon for anyone that takes on the task!
Thankfully almost everything worked the whole day. The 36Exp app on the iPhone X ran the whole time, just made the phone quite hot haha. The video looping on the macbook also worked without a problem. The Pieca camera only had a few issues, the pi 5 requires much more power at boot so it needs to be plugged in at boot otherwise it runs fine on battery. The OLED in the hybrid display also would not turn on, turned out it was a broken molex wire that I fixed for the second day.
By the end I was exhausted, my voice was almost gone even with constant lozenges. But when I got home I still had a massive drive to fix the hybrid viewfinder. I spent hours programming and reprogramming the oled focusing information but finally got it to work reliably and could finally sleep.
Day 2 Sunday and Pack out
Thankfully my voice recovered but was still pretty gone unfortunately so i’m sorry if it was harder to hear me on Sunday. My booth buddy also had to leave early in the afternoon so it was much harder to get away and had to mostly rely on my snacks for food. But I was able to roam around the booths for the first hour to get to investigate the other exhibitors I wanted to visit.
Some notable ones were Meshtastic, Portland space society, one pixel camera, Jon McMaster’s microscope booth. But I felt like a chicken with my head cut off running around through all the exhibit halls. I think I really lucked out being in the A section near the merch store, basically prime real estate!
This day was much more chill as everyone kinda got the lay of the land on the first day. That meant I had a bit more down time but was still pretty busy. By now I had the pitch down and was pretty good at doing a concise overview of my projects.
I also had a few people come back to the booth so I was able to show them the hybrid viewfinder and focus info. I’m amazed it worked so well but I still have a lot of updates to do for the Pi5 version of the pieca before it’s ready.
For the most part I still had lots of really cool discussions but I am having a bit harder time remembering everything and everyone. I really appreciated everyones curiosity even if they didn’t know anything going into our chats, I hope they came away at least learning something new.
By the last hour I was cooked, well done, just holding on. At that point I had been talking for 3 days straight and countless hours leading up working on the projects and code. I kept checking my phone as the time ticked down. I was spacing out but the energy of the room kept pulling me back. The cacophony of noise was like crackling electricity to the ears, it was quite a moving experience just to feel that. Everything all at once.
When the end call rang out I could feel this weight of anxiety drop from my shoulders. I took a minute to mentally transition before I had to start packing up all of my things. The pack up was pretty easy overall I just wish they would not have disabled the water filling machines immediately. I was pretty much on autopilot and going through the motions. I said my good byes to my booth neighbors and drove out and away.
Reflecting
IT WAS HARD! I am just realizing how difficult this was on me, mentally and physically, but it was also amazingly rewarding, exiting, and an overall wonderful opportunity I was lucky to experience. I kept thinking back to my college days especially my senior capstone engineering project. I drew so many parallels to it since my booth buddy was actually part of that experience as well.
The days I spent designing and testing, the booth setup and project presentation, and the hours of talking and explaining the details to people, it was eerily similar. But this time I did all these things by myself and with a full time job.
With all those things it was like I was transported back in time and I started to recognize the feelings of anxiety and the pull of my ADHD hyper focus that I was unaware of back in college. The drive to get the things to work and the tight deadline held my focus so tightly I could not pull away. I had trouble sleeping, trouble eating, and trouble doing anything else that was not in service to that goal.
The thing is I had so much fun and do want to do it again. But the next time I need to go into it with this awareness. I also want to limit my booth to one or two projects max. Talking through each separate one over and over weighed heavily on my poor vocal cords. It would also allow me to focus on one aspect instead of it being divided. I bit off more than which I could chew and I even wanted to exhibit more things than I did. Thankfully I had at least some awareness to keep to the theme of photography, and to those that would show well.
I also think having a second person that you have worked on the project with, or knows a lot about is a rally good idea. But just someone that can give a quick overview is pretty necessary. This means you can have a little time to step away, explore the convention, listen to talks, and see other exhibitors. This can be difficult as it is a big commitment but if you never reach out you will never know. So start making those connections, making friends, helping others, and go in person.
I think that I was very fortunate to get to exhibit at this years Open Sauce and it was very rewarding and validating to see all my hard work appreciated by not only attendees but by the very people I have looked up to in the maker community. I think the organizers have really hit on a magic formula. By inviting pillars of the youtube and maker community to share their wisdom in person and then adding people doing interesting projects to exhibit there is this kind of wild synergy. And in this share alike environment unusual creativity and whimsy can grow and be a source of joy.
One of the things I am learning about being a maker is that there is this deep joy in seeing others use the things you share and create. To see them take an object you have put into the world and use it as a source of their own enjoyment. It is what pushes me to share more and help people succeed in their desired endeavors. As always, I need to remember this feeling, and use it to help me squash those feelings of perfectionism and doubt that are all too common when sharing our work.
Start small, share, and give yourself some grace.
Gallery
Some more images of the event, there was just so much I don’t think anyone saw it all!
