Since the time I declared Sawppy version 1.0 (mechanical maturity), I’ve been taking my rover out to various events. From casual social gatherings to large official events to presentation in front of others who might appreciate my project. Sawppy has been a great icebreaker for me to start talking with people about their interests, and sometimes this leads to even more events added to Sawppy’s event calendar. This coming week will be especially busy.

On Monday February 11th from 3pm-6:30pm Sawppy will be at Space Carnival, a FIRST Themed Event on Lincoln’s Birthday. Held at Expo Arts Center, a community space in Long Beach, CA. This event is organized by people behind local FIRST robotics teams. This year’s competition is titled “Destination: Deep Space” and has a very explicit space exploration angle to all the challenges. So even though Sawppy is nothing like a FIRST robotics competitor, an invitation was still extended to join the fun.

This event will be unique in that I had the option to be a roaming exhibit and I chose it for novelty. I think a rover who is roving will be much more engaging than a rover sitting on a table. It also means I will not be tied to a booth, so I could check out other exhibitors as I roam around with Sawppy. This eliminates the problem I had with Sawppy at DTLA Mini Maker Faire – I had to stay in one place for most of the event and couldn’t see what other people had brought.

On Wednesday February 13th Sawppy will join a STEAM Maker’s Fair at Brawerman East, a private elementary school. This is a small event catering to students and parents at the school. I believe the atmosphere will be similar to a school science fair, with exhibits of student projects. To augment these core exhibits, Sawppy and a few others were invited. The intent is to show that concepts covered in their on-campus Innovation Lab projects are just as applicable to bigger projects outside of their class.

And finally, on Thursday Februarh 14th Sawppy will be part of another SGVLUG presentation. A follow-up to the previous rover themed SGVLUG presentation, this will still set up background but will talk more about what has happened since our initial rover construction. This also serves as a practice run for a presentation to be given at Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE) next month.

(Cross-posted to NewScrewdriver.com)