Today the first Nodebots Day took place worldwide! Portland held its own event here at the old Urban Airship garage space. With the garage door wide open and the glorious day gleaming daylight into the garage 50+ hardware and coding beginners, learners, coders and hackers of all backgrounds came together. Breadboards were wired up, code was slung, robots moved and twitched to life.
This all started with a super quick organizing effort by some local JavaScript hackers to join the worldwide Nodebots Day (check the repo for infoz). After a meet, some sponsors jumping to our aid, and some hustle by some great people, the event in Portland came together. The turnout was great!


My Own Robot Battle
Oh dear, I was dead zonked when I arrived. It’s been a super long and hard week. I’ve had deadlines to meet, code to write and OSCON to attend, needless to say that leaves basically a few hours each night of the last week to actually recharge. Things were definitely catching up with me… and I’ll admit I made almost zero progress, however I was super excited to see what many others accomplished!
There was the quad copter that Carter @CarterRabasa got up and flying with some aerobatic acrobatic flips.
There was an erector set wheeled robot that was primed for deployment. Nothing like combining the quality and build endurance of erector set gear with that of modern machine and robot automation for fun!

Troy @thoward37 was building a walking bot for world domination… which if he didn’t finish it after my departure I’m looking forward to see it walking and doing full auto-deploy in the near future.


There was musical linkages being made to device and computer alike. With code combining to form knew methods of interaction between device, human and music.
Along with these bots there was much progress among breadboards laced with ideas and blinking LEDs amidst us all. I do believe everybody had a blast and learned a lot.



Johnny 5 and I say “THANKS AND HIGH FIVES!!!”
A huge thanks to so many, I might have missed a few people, apologies (and let me know, I’ll add you to the list of thanks!!) — and also, thanks to EVERYBODY who came out and worked and learned about robots!
Also if anybody has any questions about robots, javascript, node.js, robots in Portland, Portland Bridges or the event or about coming to Portland to hack, code, beer, food or just move here. Let me know and I’ll be more than happy to hook you up with appropriate resources! Peace!
- @HackyGoLucky – Cuz yeah, you kicked some ass and herded all us cats together for this! Thanks Tracy!
- @nexxylove – Thanks for the code repo o’ lights! I’m sure you enjoyed San Francisco, we missed you in Portland! We’ll hack when you’re back!
- @BlaineBublitz – Welcome to Portland again, thanks for traveling into town! I’ll ping you next I’m in Phoenix and we’ll hack the light rail. 😉
- @s5fs – Yo, ok, you just front loaded my cortex full of ideas on that last brunch convo. Thanks for helping, being kick ass, and coming out to Nodebots day!
- @nickniemeir – Thanks for coming up to Nodebots day PDX!
- @thoward37 – What did you do again? You keep showing up everywhere… are you a robot?
- @CarterRabasa – Thanks for coming down to the Stumptown from the Emerald City.
- @_jden – Yo, Palo Alto to bridge city (another PDX nick name)… welcome back to PDX and to the future with our Robot Overlords!
Resources:
- More photos of the event. Also above you can click on most of the images for a full size copy.
- Nodebots
- International Node Day
- Nodebots Github Repo
- @nodebot on Twitter
- Rise of the JS Robots
Wow, that looks like a great time Adron, thanks for sharing!
This is wonderful, thanks for posting <3