Over this past weekend, Railscamp was held at Springbrook on the Gold Coast and around 80 Ruby on Rails/Erlang/Scala/iPhone/Delphi/Cobol programmers, Guitar Heroes & Werewolf-enthusiasts from Australia and New Zealand converged on Koonjewarre Accommodation & Activity Centre. This event was organised by the Brisbane Ruby on Rails Brigade with special mention going to Head Honcho Nigel Rausch and Server Gurus Ben Hoskings and Bo Jeanes, Documentation Gosu Jack Chen, Master Provider-of-power-adapter Paul O’Keefe and The Bringers of The Projector the Perth lads (Matt Lambie, Tony Issakov and Aaron Todd). It also would’ve not been possible without the help from other people who turned up and brought stuff with them such as Eskies, Werewolf Decks and poker chips.
What goes in to organising a Railscamp?
A lot of time, money and effort. Preparation for this camp was being done as early as February when the venue had to be chosen. Thankfully the venue had accommodation and a very large hall, as well as offered a catering service.
For the servers, many a late night were spent by Bo and Ben getting them running in peak condition with all the gems, plugins and even an (outdated) copy of Wikipedia. I helped too, with converting Gitorious over to something more similar to Github. Jack Chen also helped with SDoc which acted as our “google.com”.
There was also the matter of the Gold Coast - Springbrook road closure which happened due to a landslide which crushed the front of a car.
Paypal epically failed “The Doctor” Nic Williams as shown by this post on the google group. Eventually everything was resolved, but Paypal were jerks for putting Nic through that.
1st Choice at Mudgereebah was willing to do a delivery up the mountain of alcohol for a small fee, but we never used it. Instead there was a run done by myself and Oliver Barany on the Saturday afternoon.
There was a Ping Pong table and a few people expressed interest before the camp had even started.
Jason Crane (snapperwolf) provided the drugs caffeine for the campers in the form of a couple of large bags of coffee from 5 Senses Coffee, good on you Jason. Chris Herring (railsninja) supplied the grinder for the beans.
Bluebox group supplied free VPS hosting for a year to the value of $600 for 5 campers and Apress supplied two books “Practical Ruby Reporting” and “Linux for Mac Users”, a Railscamp first. Looking forward to their continual sponsorship.
The Good
- The food! There was Roast Beef, Pizza and lots more prepared by the owners of Koonjewarre and their crew!
- The amount of people, perfect for the venue and the camp. Lots of people to share ideas with.
- Beautiful & sunny 3/4 days (4th day wasn't important, everyone left at 9). This wet/cold day turned into a week, leading to flooding in SE Queensland
- Good to see that it wasn't a completely male-dominated camp like last-year's
- Having Guitar Hero way off gave the players the opportunity to crank it
- The projector screen made from paper in the Guitar Hero room
- Bonfire
- Ping pong table
- The uber-server which did just about everything but host Werewolf games (although I hear that's coming in v2)
- Werewolf! I ran a couple of games and participated in about 1/20th as many, but loved it!
The Bad
- Horrible over-the-phone skills from a member of staff from Gold Coast Point-to-Point. Very arrogant.
- Getting lost in Australia Fair carpark with trolley load of BBQ stuff
- Getting around those tables! Had to take the "long way" most of the time
- Getting the flu from someone at the camp, having the following 2 weeks off work
- Forgetting to bring earplugs to block out snorers (James Ottoway, Dr Nic Williams, myself)
The Ugly
- Nigel Rausch
See you all next time!