This is Gold Coast TechSpace's first makerthon. This event is strongly focused around the Pebble Smart Watch.

The event takes place over a month, with the opening and closing nights both held on the usual Wednesday night hack sessions at Gold Coast TechSpace. We have 3 rooms available for use - so we have plenty of space.

• 18th Feb, 6:30-9:30pm. Opening session. Pick projects & teams, assign roles, set up development environment, work out base architecture, do technology spikes.
• In-between time. Work on your project together. Make use of the TechSpace facilities if you are a member (or join if you aren't!). You may pivot your project once or twice during this time - have no fear! this is normal.
• 18th March, 6:30-9:30pm. Closing session. Check-in all code, push to appstore (if you wish), finalise project page, record video, submit, celebrate!
• Judging commences for a week, then winners are announced!

There will be pebble watches as prizes for the best creations, with more prizes in the works. Teams will be organised on the opening night and members are also welcome to prearrange things.

Full Address: Robina Community Centre, Level 2, San Antonio Court, Robina QLD 4226

Project Suggestions

Some ideas for projects that have already been suggested:

• Remote control for Skip's Primebot using accelerometer of the watch and the 4 buttons to do things such as move arms and make noise. Could also support other robots such as the Wombat, Ben's robot or the Arduino Car
• Active watch face with the surf report
• Watch face with the time of the next train to Brisbane on the face (based on your nearest station to your current location)
• Morse code communicaton between watches (with encryption!)
• Fishing rod sensor app
• Labyrinth Game
• School timetable (totally on-watch app for kids to organise school week, no mobile phone connection necessary for use)
• Lighting control. Use location and movement of watches in a room to make a Disco effect.
• Lego Mindstorms control (TechSpace have several kits available for use)
• Pong/Retro games control with pebble (using RPi and Mame etc)

More can be thought up on the night.

Pebble APIs

Some info on the Pebble APIs for those that are new to it. There are several choices, hopefully this helps:

• Pebble C Api - standard API for writing apps on watch, also used for watch faces
• simply.js - display text on phone using Javascript - provided in Cloud Pebble
• pebble.js - JS running on phone talking to standard C interpreter on the watch (similar to Johny-Five/Fermata on Arduino)
• PebbleKit JS - Add JS component to standard C app. Runs on phone
• PebbleKit Android - As above but native Android
• PebbleKit IOS - As above but native IOS
• Cloud Pebble - web based IDE - can create Pebble C, simply.js and pebble.js apps
• Cloud Pebble now includes an Emulator which means you can write pebble apps (limited to Pebble C and Pebble.js though) without a watch.

There is a lot more information on the Pebble Developer site.

What can you do with the watch?

The watch connects to a phone, so you get access to all the sensors of the phone, but the watch itself has a number of inputs and outputs

Input

• Light sensor
• 3D Accelerometer
• Compass/Magnetometer
• 4 buttons

Output

• Display (1.26-inch, 144 × 168 pixel e-paper display)
• Haptic feedback
• Backlight
• Charging light (not sure if this is software controllable)

You can also of course make use of the bluetooth (BT 4) to connect to devices (need clarification on if pebbles can connect to things other than phones)

You need to be here at Gold Coast TechSpace on 18th February to join a team and get started. We'll do as much as possible on the night, then you can go away for a month and work on your project. Please use the Gold Coast TechSpace facilities as much as possible if you are a member.

When we all come back a month later, finalise the project, make your video and submit your entry for judging!

• Pebble Watch Central
  Pebble watch is a central part to the project
• Technical challenge
  This is a technical hackathon, you are building something from scratch. Set yourself a challenge, learn something new, think big.
• Use of APIs
  To code for Pebble, you obviously need to use the Pebble APIs. However, Pebble comes into it's own when you use it with other external APIs eg. train timetables or open data sources. Extra points for this, but not essential.
• Teamwork
  Evidence that the team worked together well (yes this is a little difficult for remote judges to gauge, but hopefully they can get an idea of this from your video).
• All team members coded and used git
  We want everyone to code and practice using git by contributing something to the source. If people really feel they can't write some code of some sort, they can still contribute with icons, UI design, documentation etc.