Presentations for kids and social clubs?

merryoncherry

merryoncherry

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Cherry St., Hudson MA USA
I've been informally asked to come talk to an elementary school class, and the local Rotary club, to say a bit about the lights.
Has anyone done this?/Would you do it? What would you talk about / bring for show-and-tell/etc.?
I have some ideas, but it seems really easy to get too nerdy and boring for these crowds too quickly...
 
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I personally haven't done this but things that may be of interest, targeted towards the appropriate age group. But yes don't get caught in rabbit hole, stick to high level unless specific questions are asked.

1. High level overview
2. Sequencing, how is synchronised
3. How you promote/avoid traffic/etc
4. How you come up with ideas
5. Talk about the social/global community aspect of it, such as ACL, the minis, zoom room, etc

Then the show and tell could be a little hands on demo even.
I'd suggest a smaller prop that's easy to transport, basic controller and just using output to lights from xLights. Let the kids/adults play with the sequencer and see what they can make your prop do by clicking buttons.
 
I'd be interested to hear how you go. I've been roped in to talk to the local PROBUS club (think: Rotary) although I think most of their outing was actually just looking at my lights in December and the "talk" bit wasn't much.
 
I'm going to be the negative in the room.

It's really hard presenting to a group of people that are interested in lights and music much less just being a single act that "looks fun". What's the presentation length 5, 10, 20 minutes? I think you will be hard pressed to keeps peoples attention after 10 minutes. It's be hard to not go too quickly and skimp over things to being too nerdy and discussing too many details. How many people say they want to get into this hobby just to decid3e it is too much work. I'm not sure there will be enough return on your time that you spending putting it together, prepare, presenting and getting back home. Even before you start you would have invested hours of your own time.

Not even will be an jerk like me but I have a certain amount of value for my time. Is this also the right amount of time for you to be spending a minimum of 5 hours on a side presentation? The two different groups have vastly different interests and age groups so would require adjustments for each.

I'd thank them for the request, let them know you are flattered but due to some other commitments not available at this time of year. Maybe around Spring might be a better time?

If you are doing this to help advertise and promote your show and charities, that is a different story.
 
A friend of mine has done a walk-through of his display for the kids in his neighborhood and they LOVE anything they can do that interacts with the display. He would just pull up a test page on his tablet and select a prop, then let them tap to light it up and change the color, and they were ecstatic. A lot of the parents really liked seeing just how everything is connected and the amount of hardware it takes.

Rick Harris had a singing bulb hooked to an F-Prop at our mini that he'd modified a toy want to activate (via IR sensor), people really liked that, as well. If you're going to do multiple presentations, it might be worth building something like that and taking it with you.

Personally, I think I would open with an xLights Around the World video and talk about how many people all over the world are almost as crazy as we are. I would also run the sequence on some props I'd bring while the video runs. I feel like one singing prop and maybe a couple of your new mini trees are all I'd bring; you don't want to have to spend hours setting up and taking down. You can then show them a controller and the wiring, and maybe get them involved, even if you just have them call out colors and you can change them to those colors.
 
Indigogyre said:
Not even will be an jerk like me but I have a certain amount of value for my time. Is this also the right amount of time for you to be spending a minimum of 5 hours on a side presentation? The two different groups have vastly different interests and age groups so would require adjustments for each.
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I think that's a great point. I'm not thinking a slide presentation would be a good bet for either group, certainly not just slides... though I do have some fun images to go with fun stories. If there aren't good ideas that I think would play, then no, not a good idea to waste everyone's time, mine and theirs. I should get some sense of the expected length. I don't think any of them have any intention of getting into the hobby, they're just curious people.

Videos may be good. Maybe the kids want to know what kind of hamburger Ray Wu likes. Stay in school or you'll be working in his factory putting epoxy in shells, kids. Look, there are all these other cool displays out there.

I don't have an F-Prop. Maybe I could get one, but I think the Baldrick is small enough to use and has button hookups, or I have Pis with 2 outputs here and button inputs.

Kids might just want 5 minutes to poke at a button and then have a piece of candy. Shorter must certainly be better unless there are questions.

I don't think I can make my yard the venue, though giving a tour to whoever shows up for a tour is a possibility. If I take questions, I'm sure people will ask where I keep it all, a picture is worth a thousand words on something like that.

I'm wondering if the sequencer with all the effects on it, or the 3D layout / preview make sense and answer a lot of questions for a few people very quickly, without being too boring for too long for the rest. Etc. A few seconds to show it, I don't think hands on is likely.
 
The main thing to be would be to educate them early that 5V pixels are much better than 12V ;)
If anyone asked me to talk Christmas lighting I'd be all over it. I'd rather a short talk followed by questions rather than a long one.
 
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