Nordcon 2019

Seit 1997 bin ich eigentlich fast jedes Jahr auf dem Nordcon. Da ich Mitglied eines der veranstaltenden Vereine bin, meistens auch in irgendwie aktiver Rolle — beim ersten Con hab ich spontan Tische getragen und am Infostand ausgeholfen, danach einige Jahre die Spielrunden verwaltet oder sonst irgendwie mitgeholfen. 

Später kam dann eine Zeit lang der Job und anderes Privatleben dazwischen, doch seit mindestens 8 Jahren bin ich dank der Zombiecalypse wieder voll dabei.

Insofern verbinde ich mit dem Nordcon mehr als nur einige schöne Erinnerungen: Man ahnt gar nicht, was es für eine Freude ist, Freitag nachmittags auf dem Gelände einzutrudeln und von lauter bekannten Gesichtern freudig begrüßt zu werden. Zu sehen, wie Fans teils weit her anreisen und dann auf dem Con ihren Spaß haben. Mitzubangen, ob die Besucherzahlen auch dieses Jahr wieder ausreichend — oder gar gestiegen sind!

Dieses Jahr konnten mich also keine 20 Pferde vom Con weghalten, auch nicht die (inzwischen verblasste) Erinnerung an meinen ausgekugelten Ellenbogen vom letzten Jahr. (Pro-Tipp: Wenn Ihr vor Zombies weglauft — tut das nicht auf Socken!)

Natürlich bekomme ich oben im Gym der Zombiecalypse immer eher wenig vom Con mit, aber für einen kurzen Schnack mit den Uhrwerkern in ihrem Zelt, einem Abstecher zur LARP-Wiese und einer Stippvisite bei der Händlergasse reichte es dennoch.

Die besondere Premiere wäre mir dieses Jahr allerdings fast entgangen, hätte mich Janny nicht (zurecht) stolz darauf hingewiesen: Die letzte Seite des Programmheftes enthält erstmal einen ausformulierten und durchdachten Verhaltenscodex! Insbesondere freue ich mich, dass dieser Kodex nicht von außen in den Con hereingetragen werden musste, sondern dass das Orgateam selbst den Wunsch dazu verspürte. 

Eine erste Rückfrage bei Janny nach dem Con ergab übrigens, dass der Con wie gewohnt ohne derartige Zwischenfälle abgelaufen ist. Bislang war dem meines Wissens nach übrigens immer so — aber es ist schön zu wissen, dass das Team für den Fall des Falles vorbereitet ist.

(Für körperliche Missgeschicke ist das ja schon länger der Fall. Die freundlichen freiwilligen Ersthelfer auf dem Con sind wirklich kompetent und bei einem Unfall in Windeseile zur Stelle!)

Dennoch: Ich bin jedes Jahr wieder begeistert, wie bunt und vielfältig der Nordcon geworden ist. In den 90ern konnte man vor dunkeldysteren Goth-Jünglinge (und solche, die es gerne wieder wären) kaum noch die nächste Wand sehen — heute gibt es eine breite Vielfalt an Gewandungen, aber eben auch Leute aller Altersgruppen, aller Geschlechter, Menschen die sich neu ausprobieren, und auch solche, die ihre Rolle schon vor über 20 Jahren gefunden haben. 

Alle diese Menschen fühlen sich auf dem Con sicher genug, sich selbst zu sein, und an keiner Stelle habe ich Leute lästern gehört. Und genau deswegen konnte ich mir am Ende den Schlußsatz nach dem Coverposing-Wettbewerb auch nicht mehr verkneifen :)

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Der Coverposing Wettbewerb 2019

Visiting the Kodama office

Let’s start with some context: I’m a Kickstarter backer for the Kodama Obsidian 3D printer. The thing is long overdue, as so often happens for hardware crowdfunding campaigns. The backer communication was spotty at best, but two weeks ago, CEO Michael Husmann started posting video updates where he gave an apology for all the delays and promised more regular updates for the future. So far, that promise holds, and I also had an opportunity to do a quick visit of the Kodama office in Berlin. 

The office is as tiny as the Kickstarter Update video shows: One room in a coworking space, crammed full with four desks and a shelf holding 3D-printers and parts. There are printers on the desks too!

me (on the right) and the Kodama Berlin team

So, right from the outset: Kodama is definitely an existing company, and I do believe they are working hard on finishing and delivering a 3D printer. 

The Furling situation clearly doesn’t sit easy with the Kodama team, and I can’t say how things exactly broke down, and right now, I also don’t care.

In the end, the situation is as it is: Kodama had to transition from „marketing, product management & fulfilment company with a trusted partner to develop and oversee production“ to „do everything on your own and from scratch“. That is a major pivot with a very steep learning curve.

So yes, they did burn more money than planned when calculating the Kickstarter, but Chris and Michael reassured me that they do have the funds to finish production and ship everything. There’s still revenue from the Trinus coming in for example, and they are also releasing a new Trinus version soonish.

Having to switch their sourcing agent in China didn’t help the schedule either, but the new agent seems a lot more helpful and active.

The Obsidian without housing, but with the penultimate version of the PCB. The build bed is a BuildTak metal sheet (covered in blue tape here) that is magnetically attached to the platform. 

Nonetheless: I saw a working printer prototype, and the team obviously understands the machine down to every detail. They know exactly which parts will end up in the production model, and are in the process of reviewing all the sourcing offers for them. 

A thing that I didn’t exactly realize until today was that they won’t use the standard nozzle/heatbreak system that you for example find at Ender type of printers. Instead the nozzle will be in a proprietary form-factor and being held by a quick-release system, so you can exchange it quite easily. Might be old information to some, but I didn’t know :)

I also quite like the quick-clamp mechanism on the bowden feeder. My current printer is a CR-10S, and the one on the Obsidian looks&feels a lot more finger-friendly!

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The printer in action

The PCB has iterated a few times and as of Tuesday, they were eagerly waiting for the courier service to deliver the latest version. The one before had minor electrical noise, easily fixed. If that one tests out fine, they’ll have the golden sample and the PCB can go into production.

But other things are in a bit of flux: The LCD UI isn’t done yet, the app is still being worked on, and most of the parts that comprise the Plus and Deluxe versions are not final yet either.

When I asked for status on the sourcing, I got an exhaustive run-on-sentence answer on how they do it, what kind of things are on the desk right now, and that things are progressing, and so on. What I wanted to see though was a simple burndown chart: We need X parts, have sourced Y, which leaves us with Z. Once we have everything, we need to do steps A. B, and C.

They obviously do know what they need to do and what the status of all these things is. But they don’t have them in a simple list where they can cross them off. Because no one has the time to make that list. 

It’s something I recognize as similar to what I’ve seen as an consultant when I was visiting overworked IT departments: They know they have a ton of work ahead of it, and so many people feeling let down and being impatient, they just hunker down and get crunching, pulling ever-longer hours and digging down ever-deeper, never actually getting the breathing room to implement the things that make work easier or faster.

So, when I mentioned that burndown chart, I think I accidentally broke through the fog: Michael immediately understood what I meant, and why it is obviously something they need, so we should hopefully see that in the next Kickstarter update.

To summarize: Those are passionate folks who really want to deliver what was promised. They are fighting an uphill battle. This is partly due to things that happened outside their control, and partly because there were probably some overly optimistic assumptions when starting the Kickstarter campaign. 

But they seem to have all the things they need to finish this. As to the when — I am no hardware production person, so I can’t comment on that. But I also understand Michaels reluctance to give any sort of specific timeline after having overpromised one time too many.

Still, I’m pretty positive that I will have my own Obsidian Deluxe eventually. To say it with 3D Realms iconic words: „When it’s done!“

Disclosure: This post would have included ramifications on an idea that a few backers voiced on the Obsidian Creatives Facebook group. Everyone at Kodama seemed pretty excited about it, as it would help avoid delivery delays for a portion of backers. Alas, that idea might very well not work due to technical restrictions, and Chris and Michael asked me to not get anyone’s hopes up, until at least they’ve cleared the unknowns on this. I think that is fair enough, so I leave that part out.

Darth Poppins, here we come…

Last year, on a whim, I backed the Rainsaber on Kickstarter:

https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​c​P​K​1​D​z​c​3​tYY

Then, while waiting through the inevitable Kickstarter Project delivery delay, we watched Mary Poppins Returns — a movie that is sort of ok, but Emily Blunt ain’t Julie Andrews, sorry.

Anyway, while watching the movie, we riffed around the title, and ended up saying that it being the second movie, it should’ve been called „Mary Poppins Strikes Back“. And then I mentioned off-handedly that we’re getting a lightsaber umbrella kinda soon…

Your parents lied to you… I am your nanny!

Darth Poppins

So, with Nordcon coming up in June, and the saber hopefully arriving before that, we’re working on a Darth Poppins Cosplay. It’ll revolve around the umbrella, and of course it’ll need the correct pommel.

Thankfully, Ben was game and sent me the 3D file for the pommel cap:

And with some 3D builder magic, this emerged from my printer:

Spit Spot, this death star won’t built itself you know!

The parrot head was a bit more challenging though. The first try came out WAY too big:

(yes, that is 14cm width. Basically impossible to hold comfortably.)

I tinkered a bit more, and now got it down to a comfortable size, it just needs painting and, of course, the actual saber. In the meantime, the girlfriend needs to do the sewing for the actual costume, but that’s not my department anymore.. :D

Use the force, choke them, the lads.
choke them, choke them, choke them, the lads.