Just like last year, a few members (@jkuramot, @noelportugal, @YuhuaXie, Tony and myself) of @theappslab attended Kscope16 to run a Scavenger Hunt, speak and enjoy one of the premier events for Oracle developers. It was held in Chicago this time around, and here are my impressions.
Lori and Tony Blues
Since our Scavenger Hunt was quite a success the previous year, we were asked to run it again to spice up the conference a bit. This is the 4th time we ran the Scavenger Hunt (if you want to learn more about the game itself, check out Noel’s post on the mechanics) and by now it runs like a well-oiled machine. The competition was even fiercer than last year with a DJI Phantom at stake but in the end @alanarentsen prevailed, congratulations to Alan. @briandavidhorn was the runner up and walked away with an Amazon Echo and in 3rd place, @GoonerShre got a Raspberry Pi for his efforts.
Sam Hetchler and Noel engage in a very deep IoT discussion.
There were also consolation prizes for the next 12 places, they each got both a Google Chromcast and a Tile. All-in-all it was another very successful run of the Scavenger Hunt with over 170 participants and a lot of buzz surrounding the game, here’s a quote from one of the players:
“I would not have known so many things, and tried them out, if there were not a Scavenger Hunt. It is great.”
Better than Cats. We haven’t decided yet if we are running the Scavenger Hunt again next year, if we do, it will probably be in a different format; our brains are already racing.
Our team also had a few sessions, Noel talked broadly about OAUX, and I had a presentation about Developer Experience or DX. As is always the case at Kscope, the sessions are pretty much bi-directional, with the audience participating as you deliver your presentation. Some great questions were asked during my talk, and I even was able to record a few requirements for API Maker, a tool we are building for DX.
Judging by the participation of the attendees, there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm in the developer community for both API Maker and 1CSS, another tool we are creating for DX. As a result of the session, we have picked up a few contacts within Oracle which we will explore further to push these tools and get them out sooner rather than later.
In addition to all those activities, Raymond ran a preview of an IoT workshop we plan to replicate at OpenWorld and JavaOne this year. I won’t give away too much, but it involves a custom PCB.
The makings of our IoT workshop, coming to OOW and J1.
Unfortunately, my schedule (Scavenger Hunt, presentation) didn’t really allow me to attend any sessions but other members of our team attended a few, so I will let them talk about that. I did, however, get a chance to play some video games.
I really, really like video games.
And have some fun, as is customary at Kscope.
A traditional Chicago dog.
Cheers,
Mark.
Delicious, Mark!