Woa, bang, boom, yikes, aha! That about sums up my experience at Gadgetoff 2007. What a mind torching adventure with a surplus of surprises, ear wrenching explosions, curious minds, and a safari into a wonderful world of gadgets we all love to geek about! Everything from flame throwing bbq’s, rocket bikes, robotics on wheels, and hybrid cars roamed every corner while gaming devices, weird toys, numbing food items, interactive screens, musical instruments, and hot air balloons filled up the rest of this landscape of greatness with people from all ages and disciplines.

Gadgetoff’s spontaneous flow of events kept you on your feet, jumping from boats, to buildings, into a rustic railroad house, and a cool science museum while somehow getting us all to sit calmly in an auditorium for several intellectually stimulating lectures. We were a geek fest storming the town in fashion with electronics in every pocket, Segways leading the crowd, and individuals rifling with excitement on anything cool and usually out of the ordinary.

I’ll post a few pictures on my adventure after the jump with notes, otherwise, hit up Gadgetoff.com, their blog, or a bunch of their YouTube Videos thanks to Michael (co-founder)

I’ll post several snapshots throughout my day with some notes:

Entering the IAC buidling: A huge screen with what I’m guessing are users using CitySearch that very moment! A large digital globe welcomes visitors… a must for all soon future companies!

On the backside of the globes wall is an enormous tiled projection wall with Jeff Hans Media Mirror project! Dan introduces the crowd and gets Gadgetoff rolling! This space is packed full of nerds… I love it!

Diana Eng shows off her “Blogging in Motion” purse which blogged the entire conference…basically, it takes a picture every ten steps, and uploads the image with gps data onto Flickr or the Blog. You can see what her purse captured starting here.

Destination 1: Liberty State ParkTrain Station. Lots of hot air balloons waiting for us! Let the fun begin!

Segway’s leading the way, even the skateboard version…. I wonder how he turns? I really wanted to hop onto it, but never had the chance… boooo.

Cool, wooden bricks..very nice!

The Train Station! Very cool space.. perfect venue for all the robots, flames, and chaos.

BMW and their hydrogen car…with Exhaust water..get it 😉

The FabLab van. Kids making everything and anything from inside here. I wish I had this as a kid! It’s Mr Wizard at your front door basically, but with more stuff to blow up and mess around with.

A very geeky car. I’m sure the kids will love it. The drivers seat also had a night vision camera to play with…very neat!

I’m not sure what this is, but seems like a robotic spider of sorts… reminds me of Theo Jansen amazing creations at StrandBeest.

Solar Car!!!!

Dean Kamen’s wonderful FIRST organization came along with several kids to showoff their creations… what an awesome program..again. I wish I had this opportunity when I was younger.

Jeff Bezos rockin out the new Segway with a tilting handle bar to turn instead of turning a knob.

Keith being a nerd. A nerd using a nerdy iphone to take a picture of a thinkgeek shirt with a nerdy cool phrase “Bringing the Smart and the Useless Together” … then again, I’m taking a picture of this nerdy phenomenon.

Time for lunch! Bring out the Flame thrower and food! This is how a BBQ’s done at Gadgetoff!!!

oooo. what is this!

The Jet Bike…revving up…dang, it’s loud…. brooomm broomm…rumble rumble…BAHVRRRmmmmmmmm..rmmmmmm.. OMG this thing is crazy loud. It’s shaking the entire island! Holy crap! Covering the ears!

Cops: What on earth did I get myself into? Oh my!

Okie…time to head over the the museum…anyone want a lift in the TOMCAR!

I didn’t get a lift in the TOMCAR, but on the bus ride over, Bre Pettis from MAKEzine Weekend Projects strapped on his DIY Relaxation Goggle onto me. oooohhmmmmmm. ooohmmmmm. ooohhmmmm… relaxed after that ear wrenching jet bike!

At the Liberty Science Museum. A Gigantic Hoberman sphere slowly opens and closes above us. This one is HUGE..probably 15 feet wide.

Gagetoff’s founders (Mike Dubno, Dan Dubno, and Greg Harper) start off with their usual, “What in your bag’s” battle. I swear Greg always wins, but the Dubno’s always have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Very cool: Grading students based on their online ranking. If your projects rock, your traffic will skyrocket as does your grade. If it sucks, no one will link to you, and your grade will fail miserably!

Ah, the gaming VR ball. Hop inside, put on your VR helmet, and run like never before… yup, you’ll actually get tired running around in a virtual game. I saw this at NextFest last year. (much cooler picture about 3/4 down)

Jeff Han showing off his now $100,000 multi-touch wall. Dude, gimme!

Thermo changing drinks. We had to sign an NDA to get these drinks. I’m not sure if it was part of the experience, or if it was some experiment under testing and not really safe to drink….arghh, who cares…sign the documents, drink up!

This is what happens when a person made out of Legos falls over! ahh, he’s hollow inside! I thought he was solid.

Miracle Fruit powder. This stuff is amazing. It numbs your tongue for 15-20 minutes and makes anything you eat taste sweet. To demonstrate, we licked some kool-aid powder which was crazy bitter. Then we took this miracle powder and put it on our tongue for a few seconds which tasted like nothing. We tried the Kool-aid again, and it was mega sweet, as if pure sugar with flavor. We also shoved sliced lemons into our mouths and they were just as sweet! Mad cooool! Thanks Keith, though my wine was a dessert wine the rest of the evening. You can buy some here.

Robots! I think this ones is from MIT.

Bionic arms! This is either DEKA or Dr Kuikens work.

The Graffiti Research Lab was in attendance and set up one of their laser graffiti systems outside the museum. Some kids were playing around with it and the first thing they sprayed out was the word “Pee”. Kids, ya gotta love em.

The crazy loud rumbling Jet Bike blistered down the streets after hours at the museum parking lot! Seriously, this thing burned everything behind it and left rumbling echoes in everyones ears!

Dude!!!! OMG!!! Yikes!!!

Ahh, back to nyc. It seems so quiet here now. Back to normal…yar, I want more Gagetoff!

The Gadgetoff Giftbag. Tons of goodies.. my favorite was a Cruzer Contour 8 gig usb stick and some amazing pop-ups books by Sabuda & Reinhart.

WANT MORE… WATCH ALL THE LECTURES ON YOUTUBE HERE!

I”ll post a few cool ones here:

Steve Silverman 3D camera.

James Powderly & Evan Roth

Peter Menzel Photographer