Electromagnetic Field (festival)

Electromagnetic Field
Overhead view of Electromagnetic Field 2018
Statusactive
FrequencyBiennially
CountryEngland
InauguratedAugust 2012 (2012-08)
FounderJonty Wareing, Russ Garrett
Most recent30 May - 2 June 2024
Next eventTBA
Participants3000
Filing statusNot for profit
Websiteemfcamp.org

Electromagnetic Field (also known as EMF, or EMF Camp) is a camping festival in the UK, held every two years, for hackers, geeks, engineers and scientists.[1] It features talks and workshops covering a wide variety of topics.[2] EMF is a non-profit event run entirely by a team of volunteers.[3]

Attendees of EMF receive an electronic conference badge, funded by sponsorship, which in 2014 included an LCD screen, Arduino-compatible microcontroller, and a radio transceiver.[4]

History

[edit]
Electromagnetic Field 2014 at Night

The first Electromagnetic Field event was held in 2012 at Pineham in Milton Keynes, and completely sold out a 499-person capacity. Each tent at EMF 2012 was provided with power and the internet, via a 2.5 km direct microwave link to a data centre[5] which provided 370 Mbit/s[6] to the campsite. Over 50 speakers gave talks, including Ben Goldacre.[7]

In 2013, a smaller interim one-day event called Electromagnetic Wave was held in London on board the MS Stubnitz.[8]

The main event was held again in 2014 at Hounslow Hall Estate, Newton Longville (near Milton Keynes). Over 1,200 tickets were sold.[9] As with the 2012 event, internet was provided by a direct microwave link which provided 436 Mbit/s.[10] The entire event had over 100 talks, workshops and events with a separate track for children. Notable speakers included Tom Watson MP and Simon Singh.[11] In addition there were 45 'villages'[12] that ran their own workshops and events including silver smithing, wood turning and making stroopwafels.

The 2016 event was held on 5–7 August at Loseley Park, Guildford[13] with an attendance of over 1,600. The 1 Gbit/s internet connection was provided by fibre, and the on-site network had a 10 Gbit/s backbone.[14]

Since 2018, Electromagnetic Field has been held at Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Herefordshire.[15][16] The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,[17][18] but the event resumed in 2022.[19]

List of events

[edit]
No. Date Location Attendance Internet connection
1st 31 August – 2 September 2012[20] Pineham Park, Milton Keynes 499 370 Mbit/s (direct microwave link)
2nd 29-31 August 2014[21] Hounslow Hall Estate, Newton Longville, Milton Keynes > 1,200 436 Mbit/s (direct microwave link)
3rd 5-7 August 2016 Loseley Park, Guildford > 1,600 1 Gbit/s (fibre)
4th 31 August – 2 September 2018 Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire 2,500 1 Gbit/s (fibre)[22]
24-26 July 2020 (Cancelled) Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire
5th 2-5 June 2022 Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire[23]

2,800 [24]

1 Gbit/s (fibre)
6th 30 May - 2nd June 2024 Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire 3000 40 Gbit/s (fibre)

Badges

[edit]
Badges from the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2022 events
Tildagon badge from the 2024 event, with a hexpansion plugged in on top right

Each event, up to and including the 2024 event had a custom, programmable, battery-powered badge.

For the first event in 2012 the badge was named TiLDA, based on an ATMega 32U4 and was Arduino-compatible.

The 2014 badge (TiLDA MKe) was an Arduino Due-compatible badge. It was the first to come with an LCD, and all subsequent EMF badges included an LCD screen. It included Accelerometer and Gyroscope sensors, along with a long-range wireless transceiver.[25]

The 2016 badge was named TiLDA MK3, and dropped Arduino-compatibility for sake of Micropython. It was built around the STM32L4 microcontroller, and included a WiFi module, gyroscope and magnetometer.[26][27]

The 2018 badge (TiLDA MK4) included a SIM800 GSM module and T9 number keypad.[28]

The 2022 badge was renamed to TiDAL.[29] It was a badge in a USB-C thumbdrive format, with an LCD screen, a joystick, and various buttons.[30]

For 2024, the event debuted the Tildagon badge, planned to be used for all future events alongside hardware "hexpansion" boards. The Tildagon badge is based on an Espressif ESP32-S3 with 2MB of RAM and 8MB of storage.[31]

Synchronization with other events

[edit]

In the years when Electromagnetic Field does not occur, Chaos Communication Camp (in Germany) and one of the Hack-Tic hacker events (in the Netherlands) occur alternately.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Steadman, Ian (20 August 2012). "Inquisitive minds gather to camp out in the Electromagnetic Field". Wired. Archived from the original on 27 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  2. ^ "EMF Camp talks". Archived from the original on 7 September 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  3. ^ "Company Details - Electromagnetic Field". Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  4. ^ "Announcing TiLDA MKe, the incredible EMF 2014 camp badge". Electromagnetic Field Blog. 8 August 2014. Archived from the original on 6 June 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  5. ^ "Geek camp comes to Milton Keynes". BBC News. 31 August 2012. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  6. ^ "EMF Camp, the site and Networking". Electromagnetic Field Blog. 13 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  7. ^ "Electromagnetic Field 2012 - Electromagnetic Field". Archived from the original on 15 September 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  8. ^ "Electromagnetic Wave". 14 May 2013. Archived from the original on 14 May 2013.
  9. ^ Shaw, Dougal (2 September 2014). "Electromagnetic Field: Can geeks get kids into science?". BBC. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  10. ^ "Megabits to a farm: Getting Internet to a hacker camp". Electromagnetic Field Blog. 23 August 2014. Archived from the original on 6 June 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  11. ^ "Electromagnetic Field 2014 - Electromagnetic Field". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  12. ^ "Villages - Electromagnetic Field 2022". wiki.emfcamp.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  13. ^ @emfcamp (10 September 2015). "We're very excited to announce the date and location for EMF 2016" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  14. ^ "Electromagnetic Field - Network configuration" (PDF). 16 June 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023 – via GitHub.
  15. ^ @emfcamp (8 August 2017). "If you enjoyed #SHA2017, why not come to EMF 2018, Aug 31 - Sep 2, 2018 in the lovely west of England. More info soon" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  16. ^ @emfcamp (18 December 2017). "It's time to finally announce the location for EMF 2018: the lovely Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Herefordshire!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  17. ^ @emfcamp (22 May 2019). "We can now announce that Electromagnetic Field will return to Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire next year: July 24th-26th, 2020" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  18. ^ "Electromagnetic Field 2020 is cancelled". 25 March 2020. Archived from the original on 26 March 2020. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  19. ^ "Electromagnetic Field Returns: 2nd-5th June 2022". 3 June 2021. Archived from the original on 18 May 2023. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  20. ^ "EMF Camp 2012 - Nottinghack Wiki". Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  21. ^ "EMF Camp 2014 - Nottinghack Wiki". Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  22. ^ "Electromagnetic Field - Network configuration" (PDF). 16 June 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023 – via GitHub.
  23. ^ List, Jenny (5 July 2022). "Hacker Camps Post-Pandemic, Electromagnetic Field 2022". Hackaday. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  24. ^ "Event Management Plan" (PDF). GitHub. 14 May 2024.
  25. ^ "TiLDA MKe - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  26. ^ "TiLDA Mkπ: The Hackable Conference Badge That..." 23 June 2016. Archived from the original on 23 June 2016.
  27. ^ "TiLDA MK3 - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  28. ^ "TiLDA MK4 - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  29. ^ "TiDAL - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  30. ^ "TiDAL badge flyer" (PDF).
  31. ^ "Tildagon". tildagon.badge.emfcamp.org.
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52°02′20″N 2°22′37″W / 52.039°N 2.377°W / 52.039; -2.377

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