What is dorkbot, exactly?

Each dorkbot is different and is driven by the needs and interests of people in the local community. Generally, the main goals of dorkbot are: to create an informal, friendly environment in which people can talk about the work they're doing and to foster discussion about that work; to help bring together people from different backgrounds who are interested in similar things; to give us all an opportunity to see the strange things our neighbors are doing with electricity. Dorkbot isn't always a forum for formal talks or lectures, but can serve as a chance for diverse people to have friendly conversations about interesting ideas.

The purpose of dorkbot is to:

Give people doing strange things an opportunity for informal peer review, establish a forum for the presentation of new art works/technology/software/hardware, help establish relationships and foster collaboration between people with various backgrounds and interests, give us all a chance to see the cool things that our neighbors are working on. Dorkbot is (or tries to be) totally neutral in regard to style/genre/scene. An emphasis on the creative use of electricity is all that is required.

Examples of presentation topics:

• A demo of the new motion tracking software you're writing.
• An explanation of how you hacked your game boy to get it to make cool bleeping noises.
• Showing off the new car PC you just built.
• Trouble shooting/brainstorming your remote-controlled sandwich.
• Making a robot.
• Discussing your technological philosophies.
• Bringing in some dancers you're working with and having them demonstrate the interface used in your new mind-control ballet.
• Discussing your approach to electronic sculpture.

Demos of commercial software are not appropriate, unless you wrote the software or you are making it do something particularly novel or interesting. On the other hand, presenting a piece of artwork that was created using commercial software is fine.

Meeting Format:

Dorkbot meetings are rather informal. There are usually two or three presentations (about 20-30 minutes each) per meeting and sometimes very short "lightning" presentations from audience members. The specific format is up to each organizer to decide. One thing to keep in mind is that the dorkbot format works best for informal, conversational presentations on a particular work or topic, rather than formal talks or lectures on a body of work. 30 minutes isn't much time, so focused presentations work best.