I made the journey up to Newcastle for the first Culture Grid Hack Day last Friday. It was held in the fine Vitorian Great Hall of the Discovery Museum. There were short presentations about the Culture Grid API and data and we had a few hours in the afternoon to pull something together.
I’m afraid I’m not very quick at hacking things, so I didn’t actually produce anything worthy of presenting at the show-and-tell, but there were some great ideas. My favourite was by @onion2k and @robkilby who put together a system for users to scan QR codes next to art exhibits in galleries or museums with their phones, and then they would be able to Tweet a link to the artwork’s info page on the relevant museum’s website. Although Chris hasn’t had time to write up the hack yet, you can see the basic app here.
Hacking in the Great Hall
A very enjoyable day, and big thanks to John Coburn for his organisation of the event, which went very smoothly – despite an interruption mid-afternoon for a fire alarm!
