Day Three – pictures and the first customer

Although the show was a quieter today we have had a stream of visitors to grab a hat and get their picture taken. We agreed our first sale of the gearomat to a data centre in Scandanavia, as well as having several serious discussions with other DC operators further south.

We also announced our Win a Hat competition – details at: http://gearomat.com/win-a-flexoptix-hat/ – tell us the Data Centre you would like to see a gearomat installed in.

Todays hat wearing photos section is followed by a selection of pictures from the Table Football match between flexOptix & Level One last night.

Pictures from Wednesday’s Table Soccer Tournament

 

Share

Is this the world’s biggest Android™ device ?

We have just been asked if this is the world’s biggest Android device ?

We think it might be – feedback and suggestions for bigger devices would interesting, please leave a message in the comments box.

Certainly wandering around CeBIT suggests that it is. Talking of which if anyone at CeBIT has a big Android sticker we could stick it one the box, Hall 12, Stand B77 if you want to drop one off.

Some facts about the machine – it weighs 350 kg, .8m x 1m x 2m high.

The world's largest Android™ device?

Share

End of Day One @ CeBIT

17:00

We have had a lot of visitors today – both customers and passers by. The reaction so far has been very positive.

Along with the visitors to the show we have had a lot of email from colleagues and customers looking for more information, including one correspondent who pointed out this thread on Nanog last year. I wonder why the specs discussed match the gearomat so closely :-)

Another question we have been asked is “Does the gearomat have an SKU?” The answer is of course, this is a shipping product not a concept car. The SKU is G-01-10, pricing is dependent on configuration.

Anyway time for beer & food so see you all tomorrow!

It's good bye from me & good bye from him...

 

Share

First day on the stand @ CeBIT2011

Everything was still working in the morning, as the first wave of visitors arrived.

IMAG0152

It has been non stop for Thomas for the last 2 and half hours, soon he will need some throat lozenges!

More later – including hopefully a photostream from the show.


Share

Truckin’ on Monday through Tuesday am

After a 3am finish the truck pulled up to take our gearomat to CeBIT.

The box is wrapped up in cardboard, covered with bubble wrap and moved down the hall to the loading bay on the other side of the building. Suddenly our corridor seems very empty without its steely presence.

The van reverses, drops the tail lift and we move onto the lift when a call of Stop! rings out. The van isn’t tall enough inside to fit the box. Two minutes with a craft knife later we squeeze into the truck – the top signage had already been removed so nothing was broken.

Of course we are running late, this is 10.30 we were meant to be loaded and away two hours ago. Both vans head north to Kassel, where they split, the small one to collect keys for the apartments we are staying in, again it is good to have friends you can call on at short notice like this.

Fabian has joined us for the week, so is getting the joys of driving the Astra van, whilst Fearghas updates the blog pictures.

The big van heads into the Messe to deliver the gearomat, last minute tuning and adjustments keep Thomas busy until 1am when he finally gets driven back to Hameln by Markus who has just finished sending the first batch of press announcements.

Tomorrow or rather later today it all starts again at 8am.

Share

First long-run Tests

The sustained testing of the shows a problem after a couple of hours continuous running, so Sascha come back in for a final round of bug squishing, leaving the machine to run over night.

 

Share

Interface Tests

 

The morning starts well by getting the DNS finally working properly for email, even if someone was hauled out of bed to fix it!

Sascha and George have been working together for the last 48 hours non-stop and we have a complete working system that operates the box.

 

Share

More milestones are met

 

Today was a good day, we have a working control unit and the user interface is finished.

Again another busy day of ‘visitors just passing by’ in the corridor as news spreads to the next door building about the blue box in the corridor.

 

 

Share

gearomat – Das große Geheimnis

Jetzt wird es ernst! Ihr fragt euch was der “gearomat ist”?

Dann lasst euch überraschen und besucht uns auf der CeBIT. Dort lüften wir das Geheimnis um unseren “gearomaten”…

Wir freuen uns über viele Besucher!

Share

Having friends to help is useful

Thomas arrived very late ( or early ) in Hannover to be a house guest for 8 hours, during which time he needed food and beer, all laid at very short notice.

9am Thomas arrives at the manufacturer to collect the case and the mechanical internals. “I was taken around the research and manufacturing facilities in Hannover, and introduced to the engineers who actually build these machines.

The Manufacturing Plant

We had a long discussion about our plans and their enthusiasm is almost as much as ours. Then I got an hour with the control engineer to learn how to make the mechanicals behave as want them to.

The Curly Mechanicals

“That was the easy part of the day, next we had to install the box into my little Astra van, it only needed three people and a forklift truck to lift it in. We would have needed a miracle to get the back door shut, so I was going to get plenty of winter air on the way back to Dietzenbach.

Forklift Truck & Open Doors

“Of course the weather took the opportunity to join in, with continuous heavy rain all the way back home. This is definitely not a recommended road trip…

Wide Open Doors

“Finally I got back to the office at 22:45, to be whisked away for food and beer, followed by a lift home since I didn’t want to drive ever again…”

 

 

Share