CampZone 2008: Preparations
It’s that time of the year again – the time of the year when people really get excited and start thinking about slowly gathering the first couple of things they need to take with them to Codemasters CampZone 2008 powered by Getronics PinkRoccade (but I’ll spare you – and my fingers – from that huge name from now on). For anyone that is not familiar with it, CampZone is a yearly LAN event which receives 1500 to 2000 visitors on a yearly basis, and it is not just your everyday LAN – it is one of the few, and definately the largest one that is not held within a building and lasts 11 days.
However, since once again I’ll be joining the construction crew this year, those preparations start way sooner, and managing a lot of stuff for a 15-headed group doesn’t exactly benefit my amount of free time. Over the last few weeks I’ve been arranging lots of stuff, and currently that stuff is eating up most the time I spend out of bed. Behind me is slowly gathering a rather huge-ish pile of things I need to transport with me one way or another, and it’s only going to grow two or three times as large as it is now up until Friday. Friday, the last things get packed, moved downstairs ready to be packed in 1 of the 2 cars (yes, due to the huge amount of stuff I’m actually brought to the location in two cars). Then Saturday around mid-day I will arrive on a then mostly empty field, which will be crowded with visitors less than a week later.
In this post I’ll show some of the things that I’ve been doing and making pictures of over the last two weeks, another post will be added prior to my departure. Due to the large number of pictures, press the read more link (or whatever it’s called, I havn’t used this function before yet).
T-Shirts
One of the first things that had to be ready were the shirts for everyone in our tent. Just like last year, we are having shirts printed, but due to the time needed to print that had to be finished relatively soon. Thanks to a little deal I got them at cost price (which comes down to about 5 euros a shirt),
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Partytent
Also, the partytent that we also had last year is coming along again. It’s useful to cook under, sit, or whatever, and it also serves as a sort of entrance to our main 96 square meters large army tent. I duckta ped the abbreviation of our group’s name, EMØ, on the roof in silvery-coloured tape, the effect is pretty cool because at day it’s barely visible and at night it becomes more and more clear. Combined with 2 300W lights that light it up from below it gives a pretty cool effect that can be seen from the other side of the field.
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Networking
Just like last year, I am arranging the network and the gigabit fiber uplink that goes along with it. Complete with over 85 meters of optical fiber, it’s a fun thing to do. The only issue with fiber is that you can’t bend it too much (or it may break) and you need to suspend it in the air (without putting letting the cable carry it’s own weight) so people can’t break it by stepping on to it/driving cars/whatever. Last year we had a sort of crappy solution to accomplish that, which changes this year. I bought some wood and constructed a 5 meter high ‘tower’ that can be taken apart and transported in 1.5-2m sections. Over the top goes a rope to carry the fiber (the rope going over the tent and fixed to the ground on the other side; the other end of the rope is fixed to a scaffold tower), the fiber is fixed to that rope (but again, in such a way that the fiber doesn’t get any tension on it).
Finally, a Paint (ftw) drawing of how this will work (yes, Dutch):
Beamer
Last year someone was able to borrow a beamer, but this year we were not that fortunate and we do want a beamer of course, so we decided to permanently solve that issue by buying one. The guy who sold it lives close to me, so I went to pick it up about a week and a half ago. It is sort of a fun thing to play with 
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Some more pictures are available in my photo album (link on the right), and more will be added soon. I will of course be taking plenty of pictures of construction, the event itself and of course breaking down (but I may not be able to upload those right away, I probably won’t have any internet access for the first couple of days).
Byez
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