Electromagnetic Field (also known as EMF, or EMF Camp) is a camping festival in the UK, held every two years, for hackers, geeks,

engineers Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while consider ...

and

scientists A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature ...

. It features talks and workshops covering a wide variety of topics. EMF is a non-profit event run entirely by a team of volunteers. Attendees of EMF receive an electronic conference badge, funded by sponsorship, which in 2014 included an LCD screen,

Arduino Arduino () is an Italian open-source hardware and open-source software, software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardwar ...

-compatible microcontroller, and a radio transceiver.

History

The first Electromagnetic Field event was held in 2012 at Pineham in

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...

, 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 which provided 370 Mbit/s to the campsite. Over 50 speakers gave talks, including Ben Goldacre. In 2013, a smaller interim one-day event called Electromagnetic Wave was held in London on board the MS Stubnitz. The main event was held again in 2014 at Hounslow Hall Estate, Newton Longville (near

). Over 1,200 tickets were sold. As with the 2012 event, internet was provided by a direct microwave link which provided 436 Mbit/s. 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. In addition there were 45 'villages' that ran their own workshops and events including silver smithing, wood turning and making

stroopwafel A ''stroopwafel'' (; ) is a thin, round cookie made from two layers of sweet baked dough held together by syrup filling.

s. The 2016 event was held on 5–7 August at Loseley Park, Guildford 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. Since 2018, Electromagnetic Field has been held at Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Herefordshire. The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, but the event resumed in 2022.

List of events

Badges

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 An accelerometer is a device that measures the proper acceleration of an object. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change (mathematics), rate of change of velocity) of the object relative to an observer who is in free fall (tha ...

and

Gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining Orientation (geometry), orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in ...

sensors, along with a long-range wireless transceiver. The 2016 badge was named TiLDA MK3, and dropped Arduino-compatibility for sake of

Micropython MicroPython is a software implementation of a programming language largely compatible with Python 3, written in C, that is optimized to run on a microcontroller. MicroPython consists of a Python compiler to bytecode and a runtime interpreter o ...

. It was built around the STM32L4 microcontroller, and included a WiFi module,

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining Orientation (geometry), orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in ...

and

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...

. The 2018 badge (TiLDA MK4) included a SIM800 GSM module and T9 number keypad. The 2022 badge was renamed to TiDAL. It was a badge in a USB-C thumbdrive format, with an LCD screen, a joystick, and various buttons. 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.

Synchronization with other events

In the years when Electromagnetic Field does not occur, Chaos Communication Camp (in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

) and one of the Hack-Tic hacker events (in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

) occur alternately.

References

External links

Official websiteRecordings of talks from 2014Recordings of talks from 2016Recordings of talks from 2018Recordings of talks from 20222012 badge announcement2024 badge announcement
{{coord, 52.039, N, 2.377, W, display=title 2012 establishments in England Counterculture festivals Hacker conventions Recurring events established in 2012 Hacker camps