Big Android BBQ

Just got back from Big Android BBQ, and it has been super fun!

Korean mall

I arrived the day before the conference to hang out with Virginia Poltrack, my partner on Fit Cat. I needed a pencil case for my Copic markers so we went to the Korean mall in Carrollton.

First stop was H-Mart, where we ate some yummy dumplings and bought Asian fruits and snacks. And then we went to Daiso, my favorite Japanese dollar store.

First time in Texas, and where do I go? Daiso. pic.twitter.com/OJnhVuxtVb

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 21, 2015

I found the perfect pencil case! It was actually a water bottle case, but the top-opening zipper let me see the color of all my markers. I love it.

Top-opening pencil case + carabiner = Copic markers holster. Yup, extreme #sketchnoting! pic.twitter.com/nfpF9paSrA

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 23, 2015

BBQ decor

The Big Android BBQ team did an amazing job on the decor. The keynote stage was a diner set, and there were lots of nice touches everywhere.

My new droid! Thanks @DoesitPew!!!!! #BABBQ15 I'm naming her Wilma. pic.twitter.com/5ERWZXdNGT

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 22, 2015

Tech talks

To be honest, when I first looked into this conference I was worried that it is more of a party than a technical conference. I decided to go any way, betting on Google Developers to provide a healthy dose of Android on top of the BBQ.

Colt McAnlis opened the conference with a hilarious Texan keynote.

I went to the automatic performance testing codelab, which was really good, albeit the facilitators running it way too fast.

I ended up not going to too many Google sessions because I brought 3 lady speakers from Colorado with me, and they all gave excellent talks!

Internal Library Dependency Management by @KellyShuster #BABBQ15 #Sketchnotes pic.twitter.com/PdDN9Zl2yA

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 22, 2015

Loving Lean Layouts by @queencodemonkey #BABBQ15 #Sketchnotes pic.twitter.com/ByjyFDi36F

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 23, 2015

Fragments: Why, How, What for? by @kenodoggy #BABBQ15 #Sketchnotes https://t.co/WXTcBjvThA pic.twitter.com/fvI6ikWFa4

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 25, 2015

I also really enjoyed the animation talk by Marie. Love her method of sticky note + stop motion video for prototyping!

Animation for interfaces by @ma_rylou #BABBQ15 #Sketchnotes pic.twitter.com/mLrPJ80IIh

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 22, 2015

Espresso

I gave my Advanced Android Espresso talk towards the end of the last day. It was my second time giving this talk, so I was pretty relaxed about it. But the projector stopped working in the middle of my presentation! I stood on stage not sure what to do, and literally said, "Help!"

The AV technician came to debug, at which point all the plugging and unplugging crashed my laptop. So I asked to borrow a computer from the audience. After a while the projector was finally working, and what did I do? Accidentally close the browser on my loaner laptop, which had the slides preloaded. The conference wifi wasn't connecting, so a friend set up his Android phone as a wifi hotspot.

With all that, I finally resumed my presentation. I think I stayed quite calm during the whole fiasco, but it totally disrupted the flow of my talk. I was very pleased that the talk was recorded though, and the AV team at Google did an amazing job with the editing. I had to watch it 3 times to find the cut point!

Crowd favorite & Google Developer Expert @chiuki closed #BABBQ15 with "Advanced Android Espresso" #womenintech pic.twitter.com/5WTLaCVJQY

— Women Techmakers (@WomenTechmakers) October 24, 2015

Super friendly crowd

I really enjoyed Big Android BBQ. Everyone is so friendly, and there were many fun little details. The sessions vary in technical depth, but caught quite a few good ones. All in all a great event!

#BABBQ15 is a wrap. Thank you @androidbbq for the great event! pic.twitter.com/NkGSSgCe4r

— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) October 25, 2015