Timothy Childs talks about making excellent chocolate.

Mark Pauline describes his spinebot project.

Mang (Michael Ang) talks about photons, art and nature.

I had a great time last night attending Dorkbot SF, hosted by Tcho Chocolate.  Between the intense geek energy, the overpowering chocolate aroma, and the keg of Fat Tire, the atmosphere was truly intoxicating.

Timothy Childs, Founder and Chief Chocolate Officer of Tcho Chocolate spoke at length about how Tcho is bringing the Silicon Valley startup mentality to making chocolate.  He described how they are repurposing technology (like turkey roasters) intended for other users to lower the cost of making great chocolate.  They obsessively collect data, both in the field and their factory to shorten the feedback loop between chocolate growers in Peru and their operation in San Francisco.  Their goal of building a data-driven, reproduceable fine chocolate production process has the admirable side effect of empowering their growers in Peru to produce a more valuable product.  I was impressed.

Following Timothy was Mark Pauline, founder and spiritual leader of Survival Research Labs.  I’ve never seen a live SRL show, but I’ve followed them since I first learned about them in 1993.  He described his current project to build a better, faster, scarier spinebot.  A spinebot is a many segmented snake-like robot.  Mark’s reputation preceded him, and the San Francisco Fire Department actually turned up before the talk started to make sure he didn’t plan to do anything “dangerous.”  If you know anything about SRL and the shows they used to produce in San Francisco, you understand why.

Mang's Blue Flower in front of a pile of Tcho chocolate.

Mang (Michael Ang) followed up, talking about his Inverse Parasol (featured earlier by Myrtle Street Labs), his Blue Flower biologically inspired LED flower, his Strange Attractor project, and his gorgeous Gigapan photographs. Mang’s soft, gentle work was a fine apertif following Mark Pauline’s scary machinery.

Interior of the Tcho Chocolate Factory

All together it was inspiring to learn about people obsessively following their passions. Three images stuck with me:  Timothy in the jungle in Peru teaching a cocao grower to use Tcho’s data collection hardware, Mark thrilled to explain the new scary articulated robot he’s building, and Mang standing on a frozen lake in Canada using all his ingenuity to keep his Gigapan hardware running in -20C weather.