FUDCon:Bid for Olin 2012

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[edit] Dates

Proposed: January 21-23, 2012 (Sat-Mon)

Olin residence halls open Sunday January 22 at 5pm, and classes begin on Tuesday January 24, so a Saturday-Sunday-Monday FUDCon would give us full use of facilities, overlap with the energy of the local student community, and be reasonable for the schedules of people traveling from out of town.

One format to consider might be doing a slight shuffle of the past FUDCon order.

Saturday: Unconference Sunday: Hackfests Monday: Half-day hackfests, half-day unconference track (to present hackfest work, etc).

This would allow area students to more easily participate in both the hackfests and unconference portions, and let people who need to leave early / arrive late to see both parts of FUDCon.

[edit] Location

[edit] About Needham

Needham is a suburban town almost directly west of Boston, accessible via bus, commuter rail, and the MBTA green line trolley. For more about Needham, see the wikipedia page.

[edit] About Boston

The City of Boston hosts over 12 million annual visitors from across the country and around the globe. This vibrant, thriving city is renowned for its cultural facilities, world-class educational institutions, champion sports franchises, as well as its place at the very forefront of American history. Tourism is one of New England's largest industries; as the region's social and commercial "hub", Boston is willing to accommodate and entertain you as few other cities can. --City of Boston official visitors' site

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region.

The city has a number of ornate theatres, including the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston Opera House, Citi Performing Arts Center, the Colonial Theater, and the Orpheum Theatre. Renowned performing-arts organizations include the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Ballet, Boston Early Music Festival, Boston Lyric Opera Company, OperaBoston, and the Handel and Haydn Society (one of the oldest choral companies in the United States). The city is also a major center for contemporary classical music, with a number of performing groups, some of which are associated with the city's conservatories and universities. There are also many major annual events such as First Night, which occurs on New Year's Eve, the annual Boston Arts Festival at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, Italian summer feasts in the North End honoring Catholic saints, and several events during the Fourth of July period. These events include the week-long Harborfest festivities and a Boston Pops concert accompanied by fireworks on the banks of the Charles River.

Because of the city's prominent role in the American Revolution, several historic sites relating to that period are preserved as part of the Boston National Historical Park. Many are found along the Freedom Trail, which is marked by a red line of bricks embedded in the ground. The city is also home to several prominent art museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In December 2006, the Institute of Contemporary Art moved from its Back Bay location to a new contemporary building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro located in the Seaport District. The University of Massachusetts campus at Columbia Point houses the John F. Kennedy Library. The Boston Athenaeum (one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States), Boston Children's Museum, Bull & Finch Pub (whose building is known from the television show Cheers), Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium are within the city.

(from the Wikipedia article on Boston)

[edit] Reference Links

[edit] Major Local Airports

Boston Logan International Airport (Airport Code: BOS) is the major airport servicing the greater Boston area.

The following airlines have flights going in / coming out of Logan. For a more complete list of regional airlines, please see Wikipedia. Note that international arrivals generally happen at Terminal E, whereas international departures may also occur from other Terminals (for example, a flight from Boston to London marketed by Air France might depart from Terminal A instead of Terminal E, if it is operated by Delta Air Lines).

[edit] Transit to/from airport

We are investigating the cost for setting up an hourly airport shuttle to/from Logan and the Olin campus. The student government at Olin was able to do this for $10 per passenger at a loss of only a few hundred dollars overall, running shuttles to/from campus on the hour for multiple days in a row.

For those staying with friends in the city, Logan is readily accessible via the Blue and Silver lines of the MBTA (Boston's metro rail).

[edit] Local Mass Transit

Boston is served by the Metro Boston Transit Authority (MBTA) and also has local bus lines.

Needham is somewhat less accessible via public transit. The two best options are:

A single ride on the subway is $2. A one-day pass is $9; a one-week pass is $15.

Organizers can purchase and put MBTA passes into the attendee packs for pre-registrants ahead of time, if desired and if budget allows.

[edit] Local Restaurants

More available at http://www.yelp.com/c/needham-ma/restaurants - there are more excellent restaurants around within driving distance, including many with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and other dietary options. Ask Mel Chua for more opinions on food; she lived in/near Needham for about 7 years.

[edit] Sit-down Restaurants (aka, Finer Dining)

[edit] Fast(er) Food

[edit] Hotel

Sebastian is in negotiations with the hotel. We're looking into getting their meeting rooms as hospitality suites, too. Mel and Sebastian are willing to confirm the awesomeness of both hotels.

[edit] Estimated Hotel Costs

[edit] Transit to/from FUDCon

Need to look into setting up a hotel-Olin shuttle bus. Transit time between location is approximately 30 minutes in moderate traffic. Here are some options we are looking into. 

Black Tie Limo- 1800-624-9990  www.blacktielimo.com
Largest and most diverse fleets in Boston area
From Limousines to 55 passenger Coaches
Call for pricing

Corporate Limousine- 1 617-864-4801
www.corplimousine.com
Limousines to 14 passenger vans
Call for pricing

Local Motion of Boston – 781-535-6344
From 10 Passenger Bus to 55 Passenger Motor Coach
Call for pricing

Boston Common Coach – 617-723-3833
13 Passenger Vans, 47 & 55 Passenger Coaches
Luxury Coaches; adjustable foot rests, Reclining Seats, DVD & Monitor
Call for pricing

Boston Chauffeur – 866-570-5466   
Info@bostonchauffeur.com
Mercedes and Hybrid Sedans
Escalade and Hummer Limousines
14 – 55 Passenger Shuttle/ Coaches
Call for pricing

Harrison Transportation – 781-863-2626
Taxi Services
Sedan and Town Car 
Ford Fusion Hybrids (less $$ than sedan or town car)
Limo and SUV Services
Executive Van 10 – 14 passenger

Prestige Transportation – 617-816-8509
Full range of transportation services

The Coach Transportation    www.thecoachtransportation.com
Logan/ Lexington Fare: $72 One Way, $144 Round Trip
Prices include tolls, taxes, and gratuity.
Hourly: $50/hr Minimum 3hrs, does not include tax or gratuity

[edit] Transit to/from Boston

For FUDPub and other social events in Boston, there is a shuttle from the hotel to Alewife (a major stop on the MBTA red line). Ride time estimate is 15 minutes.

[edit] Room Capacities and Configuration

Two meeting rooms, one per hotel (the two hotels are separated by a courtyard; it's about a 15-second walk between buildings). Each meeting room has large whiteboards, wireless internet, and a huge table with chairs around it; the setup is for approximately 20 people per room by default, but more chairs can be added if needed. These would make great hack rooms and/or board meeting spots.

[edit] Internet Capabilities

Free high-speed wireless internet with multiple access points on each floor. Good, strong connections throughout building; tested on multiple visits.

[edit] Alternate Venues for Meeting (not in a hotel)

[edit] Availability

Olin has classrooms and meeting rooms. We'll be getting some classrooms as part of the space, and these work well for meetings too. There are smaller hallway nooks and areas on campus where small student teams traditionally hold meetings; we can map these out and mark them so that FUDCon attendees can take better advantage of the space.

[edit] Parking

Parking at Olin is ample and free.

[edit] Room Spaces and Costs

For a photo of the building we'd be in, click here.

We're currently looking at getting an entire floor of the Academic Center building, which would give us access to 5 session rooms, each with:

In addition to this, we would get the auditorium (capacity ~300) for session pitching and the State of Fedora address, plus access to the dining hall and hallway spaces for lounging and eating.

The buildings are unlocked during the day, and students have 24/7 card access, so admission to the building should not be a problem.

Remember, this was a campus designed in 1997 (construction was completed in 2003) for 300-600 engineering students and faculty. Things like "access to electricity and internet" were high-priority.

[edit] Networking

Olin has a guest network. High-speed wifi is available throughout the entire campus and supports 300+ students and 40+ faculty who use laptops and connectivity extensively; we're fairly confident that 300 Fedora hackers can't possibly use any more of the network than 300 Olin students could. Sebastian has discussed this with Olin's IT department and confirmed that network resources will be sufficient, and that access can be set up well ahead of time for guests.

[edit] Food and Catering

See #Local Restaurants - most if not all of them also do catering.

[edit] Shirts!

Check with Mo where FUDCon Boston shirts have formerly been printed.

[edit] Transportation to Event

Flight estimates from kayak.com. February 2011 has been checked since flights in Jan 2012 are not available yet, but cost should be comparable.

[edit] Costs from RDU (Raleigh, NC)

[edit] Costs from ORD (Chicago, IL)

[edit] Costs from LAX (Los Angeles, CA)

[edit] Costs from JFK (New York, NY)

Or take a Chinatown bus for $15-30 each way. Some buses (Bolt Bus, etc) have wifi.

[edit] Costs from LHR (London, UK)

[edit] FUDPub Options

[edit] Flat Top Johnny's

Flat Top Johnny's is the Cambridge joint, where we had the last Boston FUDPub. Easily accessible via shuttle + subway from the proposed hotel locations.

You can see FUDPub at Flat Top Johnny's in a number of photos taken by Mo Duffy of FUDCon F11 in January 2009:

[edit] Bring FUDPub to the hotel

Alternatively, we've talked with the hotel about hosting FUDPub at the hotel - there's a funky/hip lobby space that's used for parties with outside vendors bringing in entertainment (arcade/video games, carnival food, etc) that would be quite appropriate, and a bar. If the bid is successful, we'll contact vendors to do a cost comparison between the two and see which one wins out.

[edit] Family Fun

Thinking of bringing your family to Boston? There are tons of activities to do.

[edit] In town

[edit] Out of Town

[edit] About the Organizers - Previous FUDCon Experience, etc.

Primary owner: Sebastian Dziallas (student at Olin College). Sebastian has organized open source events before (LinuxCon Education Mini-Summit). He attended FUDCon Berlin 2009, Toronto 2009, and Tempe 2011, and has spoken and represented Fedora at LinuxTag 2009 and 2010 and LinuxCon 2010, among other events. He now handles all event organization and logistics for the Teaching Open Source community; if you think wrangling open source events is tough, try coordinating multiple professors going to multiple academic conferences with multi-stage submission deadlines up to a year in advance of the actual event.

Minions:

[edit] Deadlines

There have not been formal deadlines set by any of the parties we've explored contracting with. However, we'd suggest the following:

[edit] Special features

[edit] Education nucleation

We have good connections with multiple professors and academic institutions in the area (RIT, Western New England, Worcester State, U of New Hampshire, etc) within road-tripping distance, and will be working extensively with them - hopefully within Fedora - during the 2011-2012 school year. FUDCon would be an amazing mid-way nucleation point for all these groups and bring a new surge of energy into the Fedora community by having a group of well-trained and skilfully-guided not-quite-new-but-still-excited contributors around, and if we know this in advance of the school year we can work towards FUDCon as a milestone for these students throughout the spring semester, potentially having them help organize some aspects of it.

This is something I've felt we haven't taken much advantage of in the past, even if the vast majority of FUDCons have been hosted by educational institutions. These student groups can:

If FUDCon is at this location, this stuff will all be happening anyway as a result of the work I and many other Fedora contributors are doing with the http://teachingopensource.org community. --Mel Chua

[edit] Newcomer Helpdesk

Coming to your first FOSS event can be an overwhelming thing, especially when you walk in and it feel like everyone knows everyone else and you don't know anybody - or any of the social norms, or really what to do.

I'm volunteering to coordinate this. --Mel Chua

[edit] Pros and Cons of Proposed Location

[edit] Pro

[edit] Con

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