Gadget Geeks

I was one of the team on Sky 1 HD's technology series Gadget Geeks, building ridiculous things along with Charles Yarnold and Colin Furze. On the "other side" of the show, Emma, Rory, and Ian handle reviews.

Here are the questions I'm most often asked:

How did you get the job?

The production team scouted around London Hackspace, and a load of other locations up and down the country — I auditioned, showed off some of the things I've made, and got the job.

What tools do you use?

I can't speak for Charles or Colin, but most of the physical kit I used when the series was filmed described in my interview at The Setup. When programming: HTML with JavaScript and jQuery if I can get away with it; PHP for web interfaces, Twitter connections and so on; Processing for graphical work, serial connections, and so on. Yes, there are better languages out there, but none of them let me just work at speed. (On that note: AutoHotKey has saved me more times than I'd like to count...)

Is everything built for real?

Yes. And we're actually doing the building.

Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you guys do...

Whoa, hold it! Ideas for the show are great, but you need to send them into Sky, not me. To sum up the legal-speak: "Any ideas you submit will become property of the show and its production company, and you won't get paid for them". You probably knew that already, but I've got to say it.

I want to berate you! Or applaud you! Or both!

Get in touch!