@martin @fuzzle I understand and definitely feel the tension between community access and creating something ambitious at scale to give people a great experience.

My first classes were very cheap but unpleasant to teach because the hardware was bad, so we've been building better and better hardware at each conference and then releasing it immediately after. Unfortunately our board costs were crazy this year.

That being said, we also offer discounts or even outright give away hardware to anyone who can't afford it and wants to use it. Our biggest goal is to give people a positive first experience at Congress, and our second goal is to survive to do it again next year.

@martin @fuzzle the costs I post adequately cover the costs of hardware, development, and travel/accommodations to teach, which are very high right now.

I unfortunately cannot travel or manufacture for free, but we release files as open source to the community every year for those who could not afford to support us teaching.

@fuzzle I'm on a long flight and replying to everything! I understand, the culture I've often seen at Congress is to make hardware accessible to all by usually selling at cost. I really like this!

My approach is a bit different because I am a teacher, so my focus is a satisfying experience for beginners (of which hardware is only one part). This means replacing any devices broken during class and using them as learning tools for the workshops they were designed to teach, rather than selling as-is.

Not everyone can afford this, but we also open source everything from the past year to include those who weren't able to attend. My hope is that balances things enough that everyone can participate!