Well, that was AMAZING.

Liz Gaston as “Robin Sparkles” at the booth.

It’s over a month after Dragon*Con ended and I’m finally getting together my pictures (and those from our friends) of the event. Part of my brain, however, remains in Atlanta with all the fun and lovely people we met and spent time with. With something between 50,000 and 60,000 attendees, one of the biggest sci-fi/fantasy conventions also has the strange feeling of coming home when I get to see friends that are normally spread all over North America. Bonus? We get to do it in costume.

This was my fourth DragonCon and my second working for CosmoQuest. We brought out the BIG BOOTH with all our citizen science tools to share and show for anyone who stopped by at the Hilton. We had a few hundred people come up and try the Mappers projects, talk to us about science, or grab some free NASA swag. We even had comic books! Scott Sigler was graciously signing the one in which his story appears, Free Wifi on Mars, and Phil Plait also gave us some of his time to sign books for eager fans. I think I talked myself hoarse a few times, spending several hours a day stationed at the booth, but it was worth it, even if I did occasionally have to have introvert-recharge time in a corner afterwards. I was especially excited to talk with so many educators about our Terraluna activities and the upcoming In-VESTA-Gate unit that was the subject of a recent Learning Space.

ET phones… Richard Drumm!

Did I mention there were costumes? I broke out the ET costume made by one of our educators, Ellen Reilly, for one of her children that, yes, actually fits me. I did a panel in that costume as well. Not really a good idea to convince people that scientists are just “regular folk” when you come in looking like an alien, huh? We even had a cosplay Carl Sagan at the booth, talking about the wonders of science. And Pamela Gay rocked her Multiverse talk as a steampunk geisha. We even dressed up in a more “traditional” sense for the Atlanta Star Party, yet again an amazing event put together by Maria Walters which was in support of CosmoQuest this year. (Seriously, we cannot thank you all enough.)

I’m terrified, despite the smile. Ryan Consell as Mecha-Savage, photo by Tim LeGower.

This was my busiest year in terms of panels and talks this year, even running into some time-conflicts that had me running through the hotels. Well, running in a ET costume isn’t all that graceful. Rain Glynn once again put on a stellar Space Track (pun intended) and gave me some really fun topics to talk about, such as “Secret Lives of Moons” and the results from the Kepler mission. I also particularly enjoyed being on a panel with Rebecca Watson, Joseph Scrimshaw, and Drew Curtis about spreading the messages of science and skepticism online. I was particularly worried about that one, being by far the least funny person on that stage, but Rebecca was an excellent moderator is getting us to talk on a broad range of topics, and I got a chance to field some really great questions from educators in the audience.

I get to be a fangirl at these events, as well. I didn’t actually go to many panels as an audience member, but I did get in the HUGE line to see Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage talk about Mythbusters and their new site Tested.com. This was unrelated to the Mecha-Adam Savage that was walking around the Con, but I’ll let the creator explain that goodness in his own Mad Art Lab post. We also had a raucous good time filling up the “One for the JUNKIES” panel with Scott Sigler, where the gin flowed free and the, eh, anatomy of dinosaurs was hotly debated. The after party that clustered at the bar afterwards was actually full of some great conversations about podcasting and science communication, at least before I got distracted by a football rant.

Pamela Gay in her amazing costume.

When we got home and the dust settled, we realized that we had conversed with reached several hundred people at the booth over the weekend and many more via our panels. We’re glad for the opportunity to introduce so many new people to the project, and we’d like to (belatedly) welcome those who joined as a result of the event! Special thanks to those of you who were randomly selected for a visitor survey, and we’re taking a gander at the data for that now with a help of a new grad assistant at the SIUE STEM Center. We’ll be taking your feedback into account as we head out for future events, such as the upcoming GeekGirlCon in Seattle.

So, I hope you enjoy the pictures that I’ve finally wrangled off my SD cards and that have been shared by others. I’m already looking forward to (and building costumes for!) next year’s Dragon*Con. Hope to see you there!

P.S. I got interviewed by a rocket.