Confessions of a serial tinkerer: Homelabs gone wild, secret raspberry pi stashes, and more

Recorded live at GrafanaCon Seattle, hosts Mat Ryer and Tom Wilkie kick off Season 3 of Grafana’s Big Tent by welcoming Ivana Huckova (Staff Software Engineer, Grafana Labs), Andrew McCalip (Head of Research and Development, Varda Space Industries), and Brad Fitzpatrick (Chief Engineer, Tailscale). They swap first-tinkering stories and laugh through IoT wins and fails (dog happiness monitors, candle sensors—oops). Andrew explains how his self-righting, foam-filled autonomous boat survives the open seas, while Brad shares how he uses AI to 3D-print OpenSCAD parts on demand.