CoffeeCam is an interactive site-installation that recreates the spirit of the world's very first webcam — the legendary Trojan Room coffee pot at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.

In 1991, researchers at Cambridge's Computer Lab were tired of making the trek to the Trojan Room only to find an empty pot. Their solution? Hack a camera to an Acorn Archimedes workstation and share a live 129×129 pixel greyscale image over the local network. When the lab connected to the web in 1993, it became the world's first publicly accessible webcam — serving images to millions of visitors until it was finally switched off in 2001.

This exhibition artifact — built with a Raspberry Pi camera, running PiCamera2 and FastAPI — is a hands-on, learn-by-doing homage to that original hack. Same idea. Fresher coffee.

This installation was set up at both the Open Hardware Summit and the GIG Makerspace at re:publica 2026 — hands-on creative spaces where curiosity meets making, and ideas become real things you can touch, taste, and hack.

The GIG effect is simple: real coffee sparks real conversation. Pour a cup, gather around, and talk about the weird, wonderful, deeply human reasons we've always used technology to solve tiny everyday problems — like: is there coffee in the kitchen?

re:publica 2026's theme is "Never Gonna Give You Up" — a nod to the Rick Astley meme, yes, but also a statement of resilience. We never gave up on the open web. We never gave up on the idea that technology should serve people. And apparently, Cambridge researchers never gave up on their coffee supply.

CoffeeCam is a reminder that the spirit of making — of building something scrappy, useful, and a little absurd — predates the web itself. And it's very much alive wherever open hardware people gather over a fresh pot of coffee. ☕