I’ve often wondered if the authorities would care about a community run FOSS plate scanner network that publicly advertised the location of all government vehicles. I mean, it’s public data, right? A nice web front end with built in pattern detection shouldn’t be too bad. Plate scanners can be built with Raspberry Pi’s, so it’s fairly cheap commodity hardware. You’d need a good number though. Coupled with additional hardware, you could put them on cars as well I suppose.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about hobby based trade shows, it’s that the highly experienced, obsessed, informed people in obscure hobbies tend to want to spread their knowledge.
Don’t obsess over not knowing… put yourself out there and talk to people and get them to tell you what they find exciting. They will unload knowledge on you and be excited to do so.