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Seek Robotics Makerspace - Page 3 — Parallax Forums

Seek Robotics Makerspace

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  • Activity Bots are starting to show at meetups. It's rewarding to see programmers and electrical engineers use them based on my opinions.

    This was built by a retired EE, she mentioned something about wanting to use PASM. I gave her a copy of the Propeller manual so she could check out SPIN, where the real fun is : )
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  • Another post worthy meetup tonight. We have a nice array of boards, sensors and passives. It was enough for everyone to be hands on. We ended up with extra because people are going out and purchasing Activity Bots and BS2 kits from the local Fry's. The rest was donated to the group by Parallax and forum members, thank you!

    We had a discussion on on PBASIC, Homework Board components, IO pins and current limiting resistors. The objectives were to blink an LED. Use the PIR sensor to blink an LED. Use the PING to blink the LED. This was not a problem with a small room full of 10 people and worked quite well. No magic smoke!

    I thought there would be time to spare and there wasn't. We went into overtime. I guess that's the best part. I didn't expect everyone to have a higher level of interest, and it was extremely rewarding when they did.

    I'm changing the title of this thread, and here are some pics -
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  • This is very encouraging to see your "space" growing and evolving! Thanks for sharing with us!

    I'd love to try this in sleepy, little Medina but if you draw 10 from San Diego, I'd probably be able to only draw 0.1 on a good night!
  • Man, I need to check the forum more often! I would have liked to shown up.

    I know I've asked before, and I know you've told me, but is there a central place where the meetups are advertised, or better yet, a way to sign up via email?

    (Got your note about the Robotis servos. That'll teach you about eBay (e for Erco)!
  • Thanks guys.

    Gordon, I've been using meetup.com to post the events. It's nice because we get new members every week. http://www.meetup.com/Seek-Robotics-Meetup

    I haven't posted anything for next week yet, but will soon.
  • Wow! (Again )
    You get this turnout weekly?
    I had trouble getting five 4H kids to agree on twice monthly meetings for a robotics project...and one kid was my own!
  • Yes, we usually pack 10-15 people in per meetup. We try to meet weekly but sometimes it doesn't happen. We can only do Thursday night and the occasional Saturday afternoon because of other meetups in the area. There is a lot of maker stuff going on in SD county! Our makerspace is one of the few that do not charge dues.

    You should check out meetup.com meetups in your area. Even if you don't start a group you can still teach at a group, volunteer, do private (paid) tutoring, pickup contract work, and meet some very interesting people that do very interesting things. It is endless.
  • Better late than never...

    The office space I had rented relied on relocating some server infrastructure to the 2nd floor. That never happened, and I exhausted every possible approach. During the last months of the lease I scrambled to figure out a way to break even. That didn't work out.

    A woman from the nearby University of Phoenix campus attended one of the meetups I hosted, and enjoyed it. They were recruiting people to host similar style lectures on their campus. It would be after class, and non-accredited. They thought it would get more students interested in taking EE courses. I figured we had to move out no matter what, so why not. I went there to meet with her and she showed me 3 different classrooms, all of them were really nice. I was excited about it.

    Not many of the members were interested in going, for a bunch of different reasons. The best EE we had, Jack, offered to do the first meetup there. We had a really low turn out, but a couple of students from another campus showed up. Their super expensive wireless projector would not work, and the presentation relied on it. Funny how my cheap stuff worked great, then you get the nice stuff and nothing works. Everyone started to socialize. Jack was no stranger to meetups becoming a social event. I tried my best to stop people. That night Jack quit the group. I decided I wasn't doing anyone any good at this point, so I stepped down. Phoenix wanted to take the group over, instead of telling them nobody was interested, I told them to start their own group. If I can do it, they can do it.

    Before I left, I sent a message to everyone in the group. In the first year we had over 300 members, of which around 50 people actually showed. I invited everyone to join another local meetup, they do all the same stuff as we did. Since then I've discovered I am much more effective as an attendee! Everyone is still around, for the most part. No harm, no foul.

    That leaves us with all of the donations sent from this forum. Anyone from this forum that sent something can get it back. After that it will be distributed to people that hosted events, schools and other meetup groups. Thanks again!
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