Microcontroller Club Report
Oldbitcollector (Jeff)
Posts: 8,091
The first meeting of "The Orrville Microcontroller Interest Group" met tonight at our local Library.
11 people we in attendance for this first meeting. Of the eleven, nine of use are planning to meet
next month to begin learning microcontroller basics (flashing an LED) and talk about plans for
personal robots. A presentation of the Propeller was given, a short discussion on digital basics.
Door prizes were given away from Parallax (Thank you Parallax!)
I believe that this is the first club formed around Parallax products, and it will be exciting to see
how it continues to develop. This has been a lot of work to promote and put together, but
in a small town of 3000 (Beer, Pizza, and Football being the main event) it was rewarding
to see not only adults, but also several teens, and one preteen get excited about playing
with technology.
Oldbitcollector
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Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 9/20/2007 1:19:25 AM GMT
11 people we in attendance for this first meeting. Of the eleven, nine of use are planning to meet
next month to begin learning microcontroller basics (flashing an LED) and talk about plans for
personal robots. A presentation of the Propeller was given, a short discussion on digital basics.
Door prizes were given away from Parallax (Thank you Parallax!)
I believe that this is the first club formed around Parallax products, and it will be exciting to see
how it continues to develop. This has been a lot of work to promote and put together, but
in a small town of 3000 (Beer, Pizza, and Football being the main event) it was rewarding
to see not only adults, but also several teens, and one preteen get excited about playing
with technology.
Oldbitcollector
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 9/20/2007 1:19:25 AM GMT
Comments
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Whit+
"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney
Bean
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I know what I know, don't confuse me with the facts...
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www.hittconsulting.com
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We are known for Smuckers! The Headquarters is located here, and we have many
trucks of Jelly leave this community for all over the country. Three tanker train-cars of
sugar a backed into the factory (tying up mainstreet) every night at quarter past seven.
We are also known to be the hometown of Bobby Knight (I think thats right) but we don't
always admit to it.. [noparse]:)[/noparse] Also the "voice" of AOL lives just outside of town.
Not bad for hicksville. [noparse]:)[/noparse] Good place to raise kids.
Oldbitcollector
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Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
We're pleased to help. Let me know who you're working with at Parallax (via kgracey@parallax.com) and I'll get together with them to see that you've got plenty of hardware. If there's enthusiasm in the room we want to be part of the action!
Also, Parallax has a fair amount of "expensed stock" that we could comb through for the club. These are parts that we won't resell, but we can provide them to a club for use. Sometimes these are just capacitors and resistors, but often there are complete development boards with one or two minor problems. It's better than recycling if we share with your club. . . sharing is cool. . . until Chris Savage got his paws on my 80W HP digital power supply this afternoon. Hard to share it, but I told him to take it home for his lab.
And just so you know, once they get smart with our stuff and they learn about AVRs, PICs and other processors, we'll still support you the same way.
Ken Gracey
Oh well I knew you were kinda close, but I not close enough. I'm at zip code 17011.
Bean.
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I know what I know, don't confuse me with the facts...
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www.hittconsulting.com
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I am @ 16602 Altoona, I've always wanted to start some kind of club.
Oldbitcollector,
How did you go about starting a club> I've always been on my own and would really love to collaborate with others.
Having hardware on hand helps recruit and retain members I would say... Having something physical to show that that will really wow them, makes them want to come back to meeting #2, and hopefully bring a friend.
That was one of the reasons I asked this question http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=674331 on the Propeller forum - "What is a Propeller? What does it Do?" I was thinking about starting a similar club here in Binghamton, NY - zip 13905 (Bean - That's only a 3 1/2 hour drive - Sailerman, it's a little more than 4 for you) I wanted some sort of demo for our first meeting that would generate enough excitement to get them to come back and for the club to grow.
I was planning to use a few of my own SpinStudio boards, with an SD card loaded with the demo Binaries, or maybe use Parallax's "Kiosk" demo that was posted several months ago. But other hardware would be great to have on had, I may be contacting you soon also Ken.
The coming winter months are perfect to start such a thing, when people are stuck indoors anyway. I could foresee attendance dropping during the summer months due to various outdoor summer activities.
We should share resources between clubs, as far as what methods work best to recruit members, activities to keep them busy and coming back. Meeting facilities, etc
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Brian
uController.com - home of SpinStudio
My problem is I tend to lose interest because I can't come up with a real toy to build... I'm bad with Ideas.
Did you list the fact that you were starting a club in the news paper or something?
Eric
It was also mentioned on our company website www.orrtech.net If you want ideas of
how we advertised.
The teens are interested in the Robotics angle, and learning about how a computer works.
Our pre-teen was excited about the idea of creating his own type of Xbox with games.
(He spent a lot of time after the formal meeting hooking up random wires and chips on my breadboard. *sold!*)
We'll have to take it in baby steps, we have a couple people other than myself who understand how to solder,
and one who can also read schematics.
I figured that it was a chance worth taking.. We had the meeting location and the advertising at our disposal.
Oldbitcollector
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Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
Wow! That's an amazing number of people from such a small town for such an obscure interest as microcontrollers. I'd be pleased to get that number to a meeting in a city in the UK.
Hope it all pans out well for you!
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Help to build the Propeller wiki - propeller.wikispaces.com
Prop Room Robotics - my web store for Roomba spare parts in the UK
Post Edited (CardboardGuru) : 9/21/2007 7:43:28 AM GMT
Matt
Keep me in the loop if this idea moves forward [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Chris I.
Rob7