MeetingMinutes:20080408

MeetingMinutes:20080408
Date	April 04, 2008
Attendees	Zach Pat Dave Tikva Dave Diana kelly Hans Raphael Eric Eric Dino Zach Matt Justin Alicia Eric Mortenson Rose Lisa Adam
Location
Summary
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• How do we get a laser cutter / etcher
  • 7 people raised their hands to put in $1000, 2 for $500
  • We can probably make a mill on our own out of repstrap
  • We could use a laser for etching and make money
  • Could we lease one? $250 a month
  • We want to do cutting, we need a 40watt one
  • There's something to be said for having people in themselves to make their own stuff. Pushing the button is important. It's very satisfying
  • Lease to own options
    • We should call them about sponsorship, etc
  • Fumes? It'll come with a book. We don't cut PVC for example. It'll make chlorine gas, and it'll kill us.
  • The ventilation system is important. It'll come with the laser
  • WhatLaserDoWeWant
  • They're essentially a 1000 watt lightbulb
  • The other thing to consider is that this is a marketing device
    • If we're doing insanely cool stuff, it'll be press worthy
  • Laser subcommittee
• Classes
  • Beginner classes went really well
  • Other classes got like 1 bite
  • Raphael lost his voice doing it?
  • NYCResistor made enough for rent. 1600 or so.
  • We need to start getting classes for May ready
  • Arduino classes will be well attended
  • Naming is important. If doing a class, try to make it completely self contained - 102 sounds like it needs 101. Prereqs are bad. Something like potato guns.
  • Dino is thinking about a security class
  • Do a class around building a shield for an arduino, etc. Just helping people build it...
  • Lets drop 101, 102, etc
  • Lets break it into quarters as marketing opportunities. June, july, and August should be the next block
  • Zach has made a board for his intro to arduino - he ordered PCBs for his class through the fund. Is that okay. Majority votes 1
    • Holy crap this board is cool! It's called the Danger Board. It's branded NYCResistor, and it's totally awesome.
• Matt is bring MakeNYC here - he's going to ask for donations
• HOPE is going an awesome active RFID
• Hans is running iPhoneDevCamp at Poly on April 19th - 10 to 6pm

What are you working on?

• Alicia will be doing a silk screening thing saturday night, bring your shirt if you want to use the supplies
• Justin is working on his Gameboy programming class for NYCResistor
• Eric Mortenson is working on self playing instruments that are good for parties
• Hans is allowing the arduino to act as an extension of whatever programming environment you're using on your computer
• Bre is sending up a high altitude balloon (again, they lost the first one) this year it's a glider that will glide back to the position where they started
  • Bre is considering doing something like that here in NY
• Matt - The jacket LED array is being linked to the bluetooth, he might be able to communicate from the iPhone to his jacket
  • He's also doing the RFID thing at HOPE
  • He's doing the 5 borough bike tour, it's may 4th and 5th
    • Damn, that's the same weekend as Maker Faire
• Nick is working on RGB LEDs on a breadboard light array
• Eric S is still working on his gameboy album. Needs mixing help and Eric B found him a vocalist!
• Eric B is finishing his ITP thesis. He may disappear for a little bit when he finishes it up
• Raph is the class man! Other than classes, he's be scrambling to get ready for Maker Faire. It's going to be a little mini here out there. He's working on getting his little twitchy character ready.
  • It's made to be wrapped in some sort of textile and pad, etc
  • If any one wants to write personalities for it, talk to Raphael.
  • It's basically an arduino board that has some servos on it
• Rose is teaching herself mediawiki
  • She's going to put all her class research, etc in there
• Where's george? He's at the the Datacenter
• Kelly just learned how to solder. She's going to make turn signals for her 74 vespa.
• Dino. Still the only dino. He just signed away most of his free life on a book about how to hack Macintosh. It's made to be a an easy
• Diana is working on an EL wire / Accelerometer skirt. It lights up as you move different ways
• Dave Clausen is working on it with her
• Tikva is working on finding a job
  • Tikva is working on a game that helps people our age learn how to invest
  • On May 1st there's a meetup called ultralight something.. Alicia will post it to the list. Anyone who wants to make money at a technology startup should come.
• Adam is working on BarBot2 - Zach found him some really neat solenoid valves. He's also working on a mega scroller.
• Pat is workin on the buzzer at his house, he's working on a way to do sequence programming to make it do "shave and a hair cut" and let you in, etc.
  • He's also making a jtag programmer
• Zach is working on the Danger Board, and he's got some new ideas for RepRap and wants to get going on it again. He needs help! Who's interested? Get involved!
  • He wants to catch people working on the RepRap machine :)
• Lisa is visiting from Berlin still
  • She's working on the balloon / glider. She got an IMU accelerometer and gyros. It writes out directly to an SD card. If anyone knows anything about sensor correctorization. Sensors always vary to a degree - you have to determine the actual value for the sensors.

logo / Stickers

• We need a standardized logo - the one on the big vinyl poster is super awesome. Bre will get it to Eric. Kroosh made us some incredible stickers, more of them would be amazing.