Microcontroller Mondays – Tonight – 7pm till 11pm
Heads up that tonight is the 3rd edition of the weekly Micro-controller Mondays at 757 Labs.
7PM until 11PM.
Bring your project, idea or come to learn!
AVR, Arduino, TI MSP, HC11, PIC, Xilinx, Altera, whatever!
Hack the Whole Weekend
Friday, Oct. 21: Open Hack Night
Saturday, Oct. 22: LAN party
Sunday, Oct. 23: Comic & Cartoon Creators
Monday, Oct. 24: Microcontroller Monday
Ready to get your geek on for a whole weekend? Come out to the lab and join in an event! Or join all the events!
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- Up front Matt & Kitty setup the night before the LAN party while Harold plays…music?
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- August 20, 2011 LAN party was a full house
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- At the LAN party, Kyle and others play something that is not TF2
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- Chillin’ on the couches during Open Hack Night on July 15, 2011
We begin Friday with our monthly open house, or "Open Hack Night". This is a great opportunity to see the lab for the first time and take a tour. It's a very casual atmosphere where you can shoulder-surf members actively working on projects or just chill and discuss ideas. Sometimes there is a loosely-coordinated dinner/drinks outing to somewhere along nearby Granby Street. A few people might even start setting up for the next day's gaming event, which is...
Saturday is the LAN party, which usually begins around 1 PM, but may have even began the night before. BYOC (bring your own computer) and try to do all your downloading and patching at home before joining in on the festivities. Team Fortress 2 is the most popular game, especially since it's free, though other games are certainly welcome -- Diablo, Minecraft, Quake, you name it.
Feeling creative? 3 PM Sunday is the 757 Comic and Cartoon Creators meeting. Bring something to draw with.
And just when you think the weekend is over, it's Microcontroller Monday! Beginning at 7 PM, discussions will focus on everything microcontroller-related; from hardware to software. Beginners and advanced users are both welcome.
“It’s not all about hardware!”
Some comments have been heard recently suggesting that the lab is only interested in building physical things or working on electronics and hardware. This simply isn't the case. We would love to see more software development projects at the lab. There are already a few smaller projects taking place. It only takes groups of like minded individuals to get together and work on things. There is already an Android development group that meets at least once a month which needs some love. Python and Ruby groups meet at the lab once a month as well. We are also open to doing something like SuperHappyDevHouse or a Dev Day! There is a consistent flow of people who develop software and are interested in branching out to new things popping up at the lab randomly.
How do you get things started? It's simple! Post on the public mailing list! It's the best way to find people interested in working on similar things. If you aren't on the mailing list, take a look at the sign up page!
Weekend Recap (June 24-26), MADexpo
Over the weekend there was a good amount of activity at the lab.
From what I remember:
Fri : Ken stopped by and demoed his bar code scanner, which is capable of scanning the Virginia drivers licenses. My social security number is embedded on the back of my license, who would have known.
Other: Vex continued work on his custom tube guitar amplifier. It's looking sweet.
Steve helped with the assembly of the base frame for the new CNC router. Yes, we've been down this road before. This is going to be the one though! Not too big, not too small Just right. And made of aluminum extrusions and such.
Some new donations and new faces around the lab! Thanks to Mark G we might be on our way to getting the middle projection screen in use. A project to motorize it is on the mind. Also Justin gave us use of his Roku box, which is going to be integrated with the AMX automation system. The open development platform of this device is interesting.
Monday brought forth another busy night. Between Android developers meeting, ROV interest (and talk of 3d printing propellers), laser scanning an object using the MakerBot laser scanning software, there was no time to slow down!
Thursday and Friday we will have a table at the MADexpo in Hampton.
Saturday we will be at Art|Everywhere with the Rock Band Drum Circle and Laser Pong projects.
CNC:
Vex's Guitar Amp Custom Speaker Cab:
Roku driving projector on middle screen (stability undetermined):
Note: Ethan did a bunch of research into some of the dead flat panel TVs at the lab and posted some stuff on the wiki. More information forthcoming, but problems have definitely been identified.
Non-Lab Meetup and Event Calendars
We've had a calendar of lab-related events and meetups running for ages now (it's right over there -->) but figured it would be a good idea to put together another calendar for local events not hosted at the lab. So we're sharing a second Google calendar with anything we can think of locally that might be of interest to our members and the local hacker and maker communities.
Thanks to HR Geeks for having a great list of local meetup groups to get us started. If you run a local event that's not listed here please contact us (757labs@gmail.com) and we'll get it added.
757Labs Android Users + Developers Group
We will have a first time meeting of an Androids Users + Developers Group on Monday, June 27th starting around 7pm. As a starter it will be an open discussion for introductions and individual interests in the platform. Some basics of the system will be covered and topics may include current marketplace applications, interface useability, present and future hardware releases, phone manufacturer complaints, carrier dependencies, and development approaches. See you there!
757 Python Meetup Rejuvinated
Just when it seemed the 757 Python Meetup group had declined like the popularity of Perl, a bunch of people showed up! Motivated, excited, and ready to present.
So the Python group seems like it's in swing again! Next meetup is Wednesday the 15th. RSVP at the meetup group site.
Objective C / Cocoa Programming Group
We're excited to announce the reformation of the Objective C and Cocoa programming group that will be meeting here at the Lab. Their first meetup will be tomorrow, March 8th at 6:30. Come out and meet some local OS X and iOS developers.
Also be sure to come out Wednesday the 9th for the 757.rb meetup where the topic will be managing application assets with Paperclip, S3, and ImageMagick given by Mike Buckbee as well as a review of what's new in Rails 3.1 given by Ken Collins.
Events for Saturday, March 5, 2011
Here are two events scheduled to be held at the lab on Saturday, March 5, 2011:
2:00 PM EST - basic soldering class by Harold; bring eye protection and something to solder
in Harold's words:
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:30:14 -0500
Subject: [757labs] Class this SaturdayI finally decided to dive in and become the experimental pig for the first class! Well at least the first "hardware" related class.
This Saturday, at 2:00 PM, I plan on holding a Basic Soldering Class for anyone who wishes to show up at the Lab. With that said, if for some strange reason we are swamped, I must give preference for room to current Lab Members. That is only fair to them. I doubt we will run out of room, so please show up if you want!
The game plan is to have the herd assembled by 2 PM and the actual start time might be 15 or so minute later. The one thing that would be nice is to have a list of who all plans on showing up so I can have a roster to know when it is time to start. I won't wait all day and plan on letting 2:15 PM being the delayed start time.
For anyone who wishes to attend please bring the following if you have it:
1. Your soldering iron, station, whatever you currently use. PLEASE DO NOT RUN OUT AND BUY SOMETHING!!! Unless you really want to. There are the good bad and ugly types of irons to waste money on.
2. Hand Tools. Most soldering hand tools could be classified as side cutter diagonals or regular diagonals if you don't have those. A straight pick, tweezers, any heat shrinks etc.. Again, don't run out and buy stuff if you don't have it already.
3. Safety glasses. I am not going to demand that anyone wears a pair; however, if you do not wear any type of glasses normally ... I suggest getting a cheap pair. Remember, solder is molten metal. Your eyes do not like it. Burns to your skin are one thing ... burns to your eyes are something you more than likely wont recover from.
4. If you have any type of circuit kits or solder breadboards etc.. that you would like to work on, please bring them. If you don't have anything, please try to snag a cheap one from Radio Shack to play with. Also, if you have some old components like resistors etc.. drag them along so you can have something to solder on.
5. Solder. If you have your own type that you are used to working with bring it. If not, I should have plenty for everyone to play with.
6. Solder wick / Solder sucker. This is something that would be nice to have, but it is not required. We can pass around what we have.
7. If you have a board vise or any other sort of device that you use to hold circuit cards etc.. that would make life easier on you. If not, we will do it old school.
The objective to the course is not to turn everyone into a uber solder dude but to at least give you some insight and hands on experience to allow you to enhance your current skill set. Since I just decided to get stupid and give a class (oh joy!) I don't really have a course written up so please handle the lack of continuity and we will all get through it.
8:00 PM EST - game development meeting by Matt (cyberflux); bring your ideas
in Matt's words:
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:20:12 -0500
Subject: [757labs] Game Developers Team (March 5)I am looking to have a game.dev meeting this Saturday for those interested in creating games at the Lab. Those who are interested feel free to show up sometime around 8pm or so, but I should be there earlier. Currently I am loading services on an older dual Xeon 2 server that will host development environments for Net applications. There is currently no defined hardware for the group so there is flexibility in what platform to go with, however most have been looking at diving into the mobile device market. Any input prior to the gathering is welcomed.
Hope to see some people there! Cheers!
Ruby/Python meetup videos
We recorded the last Ruby meetup, and it's on Vimeo for those interested. We recorded a most excellent presentation by Jeremy Demar about pcap processing with python, and unfortunately something went wrong and there is no audio. We've got things down to a science now, and in the future there should be many more presentations from the lab.
Location
@757Labs
- Our site is back to normal. Let's hope congress sees fit to let it stay that way.
Links
User Groups
- 757 CCC Comic & Cartoon Creators
- 757 Objective C Group Objective C and Cocoa programming group.
- 757 Python Users Group
- 757.rb Ruby Users Group
- HR Geeks Hampton Roads Geek Community