[SGVHAK] Saturday HAK Meeting (11/22) Recap + Announcements

[Lan Dang]

Hi all,


Have a happy Thanksgiving.

tl;dr: Great turnout and activity during Saturday HAK--many new faces.  I need to know if people will come to Dec 27th Saturday meeting.  There have been changes to HAK meetings for December only.  There will be a SGVLUG/SGVHAK booth at SCALE in Feb.  We're planning a New Year's Eve hackathon to finally finish some projects.  Thoughts on Hardware Freedom Day (Jan 17, 2015)?  Hackaday Show and Tell on Monday.


DECEMBER MEETUP CHANGES
=======================
NOTE: Because of the holidays, I'm going to ask people to RSVP for the Dec 27th Saturday meeting by Dec 10th.  Either RSVP on Meetup or just let me know.  If there will be a low turnout, then I'm just going to cancel the meeting, which requires advanced notice with the library.  


We have swapped meeting locations for the December meetings because we wanted the next HAK meeting to be at Tux-Lab.  This means we can work on SCALE A/V projects and/or the air hockey table.

Dec 4th: Meeting at Tux-Labhttp://www.meetup.com/SGVTech/events/218744487/

Dec 18: Meeting at Dave's workshop
http://www.meetup.com/SGVTech/events/218823753/

Dec 27: Meeting at Hastings Branch Library (??? Depending on RSVPs)

http://www.meetup.com/SGVTech/events/218867731/

UPCOMING HAK ACTIVITIES
=======================
* Steven is running the SGVLUG/SGVHAK booth at SCALE in February 20-22nd.  It is still being planned, but keep that in mind if you have projects you'd like to show off or demo.  We could probably use some volunteers to help man the booth as well.


* Steven suggested a 24-hour hackathon for New Year's Eve.  The goal is to finally finish those projects we've been working on all year.  This could be a group project or just a personal project; just get it done.  We probably won't publicize it widely.  It's an adhoc hackathon with no real prizes except the sense of accomplishment you get when you finish something.  


* James mentioned that Hardware Freedom Day (http://www.hfday.com) is Jan 17, 2015. Registration opens up at the end of the month.

This is the 2nd year for this event, which invites local hackerspaces and groups do something to celebrate it.  This can include setting up your own event, or contributing/volunteering at some other group's event.

Last year, John had a really great open house at Tux-Lab.  This year, since we have a bit more notice, we could probably do something bigger.  Anyone motivated to come up with an event, or suggest events that we may want to help out at?  It would be nice to promote our group at the same time, especially if we have any cool projects to show off.
http://wiki.hfday.org/StartGuide


* Hackaday Show and Tell has their Happy Hour meetup tomorrow (Monday) at 6pm at an undisclosed location.  Join their Meetup group and RSVP.  

http://www.meetup.com/Hackaday-Projects-Pasadena/events/199608292/

SATURDAY Nov 22nd RECAP
=======================

We had a really great turnout at the Nov 22nd meeting.  I think there were 12-13 attendees including several new faces.  Lots of great discussion and people were busy working on their own things.  


I went to Dave F. with a disassembled cell phone car mount, where one of the pieces was broken.   He showed me how to recreate the piece in OpenSCAD using the building blocks of cubes and cylinders and a bunch of commands that generated the 3D model we needed.  We got the measurements using a digital caliper that James kindly loaned me.  And then Dave showed me how to export the file, bring it into SLIC3R, and generate the printer g-code so it can be printed out on a 3D printer.  It was a very cool learning experience and I'm grateful to Dave for taking me through all the steps.  It really isn't that hard, if you know what you are doing.  Now I do.


Jess and Michael S. worked on SCALE-AV stuff.


I think John W. was working on one of his environmental sensor projects.  James always has an assortment of electronics in front of him.  Steven had the scoreboard mechanism for the HAK air hockey table, and he and John had a quick design session for the arch that needs to be built to house the electronics and the camera for the scorekeeping and the computer vision system.


One of our new members, David, is working on a Blender class for children.  I believe it is being offered through the Altadena library system starting some time in January.  He may need some help with that, so we'll probably hear more about that later in the year.

We had a couple of students from PCC that I encouraged to come to HAK.  They looked like they had a good experience and I hope they will come back.

We had a new member, Eric, who has been working with Raspberry Pis and is interested in computer vision.  
And Shal, who came in while I was busy with OpenSCAD, but I think he had a good time chatting with everyone and apparently gave some good advice regarding transistors.


Then most of us went to dinner at Stonefire Grill, where we got an indoor table for once, and ate and talked some more.


Lan