Are there any people interested in organising a meeting or workshops in the north east of England ?
Jon
Could be, the north east is a big place where abouts?
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the reply, should have been clearer but i was refering to the Northumberland/Tyneside region i.e Newcastle.
I see you are in Manchester maybe we could have meetings/workshops in the middle somewhere or alternate between the locations
What do you think ?
Jon
I know my location shows as Manchester because that's where I am during the week.
However, at weekends I am in South Cumbria so that's a lot closer to the NE. Therefore Newcastle is not out of the question (I was a student there in the late 60s and only went back three years ago, boy has it changed!). It takes me two hours from Cumbria to Newcastle so that's OK.
So I could make it there if their is any one else interested in coming.
Hi Mike,
Ah it all becomes clear now. I am actually based in between carlisle and Newcastle so would not mind having the meeting at carlisle or in my home town hexham which should cut down the travel times for both of us.
Would be interesting to get a small group meeting or holding workshops, i am very new to arduino but have some great ideas and would enjoy getting peoples feed back and discussing possible public exhibition
Yep Carlisle is only an hour away and has the advantage that my wife like it so some shopping could be done. However, I don't know anywhere where we could have the meeting.
As I typed that last sentence I thought of Tully House Museum, they have a "community room" where all sorts of groups meet. Maybe we could book that if we could be sure of enough people showing up. 
Yeah i am sure i could persuade my good lady to do some shopping as well ;D
Tully House museum would be good providing enough people would be interested. I was just thinking meeting at a weatherspoons or something like that for the first couple of meet to see how many people would be interested
I would be interested if the workshop/meeting were to be on a weekend, preferably saturday as I have a long way to travel. Please let me know if there is any development.
I live in Kent, but I am originally from Cheshire and still have family up there. It wouldn't be too much of a hardship to drive from Cheshire to Tyneside if I was visiting the family that weekend.
Guy's,
I'm in blackpool, just got my Arduino and have a few projects in mind but I'm no electronics wizz, what sort of level are we talking about here?
Im competent with electronics but less so with software at the moment. Im currently learning to program PIC microcontrollers (in assembly and PIC C) and the Arduino.
What kind of projects do you have in mind? I have a few in mind but most require a microcontroller. I think my first one will be a simple clock using Nixie tubes.
I more software than hardware, I was hoping to use a couple of stepper motors and an ultrasonic sensor to create a 3d map of the environment. I should be able to to map the data using DirectX.
That said I did read today that ultrasonic sensors are not focused and will return hits from a wide angle so I think I may need to find another type of sensor.
I have a couple more ideas but I've only had the board for 5 days so I'm still checking it out.
What kind of things or environment do you want to map?
Its not so much the environment I want to map, I was just thinking of a project that I could handle.
I was looking at using the SRF02, it doesn't have a long range (about 1.5 meters) but if I could set it up to accuratly scan the inside of a box I'd be happy.
I looking at cheap projects until I get up to speed.
It's a bit far from Birmingham to Newcastle for me. :-[
I'm in Birmingham too, and would be very interested in any meetups within a reasonable distance (which Newcastle is not, unfortunately)!
Don't forget that there will be the first UK Maker Faire in Newcastle in March 2009 (March 14th/15th). I hope to make the trip there from Bristol, probably with the Arduino.
I didn't know that have you a link to any info?
Maybe we should organise a meeting to coincide with that event so people could travel for them both?
The maker Faire looks really good. I will definately be going and would be happy to advise people on where to stay and maybe we could meet up for a drink and discuss more regular meetings