Arduino Interest in Toronto or Waterloo, Ontario

Nigel,

Glad to hear that Creation actually stocks Arduino and accessories.

To be honest, when I stumbled onto their web site about two months ago, I was so disappointed by their site that I didn't bother to check them out with a store visit.

Now that I know better, I will check them out in a couple of weeks when I am back downtown.

Dirigible,

Depending upon your needs, another possible source of sensors is to make them yourself!

Not knowing what your interest is . . . I would recommend books written by Forrest M. Mims III or others from the Evil Genius series.

In fact EG actually has a book called, Electronics Sensors for the Evil Genius: 54 Electrifying Projects ISBN 0071470360 . . . available from Chapters. I have a couple of books from this series and although they seem to be written for a younger audience (I am an old guy!) the circuits seem to be well designed and fairly well documents.

I have been playing with the simple seismograph from one of Mims Engineers Mini-Notebooks (long out of print, but the same circuits have been reprinted in a single Engineers Notebook) for ultimate inclusion in my Arduino weather station project.

I was in Creatron about 2 years ago. I have checked their webpage and no mention of Arduino stuff.

How do their prices compare to http://www.hvwtech.com/ or other web sites?

hello,
Creatron's website is HORRIBLE it has about 1/10th of the stuff that they actually sell in the store. Their pricing is pretty reasonable, when you factor in shipping and everything they might be 5% more expensive than online shops. The reason I like it is they have everything that I need for all my projects. Plus its 20 minutes away from my house.

So we seem to have quite a bit of interest for a workshop going? Any ideas for a location? Hopefully some place where we could rent cheap or, even better, free! Or if anybody here has a big house, would they be willing to volunteer garage/basement space for the day?

Also, dont forget fundamental logic: http://store.fundamentallogic.com/ecom/

Local Arduino shop based out of Toronto. They're the makers of the iDuino

I would be interested in an arduino group in Toronto

Vodka where do you live?

For those people who have replied that they are interested in forming an Arduino Interest Group in the Waterloo, Cambridge or Kitchener areas, I have been trying to research possible meeting locations.

Since I live I Cambridge, I checked there first and discovered that the rooms available through the city's recreation department start at $20 per hour. I was extremely disappointed that the library will only allow meetings for “culturally based events” and that Arduino does not qualify or so said the snooty *bitch that didn't return my first three voice mails.

The Kitchener Library appears to be a little more cooperative and lists a cost of $35 for a two-hour room rental. This week I will contact the recreation departments of both Kitchener and Waterloo to see if there are some no charge facilities that might be available.

The Kitchener Public Library asks for program suggestions and so I have also made a suggestion to them that they consider the development and presentation of an Arduino workshop and ultimately the creation of an Arduino Interest Group.

Further information will be posted as available.

*Please note that the forum software automatically changed that word on me and while that's not quite what I called her . . . it does get the message across! :wink:

wow good work, keep us up to date.

I would think that UW would allow use of a room if you could find the proper person to sponsor the request. To me, the arduino falls into the realm of 'robotics' and 'physical computing'.

UW has a robotics group. Where do they meet? UW holds and participates in University robotics events each year.

I bet there is a lot of overlapping interest between the 2 groups.

A quick search found these links:

http://uwrobotics.uwaterloo.ca/

http://web2.uwindsor.ca/engineering/cvss/?topic=newsContent&id=2

and finally... robot racing at UW!
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~rracing/

uwrobotics has their own lab at waterloo. I know a few people in the club but currently they are on coop. I know some of them have a lab key, i gotta ask them if they'll be willing to make a trip down from where they are working to open up the lab for us on a saturday.

Also, I don't know why I didn't think about this earlier, there are always a lot of free classrooms available after 7PM on weekdays, and there are almost never any classes going on during Saturdays. The classrooms are all left open, and I often use them to study or within a group that is working on a project. If we don't need any special equipment, this might not be a bad idea.

Darudude . . . you're the dude!

Can you please follow up on the idea of hijacking some class room space at UoW?

Well there really is no official way to do this. What everybody normally does is go to the engineering buildings and look for a free class room and just settle in. It is normally never an issue if we keep the place tidy when we leave. The custodians come and check up and clean the rooms but they are very polite and never cause any issues. In face they are always curious about what we are doing.

On the odd chance we do get told to leave, its always because there is a class coming in or somebody has booked the room. But in those scenarios we just pick up and move to another room where we continue what we were doing.

Ofcourse, there is a chance (though this has never happened to me), that all the rooms are busy. In this case I guess our meeting wouldn't go through. However the odds of that happening are super, super slim.

I guess if we can't find an actual room we could at least try meeting in a corner of one of the commons or lunch rooms.

Okay . . . so for those still following along with this thread . . . let's pick a date to meet at UoW.

I'll leave it up to darudude to specify the starting location.

I work during the day and I am not available on Wednesday evenings. Other than a little surgery on Thursday March 12th I am open to suggestions.

Monday or Tuesday night or Saturday or Sunday morning . . . any other suggestions?

A Saturday would be better for me as I am coming in from St. Catharines (I'm on coop).

The next Saturday I should have completely free would be the 21st, and I will be in waterloo that whole weekend.

I could squeeze in the 14th as well but it would have to be in the afternoon.

Darudude,

How about 9 am Saturday March 21st?

Where do you want to meet at the university?

How about the rest of your Arduinians, is any one else in for a face-to-face meeting?

9AM!! That is super early lol

I was thinking about heading up to waterloo on the friday night to go meet a few friends of mine, so saturday works great. Mind if we start around 10:30 though?

There doesn't seem to be too many people interested though, eh?

Darudude,

10:30 works for me.

Where exactly do you want to meet at UoW? Hopefully, somewhere easy to find.

BTW - I will send a PM directly to Mark Bramwell, Vodka and nigel_mck inviting them to the meeting.

Thanks for letting me know, I am actually a student at UW, but since I would be graduating soon, that's why I enquire about Toronto meeting. I would be back in Markham area starting this May

For the meeting, as Darudude said, people just usually find a free classroom to have meetings. Alternatively, I can try to book a study room in the UW library (not sure how that works...never done it before)

actually thats a great idea! you can book study rooms for 3 hours blocks upto 1 week in advance. The biggest room you can book has space for 10 people.

I'll check if there is a spot the saturday before we are supposed to meet up