Northwest Washington state. (Between Seattle & Canada)

[jaholmes]

I'll do my best to make the 15th.  It may be another shorter-than-I'd-like-it-to-be visit, or else I may have my boy in tow.   My coworker Justin may tag along also.  If Mitch was going to make it, perhaps I can convince Justin to drag along his desktop injection molder for show-and-tell.  It looks a bit like a bullet reloading press.  Justin's been slowly accumulating the necessary gear to injection-mold a small product he's selling.  He's so far been 3D printing it using a couple of small "UP"-style 3D printers, and the yields have been poor. (The other possible solution for him, should the injection molding turn out to be a dead end, is to upgrade his 3D printing setup to something MakerBot-esque.)

Ingredients for v2 of the game music player are mostly accounted for now.  Chances are very slim that I'll have anything new actually working for 4/15, but 5/6 would be a certainty.  In any case, I'll bring what I have, working or not!

[jimLee]

Well, Mitch is planning on making it. I'm planning on firing up the BBQ. I'm thinking burgers and/or dogs. Guy, (Shell Oil) is planning on coming. I sent messages to Tim/Tom. Tim's thinking about it, Tom's not responded. Kurtis (Airframe Mech.) I'm working on as well as Steve (Boat design, tooling & Banjo builder) We should have enough talent in there to build a Starship! Should be a fun time. Oh and Nate (Ex mechanic, now builds race cars)
 
Oh, my blasted Coke machine stopped cooling its cans. I gotta' figure out how to fix that. Pipes are all frozen but the heat exchangers aren't exchanging heat. Odd that..

-jim lee

[jaholmes]

BBQ sounds excellent.  Please give me some kind of shopping list--chips, dip, drinks, hamburger/hotdog supplies, etc.  I *will* bring something, so make sure it's something you want!

I took care of two weekend's worth of around-the-house projects this weekend, so I'm looking forward to a guilt-free visit on Saturday, heh.

I picked up a Papilio Duo--basically, an Arduino Leonardo married to a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA and a 2Mb SRAM.  Nifty!  So I'll bring that along for show-and-tell too.  For a variety of eeEEEEeevil reasons (to be discussed on Sat), it's going to replace the Arduino Mega 2560 in v2.  Or, well... I *think* it is.  I've so far only worked with Xilinx's newer Vivado toolset, and the Spartan series chips require the older ISE toolset.  I'm playing with ISE now for the first time, and I can see why they replaced it! D:  (#include various rage comics)

-Aaron

[jimLee]

Ok lets see.. Not sure how to delegate this..

I'll do the basics..
Burgers :
Buns
Meat
Mayo
Ketchup
Mustard
Relish
Cheeze
Onions
Dogs:
Buns
Other:
Soft drinks
Ice (Coke machine broke)
Beer?
OK now you can get a better idea of what's missing. Chips, desert, salad, chili, soup->nuts.. What would you like to see here?

-jim lee

[jaholmes]

That certainly seems like a great spread, Jim.  How about I pick up an assortment of deli salads, chips/dip, and some cookies or brownies?  Happy to do requests, though!

-Aaron

[jimLee]

Sounds great.

-jim lee

[jaholmes]

Jim, can you confirm the meeting time?  Noon again?

[Naneen]

Yes 12 noon

sorry I can't make it see you at the next one.

Nan

[jimLee]

Your missing out. Its going to be HUGE!

Well, possibly bigger than the last few.

-jim lee

[jaholmes]

Its going to be HUGE!

It was YUGE!

Thanks again for hosting these get-togethers, Jim.

-Aaron

[jimLee]

You are more N welcome! Thanks for coming!

 I think I'm going to make a list of prospective projects people want to work on. Also, it looks like people would like to take field trips to each others workplaces. I think we'll try to hit Mitch's Machine shop next time for a show & tell. If possible I'd like for us to tour your place to find out about building pressure sensors.

Steve was saying he could demonstrate some of the techniques he uses for building the banjos.

I'm bummed I didn't pressure Justen (?) into demoing his plastic injection machine. I would have really liked to have seen it work.

And now I have two c++ students. I hope I can teach. (Fingers crossed!)

Fun fun fun!

-jim lee

[jaholmes]

Yes, a tour of workplaces would be awesome!  Justin and I might have to work on the boss a bit.  He's a super guy, and very amenable to drop-ins during the week, but he tries hard to protect his weekends--as I would have to do, if I had a home/office/lab setup like he does.  In lieu of a tour opportunity that appeals to our meetup schedule, Justin and/or I could certainly bring in samples of our work and do a presentation/slideshow kind of deal.

Glad to hear about the C++ students.  Hopefully they've got projects in mind that demand C++ skills, too.  Motivated students are the best kind!

I'm sure we can get Justin to bring back his injection molder, especially if he's able to get a mold made for his part!  I tried to eavesdrop on his conversation with Mitch, but couldn't quite manage it.  I'm hopeful they had a productive meeting-of-the-minds.  He'll fill me in tomorrow, I'm sure.

As for other possible agendas:  When I finally get my Glowforge (early July?  Fingers crossed!!!), I'll have to bring that in for a Laser Day and let everybody burn stuff.

[jimLee]

I'm planning on having the shop open this Sat afternoon if anyone would like to show up.

I'll also be there Wed. evening as well. 'Cause I'll be teaching my first c++ Arduino class. (Complete beginners)

-jim lee