I'm trying to get a community together on Google+ where we can use Hangouts to share Arduino information. If you're not familiar with Google+ Hangouts, it's a way for a group of people to get together over audio/video.
Here are some of the ways we could use Hangouts as a community:
We have a 'beginners Hangout' where we discuss setting up the Arduino environment.
Have a 'nuts and bolts' Hangout where questions are answered about the fundamentals of electrical engineering.
Have a workshop hangout where we all go through a tutorial together.
Have a hangout where we analyze someone's project; Q&A type thing.
What do you think? I know I would greatly benefit from something like this. I've already started an Arduino Circle on g+. I'm thinking that if you're interested, add the circle to your circles and share that. Once we get a good amount of people, we can try a 'Hangout' and see how it goes.
Great naweston!
The sharing of G+ circles is really new (came out like 2 days ago) and I think I got the process down but I'm not 100% sure. So let me know if you have trouble adding the circle to your circles and re-sharing. It's king of weird. I would think you would just be able to join my circle but that's not the way it works. Anyway, cool! This could be a lot of fun! =)
I'm trying to get a community together on Google+ where we can use Hangouts to share Arduino information. If you're not familiar with Google+ Hangouts, it's a way for a group of people to get together over audio/video.
Here are some of the ways we could use Hangouts as a community:
We have a 'beginners Hangout' where we discuss setting up the Arduino environment.
Have a 'nuts and bolts' Hangout where questions are answered about the fundamentals of electrical engineering.
Have a workshop hangout where we all go through a tutorial together.
Have a hangout where we analyze someone's project; Q&A type thing.
What do you think? I know I would greatly benefit from something like this. I've already started an Arduino Circle on g+. I'm thinking that if you're interested, add the circle to your circles and share that. Once we get a good amount of people, we can try a 'Hangout' and see how it goes.
Do what you like, of course, but the thing I like about the Arduino forum, past and present, is the fact that it is a "sticky" medium. We hang out here and exchange information, but because it stays on the forum in a database, posted - it is easily searchable, and so you can find answers to questions, hints and ideas - from as far back as you care to search. Forgive me if I am wrong, but with an audio/video medium, there's no way to (currently) do this; the system (?) doesn't save an audio/video transcript, nor (?) does it save a searchable textual transcript. Instead, wouldn't you find yourself in the area of potentially answering the same or similar questions over and over (not that this forum, despite google, and the search system - stops newbies from posting the same thing - but at least in theory it is possible for a newbie to get "self-help" on a problem). Also - there isn't a way for someone to see what others have done in the past easily... As I noted, I haven't used this system, but I can't imagine a "free" service archiving audio/video "forever" and adding a search mechanism (at least today - who knows in the future).
I'm not suggesting a replacement to the forums at all. I'm saying that it would be a great addition to the forum. Plus, it would be hard to argue that a video based format wouldn't be helpful for someone explaining a tutorial or their project to a group of people. Colleges do this all the time.
Rob, sorry, don't know what happened to my link. I'll fix it tonight at home.
Video is really good for absolute basics and for conceptualizing.. not so much when it comes to nitty gritty details. Ever try to copy a schematic from a video? I haven't, but I'm pretty sure it would be amazingly annoying.
That being said, I can see "round table" discussions and BS sessions working.. but the limitation of losing (in a way) the content that comes with a Chat-based system does pose a problem. I could see at best basic tutorials, things that won't inherently create a lot of user questions, more of a How-To thing.
Possible useful videos:
Soldering 101
SMT/SMD Soldering
Electronics Safety 101
Component Concepts (what's a capacitor, what's a resistor, etc)
Setting up your Arduino the first time.. Blink
that kind of thing. I've been tossing around the idea of trying to make something like this just to see how it goes..at worst I'm a goofy looking SOB and would make for good "hey look at the nerd" youtube fodder... but even then, I'd still want those videos mainly linked from the Arduino "central" site. Social media is great for socializing, but it's really kind of limited in terms of delivering detailed information, methinks..