Happy New Year....HELP!

[Brian]

Aloha Makerspace folks,

Happy New Year! I got a present from my landlord...the order to move
out! My landlord is going to make destructive renovations (and then
he'll sell) so I've got to find a new place. I must be out by
mid-April, but earlier is possible so I'm looking for a workshop.

I never realised dry, secure garages were so rare in Dunedin! As many
of you know I have my own tiny business which does marine seafloor
research - often associated with research consent work - and a tiny bit
of engineering. We've been operating out of a little studio laboratory
(15 sq. m) and a Versatile garage (30 sq. m) for 5 years now. I could
either look for a house with lab/workshop space or find lab/workshop
space and somewhere cheap to live. I'm hoping to spend less than $300
on whatever combination. If anyone has any suggestions or leads on a
place to live and/or work, please drop me a line or give me a call, I
appreciate any thoughts you can share.

Cheers,
Brian H 476-1712 M 021-189-3459

[ma...@kraemer.co.nz]

Hey brian, I'm interested in a place where I can do welding and research and development with the possibility of machine tools. I would be willing to share a workplace with you. I want about 100m2 and some 30A outlets and I'm willing to pay up to 300/mo for shared space. Let me know if you find something interesting.

Sent from Telecom's XT mobile network. Faster in more places

[Brian]

Thanks Matt,

I am interested in the shared space idea.  Since I was space limited I made arrangements with a friend a couple of years ago where I have been using his lathe and small mill, but there's nothing like having tools in a space of your own to foster prototyping.  What kind of work are you into?

Cheers,
Brian

[ma...@kraemer.co.nz]

Brian, I have quite a few entrepreneurial projects requiring welding, tube bending,   grinding, molding and milling, but for now I just want to teach myself to weld.
send me an email ma...@kraemer.co.nz and we can chat without spamming the newsgroup. Matt k 0220883936

[Brian]

G'day Matt, 

Just to let you know that finding new commercial premises just weren't in the cards.  I tried to organise a great place in co-op with another group, but it didn't happen.  So I've rented a house nicer than I would normally have just to get a two-space garage.  One half is used for my consulting business and the other is my workshop.  I don't have 3-phase, but I do have a light MIG for stainless, aluminium, and mild.  I have some welding to do on the project to benefit/fund D-space.  If you're keen to work on that project or want to do some light welding give me a shout.  My landline is 481-7899 and I'm in D-space on tuesdays, thursdays, and Saturdays.

Cheers,
Brian

On 15/01/2012 20:51, ma...@kraemer.co.nz wrote:

[Brian]

Hiya D-spacers,

I think it's awesome that we've had so many people on Thursdays and
Saturdays working on a couple of different projects. Like so many of us
I notice patterns. Like how almost every conversation contains the line
"you know...that guy who's doing the thing...you should get in touch
with him he's doing something similar...what's his name now?" or when
someone leaves the room "What was his name again?"

I feel like a goof wearing badges in an informal setting, but they exist
at conferences for a reason...it's great to meet new people and I'm
horrible at remembering names. Do we want name tags? I'll could bring
crafty and electronic bits materials some Thursday if we each want to
make our own (steampunk anyone?) or we could have a sticky roll of "Hi -
I'm [__________]" at the door.

Alternatively we could set up a webcam to take a photo of the people
walking through the door so that we could post on our membership page
just so you can match face and name discretely online.

Whatcha' think?

Cheers,
Brian

[steve rabbette]

Or even just on a wall next to a noticeboard maybe, all retro and stuff.
Holograms? Definitely 3D.

Those wee touch screens, press it and get a video intro,
"Hi, Barry, Sagittarius.
Civil engineer, long walks on the beach and peanut butter sandwiches..."

I've been thinking that too, I was going to mention it myself but I
was just waiting till I knew everyone.

It's alright if your there first, just one or two faces/names at a
time. But when you're new... 40 faces, 60 names?

Good one Brian, Steve.

[Brian]

I'm up for a wall of faces. Anyone have a printer that we can use to
print out pics and stick 'em on the wall? I have some photo-stock
printer paper that I never use (small sheets). Also another good use
for that wall computer that we never built?

[Brian]

Aloha Folks,

Thanks to Blair for reminding me. I've put up a brief page on the
SPI-Scan project presentation
(http://dspace.org.nz/2012/04/14/sediment-profile-imaging-spi-scan-project/).

ELECTRONICS: As an update, Paul has gone gangbusters on the underwater
board and the design-review that we held the week before last seemed
really useful. We now have 10 pretty proto-boards produced and we'll be
assembling a few (SMDs are now fun rather than a mystery after last
week) and running them through their paces. I've ordered a Raspberry
Pi, but of course I'm waiting like everyone else.

CODING: Christ Baxter has produced an Arduino test daemon. Today we'll
be working out a plan-of-attack for the various coding blocks so that
Python, Java, and Arduino people can divide and conquer! Please come
along or bring your thoughts to the list!

MECHANICS: I've designed a new lens for the LED blisters after some
contemplation and experimentation with potting multiple materials
simultaneously. O-ring grooves are my friends. I'll be hacksawing and
turning down tubes and pipes for the frame before welding them next week.

Thanks to the four or five people who have contributed to the project so
far! I'm really excited that the project is moving forward and I think
D-Space will have something to crow about because the chatter already
makes it obvious that these open-hardware and software bits can be used
elsewhere. I've deposited $1000.00 into the D-space account to help us
along the way.

Cheers,
Brian :o)

[Arron Dick]

Ive got a printer at home that I'd be willing to use for it, just get me what to print as a PDF or something

The walls an excellent idea as I'm terrible with names and faces

 

Arron Dick
Email:s_d...@yahoo.com
MSN:s_d...@hotmail.com

---

From: Brian <stagecra...@gmail.com>
To: dunedin-m...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, 14 April 2012 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: [DSpace] Printer - Do we need stinkin' badges?

[Blair McBride]

On 14/04/12 11:07, Brian wrote:
> could post on our membership page just so you can match face and name
> discretely online.

I've been throwing around this sort of idea for awhile - I think it
would be useful for have a section of the site dedicated to people, in
addition to something offline. Badges (or something similar) solve the
face to name problem well; the site should be able to solve the
interest/knowledge to name problem.

The one issue I have with badges is that my beard typically covers them.
I suspect I'm in the minority there.

- Blair

[Brian]

Sure...How about a page under Membership. Just a simple table and we
all email FACE photos. I can make the page. Can someone get sticky badges?

-Brian

[Cameron Kerr]

Some sort of coded blinkie perhaps. Person A's blinky sends out, periodically, an interest set (some sort of message saying "I'm interested in X, Y and Z"), while Person B's blinky, who happens to be within the immediate vacinity, sends out "I'm interested in Y and W". Each, seeing that there is some commonality, blinks to indicate to the user that there is some overlap in common areas.... perhaps different colours, frequency etc. to show degree of overlap.

A coded message could take the form of a run-length encoded (possibly negated, if interest areas are expected to be densely populated) bitmap of topics (in chronological order so as to remove the versioning problem) as registered on a website somewhere. For example, Arduino might be the first registered topic, followed by C (programming), then Ada/SPARK followed by Linux, so if you were interested in Arduino, C programming and Linux, then the coded sequence, prior to any compression, would be 1101. If a topic Reprap were to appear, it would be appended to the end, so devices that understood version 1 would still be able to communicate with version 2 devices. You'd need a way to reprogram it (perhaps hold it up to a blinking square patch on a web-page that transmits the particular bit-sequence, depending on how it will communicate.

OMG, I think I just invented a geekier version of speed-dating... more efficient _and_ with less inter-personal interaction ;^)

Cheers,
Cameron

[Geoff Barkman]

One thing we have to be wary is...
Never salute each other in a public place because the enemy will learn
who the superior officers are... then it will all turn to custard.

--
     Cheers
Geoff Barkman
======================================

[Paul Campbell]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:54:11 Geoff Barkman wrote:
> One thing we have to be wary is...
> Never salute each other in a public place because the enemy will learn
> who the superior officers are... then it will all turn to custard.

mmmm custard .....

Paul

[Bob Brown - Turboweb]

On 18/04/12 07:43, Cameron Kerr wrote:

Some sort of coded blinkie perhaps. Person A's blinky sends out, periodically, an interest set (some sort of message saying  "I'm interested in X, Y and Z"), while Person B's blinky, who happens to be within the immediate vacinity, sends out "I'm interested in Y and W". Each, seeing that there is some commonality, blinks to indicate to the user that there is some overlap in common areas.... perhaps different colours, frequency etc. to show degree of overlap.

Your development may be hampered by the inability to source people with relevant skills before the system has been developed - after all they would have no way to broadcast their interests to those in the immediate vicinity.

Hmmmm .... ;)

- Bob -

--

Bob Brown (about me) Lead Web Developer
Turboweb Limited Office: +64 3 474 5953 Web: www.turboweb.co.nz Twitter: twitter.com/turboweb Facebook: facebook.com/turboweb	Turboweb Limited 23 Vogel St Dunedin 9016 New Zealand

Need help?  Please email sup...@turboweb.co.nz

[Brian]

G'day Steve,

I'm sorry that I didn't have a very good answer for you when you kindly
asked how you could help with the SPI-Scan project a couple of days
ago. Partly I was at a loss because I am in a somewhat similar boat in
that I have some mechanical abilities, time, and tools, but less of the
other kinds. Partly it was also that I wanted to encourage you to not
simply say that you CAN'T do any electronics or software. We're mostly
at Makerspace to try to learn how to do new things and in the last year
I've learned a lot about electronics by listening to what's going on,
going home and researching what I've learned, getting a few books to
read, and then joining in the discussion where I can. I encourage you
to do the same. Also, all of the other folks who are working on the
project have come up to me and said "I'm interested in working on [this]
part of the project," we talked a bit, and then they're off working
mostly under their own steam. Mike is learning about Arduino coding
while he's working, Chris is learning about Python, etc.

If you were looking specifically for a mechanical aspect of the project
to work on because that's what you enjoy, and I appreciate any help,
another thought occurred to me. The boat box has to house the tether
connector (female), two 12 V batteries in series, a battery charger, a
mains plug (like the one on the back of the computer), the most-weather
resistant ethernet connector we can find, the most weather resistant USB
A port we can find (I do have some Jaycar ones), and it needs to house
the Raspberry Pi single-board computer, the ICRON LEx board, and one
small circuit board which provides regulated power (24VDC) to the LEx.
I've used chopped up cutting boards (since it was cheaper to buy them
than acrylic from the plastic suppliers) in the past to arrange the bits
and then I drilled/cut clear acrylic for the panel cover (some are in
the workshop). If you want to carefully consider what is the
cheapest, easiest, fastest way to organise and secure all of these bits
in the box, that would be very helpful. All the bits, except the
batteries and the Raspberry Pi, are in the workshop. You can research
which batteries fit best, find out the dimensions of the raspberry pi,
make a cardboard model of it, then figure out how to put it together.

I will be in there today a little after 1.

Cheers,
Brian