Demo Night

[Chris Lane]

Guys and Gals

The next demo night is on Tuesday, 16 October, and this one is special: to the best of our group recollection, this is going to be the 1-year anniversary of Demo Night. Let's make it great!

With that said, I've got a few announcements:

First, FYI, Christian Campbell has passed on the torch to me (Chris Lane) to run Demo Night for a while, so please route all Demo Night related queries to me from now on. More importantly, please join me in thanking Christian Campbell for all of his hard work in getting Demo Night off the ground! Demo Night has been great tool for sharing knowledge, recruiting new members, and - most importantly, in my opinion - kicking people's asses to finish projects. Next time you see him around the space, be sure to give Christian a high-five and to thank him for his hard work. Thanks, Christian!

As we kick off year two of Demo Night, there's really only one adjustment I'd like to propose: I request that, if there's something that you'd like to know more about (as in, if there's something you'd like to see presented), please make a request on the list (exactly like Galadriel did regarding using a router). My hope is that this will encourage even more people to participate, and will facilitate even more knowledge-transfer.

To "seed" this request list, here are some things that I personally would love to know more about:

- Metasploit
- Maltego
- GPG/PGP
- Snort
- Raspberry Pi
- Programming Arduino
- Processing (the programming language)
- Unity (game programming engine)

(I'm a software guy, so my list has a software bias, but that's not at all to discourage presentations unrelated to software. I've yet to encounter a single demo that I didn't think was both appropriate and interesting, regardless of the domain.)

How about the rest of you? What would you like to see presented? What would you like to present?

In the (hopefully near) future, I plan on coming up with a more formal system to track these requests, but for the time being, please just email the list. Also, if the Demo Night list traffic becomes overwhelming, there is also a dedicated Demo Night mailing list to which we could eventually migrate. If you think the Demo Night traffic starts to get spammy, let me know, and we'll segregate out into the separate list.

That's it for announcements - now to the nitty-gritty:

As a general reminder, Demo Night is always on the third Tuesday of every month. Doors open at 7:00, and presentations begin at 7:30. I'll be presenting something on 16 Oct, though I've yet to decide what. I believe we have a router demonstration scheduled as well. Who else would like to present?

Thanks, everyone. Let's work together to make year two of Demo Night great!

Chris

[Christian von Kleist]

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Chris Lane <cala...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Who else would like to present?

Please put me down to present a RaspberryPi-based RFID door controller.

Thanks!

-cvk

[Chris Lane]

You're on the list. Thanks!

Chris

[Mike Seese]

A couple of questions:

• There's a separate email list for demo nights?
• How long are typical presentations? Do they vary?
• How long are demo nights? Until they're done?
• Any cap of number of presentations?
• Can someone give more than one presentation, hypothetically?
• I suggest a Google Doc for tracking a list of topics (perhaps a spreadsheet. requester, requester email, topic, request date, priority [low/med/high], presenter [empty until someone takes it]). Entries get deleted after they're completed on demo nights. Otherwise, the fancy route would be creating a web portal for demo nights (maybe Python/Django) where you can find presentation powerpoints, pictures, videos, and the request list.
• I know a handful of you have your HAM licenses, but would there be anyone interested in a amateur radio presentation?
• Anyone interested in a high altitude balloon presentation?

If everything works out and my schedule looks fine, I might present Arduino programming and MOSFET driving (LEDs and DC motors).

Thanks,

Mike Seese
University of Florida, ECE Department
http://mikeseese.com, W4MIQ

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Chris Lane <cala...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Chris Lane]

Hi Mike

To answer your questions:

• There's a separate email list for demo nights?

Such a list exists, but it's not currently in use. Because the "main" mailing list is still low-traffic anyway, we're just keeping the demo night discussions on the main list for now. If the demo night traffic picks up to the point that some start to feel we're spamming the main list, then we will start using the dedicated list.

• How long are typical presentations? Do they vary?

Presentations are ideally about 10 minutes. QA afterwards may push you just slightly beyond 10 minutes, but 10 minutes start-to-finish is the goal.

• How long are demo nights? Until they're done?

"Until they're done" is right. They tend to vary in length, historically ranging somewhere from 1 to 2+ hours, depending upon how many presenters we have.

• Any cap of number of presentations?

From a practical standpoint, I think seven is about the most we can cram into an evening without the event running for hours and hours.

• Can someone give more than one presentation, hypothetically?

Let's handle that this way: if there are empty presentation slots, then yes, it's OK to give to presentations on the same night. I would prefer, however, that 1 person does not consume two slots on the night of an event that is "booked", where there are others who would like to present. You may reserve your presentation slot as far ahead in time as you'd like, though, so if you can't present both topics on one night, you can present the first topic and reserve your place to present the second on the next demo night.

• I suggest a Google Doc for tracking a list of topics (perhaps a spreadsheet. requester, requester email, topic, request date, priority [low/med/high], presenter [empty until someone takes it]). Entries get deleted after they're completed on demo nights. Otherwise, the fancy route would be creating a web portal for demo nights (maybe Python/Django) where you can find presentation powerpoints, pictures, videos, and the request list.

Great suggestion. I'll take care of this later on today and will mail the list with the URL.

• I know a handful of you have your HAM licenses, but would there be anyone interested in a amateur radio presentation?

I, for one, would love to see that.

• Anyone interested in a high altitude balloon presentation?

Also yes!

Regarding the next demo night: I'm afraid we've already got 8 presenters signed up, so this one is at capacity. Would you like me to reserve your slot for November's demo night? I, personally, would love to learn more about Arduino, so I think that would be a great presentation.

Lastly, a note to the list: if we ever get to the point where we have far too many presenters for a once-per-month demo night, we can always increase the frequency of the event. If you were considering presenting this month but were not able to because we hit capacity, let me know. I suspect this "problem" will get worse as we attract new members, though perhaps this isn't so much a "problem" as "progress" :)

Thanks for your questions and suggestions, Mike!

Chris