Rapberry Pi arrived... very tired!

[Michael Erskine]

I just got home from work a little while ago to find a card from
knock-a-door-run (aka parcelforce) which said my parcel from RS was at
my local post office. I have two local post offices and it wasn't the
first one! So after some furious pedalling I arrived at the second
post office 2 mins to closing time and was rewarded. I now need a nice
case and I look forward to cutting this one ASAP...
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24666

First job is to get Quake working on it! Who else has theirs?

[Daniel]

I got an email this afternoon from farnell to say mine has been shipped, so I'll hopefully have it in a few days...

[Jake Howe]

I have had mine for a few weeks now. Been tinkering around with a desktop case design (some of you saw it last wednesday)

Picture here - https://dl.dropbox.com/u/26330117/gmjhowe/UpperCrust.JPG

The idea is that all cables are routed to the back instead of splaying in every direction.

By the same topic, Bob from Manchester hackspace suggested we have a 'Raspberry Jam' session, basically we host a free open evening and invite any local raspberry pi owners to come along and tinker. Bob said they got lots of interest, plus potential members. Basically we get some screens and keyboards everyone sits around and tinkers etc.

People think it is worth us doing one?

Jake

[Joe Duckhouse]

Here's one I made last week

http://goo.gl/oEH5c

Similar clone to the adafruit one but I made it stackable and did a extra top with space for a slice of pi board. 

It fits really well, I'll bring one with me tomorrow. 

Let me know if you want the dxf

Sent from my iPhone

[James Hayward]

I've had mine for about 4 weeks, but haven't yet switched it on! been a very busy few weeks!

On Jun 12, 2012 6:57 PM, "Joe Duckhouse" <cong...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Michael Erskine]

Yes! Let's have a Raspberry Jam!

[Dominic Morrow]

That is a brilliant idea.... Strike whilst the iron is hot!! Please pick a date ASAP so I can publicise the crap out of it! 

DM  

Sent from my iPhone

[Chunky]

Yep great idea.
The Brighton folk are doing a similar thing and it was fully booked within about a hour.
Also - please can you make it suitable for those of us without pi's yet? I thought I had registered on the first day (I was up and helping all the systems crash on the first day), but it turns out I hadn't so I'm still 6-8weeks away from pi.

Matt

[Michael Erskine]

Yes, I think we should emphasise that this is _especially_ for those
who haven't yet received their Pi (i.e. most people) and that the Jam
session will allow them to get their hands on one for the evening and
to plan their project during this unique time: the preparations can be
underway with SD card testing, trying out power supply options,
choosing a basic Linux distro, USB peripherals, etc.

These are exciting times - it's like the Arduino all over again!!!

[Dominic Morrow]

So.... Pick a date... please!! let us strike whilst the iron is hot. Can someone write a blurb?

Dominic

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

Yeah, it might be nice to draw attention from people waiting on their Pi, just to have a go with one and see what people are up to.

Some of us have more than one Pi, others have a single Pi they might be fine having hooked up on show.

I am happy to put the time into sorting/organising this, however I could do with some help.

- I need people who have a Pi, and/or the knowledge to do something interesting with them.

- We need some equipment, mainly a few monitors, I know we have some at the space, but we also need ones that will work with either the video out of HDMI of the Pi's.

I do not think we need a monitor for every person, and we can ask people to bring keyboards/mice/PSU and monitors with them.

For the most part, I think the initial Jam would revolve around lots of Pi owners/Pi awaitees sitting around and geeking out talking about the Pi.

I do think we should have maybe 1 or 2 informative talks about how to set up the Pi? For example getting a OS install onto the SD card, which is a little bit of a minefield.

Also another talk about things you can do with the Pi (whole range between using it as a light powered desktop machine and a very powerful arduino with the GPIO)

Who wants to help? Need 1 or 2 people to help me. Ideally people who have been playing with their Pi. 

Jake

[Jake Howe]

(writing a blurb now)

If someone wants to find a suitable date. 

Jake

On 13 Jun 2012, at 10:47, Chunky wrote:

[Michael Erskine]

Thursday July 5th?

wiki pages underway - Jake, could you put your blurb on the wiki please?

[Michael Erskine]

On 13 June 2012 11:15, Michael Erskine <mse...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Thursday July 5th?

Noooooooo! I hid my calendar to see only the nottinghack one and then
chose a date when I'm away!

So... NOT July 5th but thereabouts! Enough time to advertise but
otherwise as soon as possible !

[Jake Howe]

Well assuming that you are obviously one of the people who want to help me run the Jam, then we should pick a date that suits you!

Jake

On 13 Jun 2012, at 10:47, Chunky wrote:

[Dominic Morrow]

Brilliant - 5th July from 19:00

Is it a free event open to non-members? Should we limit places and use eventbright?

Do we have a suitable image for this event. Could some take one please ASAP (Jake)?

When you've done the blurb send me all the links here or direct and I'll put it all together tonight on the website and eventbrite then I'll promote it.

Could this become a regular RPUG event?

Dominic

Sent from my iPhone

[Matt Lloyd]

Dates good for me assuming we are thinking an evening session for the first one.

I can bring my PI's to show/demo
I have some gpio stuff and might be able to put together some Wireless sensor interface stuff
But I'm a little to busy to organise a whole night of stuff.

'RepRap' Matt
Sent from my iPad 2

On 13 Jun 2012, at 11:15, Michael Erskine <mse...@googlemail.com> wrote:

[Dominic Morrow]

Well pick a new date ASAP

Sent from my iPhone

[Matt Lloyd]

Yes free and open to everyone

Also once a month might work, as people can always drop in on a wed open night for more

'RepRap' Matt
Sent from my iPad 2

[Michael Erskine]

Could we do it on the Wednesday? I'm interested to see how tonight's
Arc Reactor workshop sits with the open hack night (following the
major publicity of green festival)

[Jake Howe]

Hey now, everyone just calm down.

I know it is an exciting idea, but getting emails every second with new ideas does not help to get a blurb written!

Let me write a blurb, relax, we will pick a date in the near future. If me Michael and Matt pick a suitable date we are all free. Then go from there.

Other suggestions from me are Tuesday 3rd, or the Wednesday 4th as Michael suggested. I think having it on an open hack night is good, we can happily fill the studio tables. However if really popular it might over take the hack night.

Jake

On 13 Jun 2012, at 10:47, Chunky wrote:

[Matt Lloyd]

Wednesday night might be a bad idea if we get too many people and the way Dominic wants to push this I can see use getting on the R-Pi twitter and being over run very quickly :/

'RepRap' Matt

Sent from my iPad 2

[Joe Duckhouse]

Ive got a few with io breakouts we can use to demo also.

Provided I'm free i can come along to help out (although I'm not normally free until around 8ish so would miss the start)

[James Hayward]

Nothing wrong with it taking over an open night, it will only make the space look more awesome!

Count me and my pi in, especially if it's an open night!

J

[Dominic Morrow]

Not open night IMHO

Sent from my iPhone

[Michael Erskine]

OK, let's decide a date tonight (when we have less work to do!) and we
can do a proper event launch.

[Dominic Morrow]

I really think open night is the wrong night.

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

If both Michael and Matt are going to be around tonight, lets put our heads together for 15 minutes before/after/during the ARC workshop to settle on a date, and quickly discuss what we need to do to run the workshop.

Jake

[Jake Howe]

Ok, I have no added my Blurb to the wiki page, which can be copied across to an event once we settle on a date.

http://wiki.nottinghack.org.uk/wiki/Raspberry_Jam_Sessions

Regarding whether we have it on an Open Hack Night or not, I will liase with Bob, see what numbers they had.

If ~ 20 we should have it on an open hack night, it will make the hackspace look great and active.

If more than ~20 we should have it as a separate event that takes up most of the space. 

I think there is potential for this to be at a weekend, as more people might attend (as per arduino workshops of previous) we should also encourage parents and kids to attend the event in the original spirit of the Pi.

Jake

On 13 Jun 2012, at 11:37, Michael Erskine wrote:

[Dominic Morrow]

It's not a question of numbers it's a question of image and missed opportunity. The Raspberry Pi night needs to have it's own night. Running events on Open Night is not a good idea generally as it gives a flavour to Open Night that I'd like to avoid.

 

For instance a new person arrives for Open Night and they are interested in woodworking for example, but all the key people and the majority of other people in the space are working on Raspberry Pi. They will leave with the impression that Hackspace is about Raspberry Pi.

 

Personally I wasn't keen for Martin to run his Arc workshop on Open night. We have no problem occupying the space on open night. We pay a lot of rent and we need to spread things out. The other thing is that this event IS likely to attract new people. They need to understand that there are things going on in addition to Rpi and can be invited to Open Night to add to what they are doing.

 

Open night is supposed to Open and Free... that's not just price, that's activity. I want the keenest folks including those interested in RPi to be available on Open night for free range projects.

 

I strongly object to any but the smallest discrete unavoidable workshops occurring on Open Night. Please let's not plan to run this on Open Night. I understand that some folk find it hard or aren't allowed to come to the space more than once a week, tough. We need a spread of events please.

 

Raspberry Pi will be a popular idea even if not that many turn up. Let's not miss the opportunity to have something that might capture people who can not make a Wednesday. At the Bristol Hackspace last night we had a number of new faces. People who were either intimidated by our open Thursday or simply had more important things to do on a Thursday. RICH NEW SEEM OF POTENTIAL MEMBERS!

 

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

Bob says they had 40 tickets for the event, all 'sold' (free event). 35 people turned up.

So I am going do the same, have it on a different day to open hack night, have 40+ tickets available and take it from there.

I think with us having the bigger space we can quite happily limit the tickets at 60, if we manage to 'sell' all those all those, excellent, if we only get half that? Still excellent.

I think a Tuesday or Friday evening or Saturday Daytime. I figure if the first Jam goes well, we could do another event at a weekend at a later date.

I don't think we need to run a specific RPUG, I think one will form by itself if there are enough people at the events.

In fact as part of the introduction we should stand up and say 'If you enjoy this, we will facilitate more events'

Jake

[Jake Howe]

Bob also just linked me this - http://lespounder.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/manchester-raspberry-jam/

Which is what I will use as base for ours.

Jake

[Jake Howe]

Correction, I meant Tuesday or Thursday Evening.

[Dominic Morrow]

> I don't think we need to run a specific RPUG, I think one will form by itself if there are enough people at the events.

That's what I'm afraid of. If there is going to be a UG let's make sure they meet at Hackspace. I've observed that UG are a strong recruitment source for Hackspaces the world over. Wouldn't want them meeting in a pub on Wednesdays like NLUG.

DM

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

In order to manage that, we would need to offer it as a regular free event. If some of those people become members, thats fine, but we could not enforce membership on people in a UG.

Otherwise, they will just go meet in a pub.

Jake

[deejak]

Certainly, see how tonight goes, but my preference would be to see the Hackspace used on more occasions.

Some evenings in the 'space can be depressing when one is alone. It doesn't seem to take more than a handful of people in the 'space to make it an exciting place to be.

Wednesdays are already busy, and we should try and keep them non-specific, when anyone can expect to find a space to work. Last week some in-progress work had to move from the workshop to the studio due to demand, and this would be a real issue if, say, the entire studio were dedicated to a raspberry-jam.

Even having the board meetings seems to dampen the atmosphere - though there are obvious logistical reasons for keeping them on the open night. A small  event - like the TagTool presentation works well, anything bigger probably would not.

David Clarke.

[John Crouchley]

I have two Pis so if anyone wants to borrow one until theirs arrives then I will bring it in tonight.

Quake3 and FreeDoom run quite well (gosh the graphics look old).

Set mine up with ssh and vnc so rarely need to plug a monitor / keyboard in - but Quake and Doom do not run well across a network.

[Jake Howe]

People being able to play doom will be excellent to have on show. So that would be very welcome John.

Gmjhowe

[Dominic Morrow]

So which day?

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

As you might have guess, it was super busy last night, and I was helping Martin out with the workshop.

This meant I did not really have time to grab the relevant people to decide on a date. (the workshop was still going strong when I left at 9.20)

So lets quickly settle on a date here, currently I am think Tuesday 3rd July. It means if people are eager for more hackspace goodness they can pop along the following day to the open hack night.

If Matt and Michael could reply to confirm that is ok, then we can go about pushing it to the public.
We need to confirm quickly, then Dominic can get it to the Raspberry Pi people to tweet about etc.

No doubt others are thinking/planning after seeing the blog post on the Raspberry Pi site.

Jake

[Dominic Morrow]

So.... You guys said you'd discuss it. What date?

Dominic

Sent from my iPhone

On 13 Jun 2012, at 15:31, Jake Howe <ho...@dr.com> wrote:

[Matt Lloyd]

Michael and I both said the 3rd in the pub.
So I think we set.
Maybe we should give Michael 20mins to double check his calendar??

'RepRap' Matt
Sent from my iPad 2

[Michael Erskine]

On 14 June 2012 09:43, Dominic Morrow <notti...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So.... You guys said you'd discuss it. What date?

Tuesday 3rd July

[Dominic Morrow]

Jake - Can you takes a Nottinghack centric RPi picture and crop it to 590 x 400 px then pop it on the Wiki so I can make a blog post. In fact it would be useful if your blurb was a bit more prosy for the front page... Actually why not just put it on the front page too? Needs to go up today. :)

DM



Sent from my iPhone

On 14 Jun 2012, at 09:42, Jake Howe <ho...@dr.com> wrote:

[Joe Duckhouse]

I was thinking i could be cutting out the stacking cases for people during this (profits to the hackspace)


However the 3rd is my sons birthday so I cant do then.
Maybe someone else could man the laser if its on the 3rd?

[Jake Howe]

If you can send my the DXF file for your case/link me to the DXF then I can cut some if needed. I also have a few of my own designs.

Though I do not want it to look like we are trying to make money from the User Group.

I will get on with the picture now.

Jake

[Bob Clough]

Just happen to have them in the vending machine!

Lasered or 3d printed cases, tenner a pop, all profits to the space.

[Kai Pays]

Sweet!
Still waiting for mine!

[Jake Howe]

Here we go Dominic, I have also attached the image on this email.

http://wiki.nottinghack.org.uk/wiki/Raspberry_Jam_Sessions

Feel free to alter my blurb to fit. I added a little bit about having some hackspace members give a talk.

I plan to give an 'Introduction' talk which will briefly cover what the Pi is (brief enough not to annoy people who already know what it is, but to let people know all the things you can do with it)

Then I figure we will have a optional tour of the space, where I will take anyone who wants to have a tour for a quick one, others can just get stuck in. (chance that as people arrive they might get quick tours)

Then we just let people mingle play around with everything, then later into the night say at 7-8ish we can have 2 or 3 10-15 minute talks (or earlier if people are looking bored).

We should do talks on the following subjects based on the Manchester Hackspace one.

- About Linux, including a short history and about the variations on the Pi (I peg Michael as doing this)

- About hardware hacking - using the raspberry pi like you would an Arduino (I peg Matt Lloyd as doing this)

- Setting up the Pi, how to get a working SD install, what chargers work well etc.

Jake

[Dominic Morrow]

Hi Jake 

That's a pretty cool image but I think the text will clash with the summary on the front page

Sent from my iPhone

On 14 Jun 2012, at 12:48, Jake Howe <ho...@dr.com> wrote:

Here we go Dominic, I have also attached the image on this email.

http://wiki.nottinghack.org.uk/wiki/Raspberry_Jam_Sessions

Feel free to alter my blurb to fit. I added a little bit about having some hackspace members give a talk.

I plan to give an 'Introduction' talk which will briefly cover what the Pi is (brief enough not to annoy people who already know what it is, but to let people know all the things you can do with it)

Then I figure we will have a optional tour of the space, where I will take anyone who wants to have a tour for a quick one, others can just get stuck in. (chance that as people arrive they might get quick tours)

Then we just let people mingle play around with everything, then later into the night say at 7-8ish we can have 2 or 3 10-15 minute talks (or earlier if people are looking bored).

We should do talks on the following subjects based on the Manchester Hackspace one.

- About Linux, including a short history and about the variations on the Pi (I peg Michael as doing this)

- About hardware hacking - using the raspberry pi like you would an Arduino (I peg Matt Lloyd as doing this)

- Setting up the Pi, how to get a working SD install, what chargers work well etc.

Jake

<RaspJam_03.jpg>

[Dominic Morrow]

That image isn't good for the front page Jake. 

Dominic

[Jake Howe]

Try this one, if not I will just take a generic shot of the Pi.

Jake

[Michael Erskine]

I see the Raspberry Jam event announcement on Derby Makers - could
some capable wordsmith make the announcement on this list please?

[Dominic Morrow]

Well volunteered

Sent from my iPhone

[Michael Erskine]

I said capable not culpable!

[Dominic Morrow]

You write one I'll edit it and make it sexy.

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

As an aside, we will have great success if we can get the @raspberrypi twitter account to retweet about the Jam, or even get on their blog.

So if we can drop a few tweets including their name that will help. (but don't spam the hell out of them) Also worth dropping them an email directly (but I understand they have a LOT of emails)

Jake

[Dominic Morrow]

The image you did says Thursday its a Tuesday. The wiki says Wednesday. I already tweeted RPi.

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

Didn't realise we were still using that image, here is an amended one.

Yeah, I saw your tweets from your own account and the HSNOTTS one, I think the trick is to stagger the tweets until they get noticed, if they happen to miss it in the wealth of raspberry pi tweets.

Jake 

[Dominic Morrow]

Thanks for the suggestions :) 

Sent from my iPhone

Jake 

<RaspJam_03.jpg>

[Michael Erskine]

sorry, I've been in meetings most of this morning - I suggest we just
push out the same announcement that went to Derby Makers

[Jake Howe]

Bingo, just got a retweet on the raspberry pi twitter account.

Jake

[Roger Light]

Hi,

I spotted that the Ubuntu UK Podcast twitter account was asking about
how people were finding the Raspberry Pi, so I've sent them an email
with a few details of the Jam. Hopefully they'll read it out (they
record tomorrow).

Cheers,

Roger

[Michael Erskine]

Thanks Roger! Do you have yours yet?

[Roger Light]

Nope, I haven't even tried ordering one yet. Too much else to do at the moment!

[Justin Stokes]

Not fair, I've got to wait 13 weeks for mine (never mind it will be a birthday present), but thank you rep rap for lending me your spare one apple tv is cool on these little things, just need to get a epos system working on them now.

Jnf justin

Sent from my iPad

[Joe Duckhouse]

The Nottinghack raspberry jam has been mentioned on the raspberry pi blog and engadget!

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1479

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/fishpi-autonomous-raspberrypi-boat-to-cross-atlantic/

Both in reference to this FishPi which is made by Greg Holloway.

Apparently he is bringing it to the jam.

http://fishpi.org

[Matt Lloyd]

That's awesome, will be watching the hit counter on the site to see what traffic bump it brings

Have a feeling next Tuesday is going to be a busy one :)

'RepRap' Matt

Sent from my iPad 2

[Jake Howe]

Yeah, I spoke to Greg over on twitter, and encouraged him to bring the project to show off, and even do a small show and tell about it.

Its great that he has put a shout out for Nottinghack along with his project.

Jake

[Dominic Morrow]

We should consider putting it on YouTube and even UStream we have an account somewhere.

DM 

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

Having a Ustream would be good, plus if we record the whole thing we can do a super speed of it to pop on youtube.

It would also be nice if someone not involved with running it could do a blog post similar to the manchester one.

I think its nicer to have that kind of 'independent' view of the event.

Jake

[Dominic Morrow]

Could you post it? The blog post I mean. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

As in the blog post I just mentioned that should be done by someone not involved with running the event?

(because last I checked I was helping run it)

Jake

[Dominic Morrow]

No I meant the link to the blog post you mentioned not write a blog post. 

What I'd suggest at the event is make sure everyone gets a book mark, this should prevent the Nottshack syndrome and wrongly linked mentions and personally appeal to people to "Blog that Shhh"

I'm afraid I'm not going to make it AFAIK though I'll be in Nottingham. 

I'll dig out the UStream passwords etc tonight. We do need to make a lot more video generally. 

Dominic 

Sent from my iPhone

[David Hayward]

Video: I've got the cameras for people to use; I just lack time.

[Dominic Morrow]

No worries David it's a kind offer. Might need to encourage some of the many new folk to get involved in snapping, documenting and generally "blogging that shhh"

Might start a new thread about it later.

Dominic 

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

This is a great example of when we need to have the camera mounted and recording to use later, even if we do not live stream it.

This was the original blog post - http://lespounder.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/manchester-raspberry-jam/ that was also reposted on the RasPi blog.

Handing out bookmarks is an excellent idea, actively getting one out to everybody who attend.

As David points out, he has cameras to use, and plenty of us have capable camera phones, its just a case of no one thinking till its too late, or no one being able. Hence having a camera set up in the corner is a good idea (well middle of a wall)

Jake

[Dominic Morrow]

Careful we don't want to go down the "camera gate" route again!! I'm talking about someone asking to record one person who might be doing a show and tell or working on something. No one should expect to have cameras pointed at them unless they have been asked. That's a matter of etiquette AND policy... (in my personal opinion)

Just to clarify what Jake and I are saying

Dominic 

Sent from my iPhone

[Jake Howe]

Plus if we were to set up a live stream, or record a video for later of a talk etc, we would probably set out some chairs to one side 'out of view' to give people a choice while not being excluded or having to stop doing a video.

Jake

[Jake Howe]

Can someone put out a tweet reminding people about the Jam tomorrow, and asking people to bring their own Monitor/keyboard/power supply if they are able?

I can mimic the same message over on our Facebook as well.

I plan to be there from about 5 or earlier, to fiddle with some things, but also to set up the space to cater for the event etc. If you want to turn up a little early to give me a hand that would be welcome.

Jake

[Jake Howe]

Just a quick message to say the the Jam went really well, we had between 30-40 people (never bothered to count)

Pretty much all of them were new faces, which is great. There seemed to be several people who would be interested in helping to continue to run the RPUG, which is even better.

Thanks to RepRap Matt, Michael, John, and Craig for coming along, and generally engaging with people at the space. Also thanks to David H, David C and Gareth who were in the space, but jumped in to help with various things, whether that was chasing batteries, or just talking to people about the space and what projects they were working on.

We are going to carry on running the group, so we will continue to meet on the 1st tuesday of every month. So the next RPUG will be on Tuesday 7th of August.

Where we will focus a bit on what we want from the group, what we are gonna do every month etc. (if someone could add that to the calendar, that would be great)

Jake