Arduino Day

[Ross Bochnek]

Saturday, March 29, 2015 is Arduino Day, celebrating Arduino's birthday.

Last year, Arduino Day was during Cleveland Mini Maker Faire.  There were celebrations worldwide, but I found out about it too late to sign us up as official participants.  They haven't launched the sign-up portal yet, but it should be live in February.

Does Makers alliance want to participate in Arduino Day 2015?  We could do something at our space, and/or talk about a collaboration with Ingenuity and/or Scene.

[Ross Bochnek]

Sorry- a correction: Arduino Day 2015 is going to be celebrated on March 28.  It was the 29th in 2014.

[Ross Bochnek]

Bob informed me that Arduino Day includes a sort of international Arduino Hackathon.  We'd like to do such an event during Arduino Day, so to get people up to speed, we'd like to have an Arduino workshop before the main event.

Bob and I attended the Friends of Ingenuity meeting at LH tonight, and we'd like to meet and discuss these two Arduino events with the Makers Alliance group to gauge interest in holding them in conjunction with Ingenuity Cleveland.

[R Kimble]

I am still getting messages from makers alliance.

Can you please remove my e-mail?

On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 7:57 PM, Ross Bochnek <interac...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bob informed me that Arduino Day includes a sort of international Arduino Hackathon.  We'd like to do such an event during Arduino Day, so to get people up to speed, we'd like to have an Arduino workshop before the main event.

Bob and I attended the Friends of Ingenuity meeting at LH tonight, and we'd like to meet and discuss these two Arduino events with the Makers Alliance group to gauge interest in holding them in conjunction with Ingenuity Cleveland.

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[Sam Harmon]

I took care of this. She's unsubscribed.

Sam


> On Jan 22, 2015, at 5:04 PM, Ross Bochnek <interac...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> R Kimble, the only way i know how to do this would be for you to go to our Google Group page (which is not like a traditional mailing list). Go to this thread, and next to your name in your post, there should be a blue "change" link. You can try clicking it and changing your notification settings.

[Ross Bochnek]

We would like to consider doing the Pre-Arduino Day Workshop on a Tuesday night at Launch House: perhaps in the front, or maybe in the Makers space.  We'd be looking at February 24th for that.

Hosting hack events at LH could mean that we'd have access to our facilities, equipment, and hopefully people.

For the actual Arduino Day itself, which is on a Saturday, should we try to hold it in a more centralized location, or opt for the conveniences of LH again?  Again, that would be on March, 28th this year.

[Ross Bochnek]

I'd like to offer two tracks for our Arduino Workshop:

• A GUI programming environment track for people who may be new to programming, and/or simply want to be able to quickly and easily create interactions while tethered to a computer including mouse movement, keyboards, on-screen interactivity, triggering sounds, graphical games, etc.  We can accomplish everything in a program where participants graphically interlock little blocks of code called Scratch or Snap!  It will teach some fundamentals of coding, but experienced programmers may find that they have to kludge instead of porting the text-based coding tricks they may be used to.  Ideal for: computer games, kiosks, installations, medium to large sculptures, Smart Home applications.
  
  
• Using the Arduino IDE with text-based programming track, for people who have done some programming and/or want to embed an microcontroller inside a project.  This allows you to make better use of available sample code, libraries, more ways to use code like pros, and a wider variety of hardware.  This could also be used to control screen-based interactions, trigger sounds, and even interact with mouse and keyboard, but that would be an ectra step, which would most likely require additional programming and (probably free) software.  The Arduino IDE is very similar to Proce55ing, which I used to learn Java.  After learning Java via Proce55ing, I was able to code C in the Arduino IDE.  Plus, Proce55ing and Arduino IDEs both offer simple compiling via one-button syntax checking and one-button uploading to the microcontroller.  Ideal for: embedding in low-power and portable projects like wearables, small sculptures, vehicular applications, and may be suitable the above applications; depending on the desired inputs and outputs.
  

[Ross Bochnek]

I can think of a third, hybrid track; Ardublock.  Maybe we'd start everyone together, and show them three ways of programming the same thing, and give them a choice of the method they're most comfortable with.

1. Scratch for Arduino and Snap for Arduino are similar GUI programming tools: the choice between them should probably be based on the number of digital and analog pins you want to control.  Scratch For Arduino and ScratchGPIO are also versions of Scratch that are available for connecting to Raspberry Pi.  Using just a Raspberry Pi means you won't have analog inputs unless you connect something like an Arduino.
2. Ardublock is a GUI programming tools that, as I understand, runs in the Arduino IDE.  It erites Arduino code that can be uploaded to an Arduino for all of the embedded benefits for projects that would not be tethered to a laptop, netbook, or desktop computer.
3. The main Arduino IDE itself.  The benefit to using this is that it allows the most flexibility in terms of hardware inputs and outputs, their required libraries, and when you find Arduino project tutorials online, you can just copy and paste the code into the IDE, follow the schematic for connecting the hardware, and you're off and running.

[Ross Bochnek]

Good News Everybody,

I have found fun locations for our Arduino workshops besides Launch House!  

We'll be discussing this more at our Tuesday 2/3/14 meeting, but here is the proposal:

-Arduino Interactive Electronics Workshop 101 (Feb. 24 at one of our Tuesday night meetings) to introduce working with Arduinos a month before Arduino Day.  Location: Shaker Launch House

-Global Arduino Day (Mar. 28).  Location: think[box].

-Arduino for Artists (Mar. 29).  Location: SPACES Gallery

[Ross Bochnek]

We have the multipurpose room at think[box] from 10am-3:45 that day.  The facility will open at 10, and we'll try to end our activities at 3:30, so we can get the room cleared out by 3:45 and the lab folks can close at 4.  I need to submit a start time to Arduino HQ, so I'm going to put the event start time at 10, which will end up being a Doors Open time for us and others to start bringing projects in.  

[Ross Bochnek]

Our Pre-Arduino Day event was a huge success!

More good news is that the room that we reserved for Arduino Day at think[box] is also awesome.  Sam found this link about it: http://engineering.case.edu/thinkbox/access/multipurposeroom

We hope to finalize the Arduino Day Agenda by next week.  

I think we can easily say that we'll have space for ongoing displays of projects.  I'd like to have some keynotes scheduled, but also do some unconference-style scheduling as well.  That would mean that anyone who shows up with their Arduino project early enough can get not only table space for ongoing display, but can also put themselves on a schedule to let people know there's going to be a demo.  That way, people can self-schedule demos during times that we won't have a keynote, like during workshop hacking time.

I think we should do a workshop with a name like "LOL! LOTs of LEDs!", inspired by the shield of the same name.  We have lots of NeoPixel projects to demo, it's perhaps the next logical skillset to blinking an LED, and is a very versatile, useful, and accessible Arduino skill to have.  We should also turn out the lights and rave for a few minutes.  Maybe we even call it "NeoPixel Microrave".  Let's teach people how to control light!

It would be really interesting if some pyroartists could do a presentation about Arduinos in flame effects. ;)

The room will already have some tools, and we should bring our field kit too.  

I have an idea for combining an Open Hack with a Hackathon that can be ongoing, and could also tie into some of the workshops.  Basically, the Holiday Hackathon required people to bring their own materials, but not everyone thought to be prepared like that.  Maybe, we have some stations with certain sensors and outputs, where people can learn about using them and their libraries.  People could borrow an Arduino/breadboard combo mounted side-by-side, or bring their own, learn about different sensors, and maybe eventually sign out some of the sensors.  Perhaps they could gather points by completing certain exercises, or maybe they could just get points for saying how they would use it in their Hackathon project.  The people who are the most interested in those boards/sensors might have their own, maybe people could sign them out to use in their hackathon projects, and if there are fewer than amount of teams who want to use them, we could choose a team whose applications we like the most.  We could also offer bonuses for computing certain things with code, such as bonuses for use of conditionals, loops, strings, arrays, and helpful comments.  That way, people could get their hands dirty with I/Os, while the less hardware-intensive projects could also gain points for programming.  It would be great if we could integrate these stations with some of the demo projects that will be setup against the walls around the room.  Perhaps instead of giving points at stations, we could just "stamp" their "passport" at each station and help them install the proper libraries.  

Some example I/O Stations might be:

-ADC (analog variable resistors like pots, photocells, and FSRs...) 

-Optical Couples (digital light-based communications, beam-break detection, Passive IR sensor, optoisolators...)

-Environmental Sensors (Temperature/Humidity/Dewpoint, particulate sensor, flame sensor, maybe a gas sensor...)

-Color (color sensing, UV sensing, NeoPixels, other light sensors)

-Switches (wiring buttons, sensors, pullup and pulldown resistors, debouncing with software and hardware...)

-Relays/Solenoids/Transistors (5 VDC triggering 12 VDC and 120 VDC, water valves, air and vapor valves...)

-Motors (maybe different stations for different kinds)

-Using Loops

-Using Variables

-ISP programming

[Ross Bochnek]

Correction regarding the Mayhall's Hackathon: it starts Friday night and runs through Saturday night.  I just found this out, and am in contact with the organizer.  She wants to support our event; even to the extent of encouraging people to come to our event and work on their projects there.  This might work, but I have a few reservations about that.  The main reservation is space- do we have enough space to accomodate people working on their Arduino projects in the room we have at think[box]?  There's no way to really predict this- it depends on how many people show up.  Also, our workshops would come relatively late in the scheduling of the Hackathon, so it wouldn't be as helpful as if the Hackathon were scheduled when we thought it was.  Anyway, Arduino Day is a set date, and we can't realistically start any earlier on a Saturday than 10am.  Shall we continue our plans for think[box] and just wait and see how many people we get?  Apart from possibly considering moving Cleveland Arduino Day to Mahall's, I don't think we have many options.  We might get a lot of people showing up at think[box] looking to work on their projects, even as we run our workshops.  It seems that we should just continue with our location and plan of seeing how many people show up and tailoring our workshops to people's skill levels.  I haven't sent in our agenda to Arduino yet, and would like to see Sam's notes on our meeting, and get some feedback on this update about the Hackathon before I do so.  The good news is that I don't think they have anything specific scheduled at Mahall's during our event, but they do have some cool things scheduled for Friday night and Saturday afternoon, evening, and night.

[Ross Bochnek]

I've posted our event agenda, and completed our application with the Arduino folks.  https://www.facebook.com/events/413610695470530/

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 5:34 PM, Ross Bochnek <interac...@gmail.com> wrote:

Correction regarding the Mayhall's Hackathon: it starts Friday night and runs through Saturday night.  I just found this out, and am in contact with the organizer.  She wants to support our event; even to the extent of encouraging people to come to our event and work on their projects there.  This might work, but I have a few reservations about that.  The main reservation is space- do we have enough space to accomodate people working on their Arduino projects in the room we have at think[box]?  There's no way to really predict this- it depends on how many people show up.  Also, our workshops would come relatively late in the scheduling of the Hackathon, so it wouldn't be as helpful as if the Hackathon were scheduled when we thought it was.  Anyway, Arduino Day is a set date, and we can't realistically start any earlier on a Saturday than 10am.  Shall we continue our plans for think[box] and just wait and see how many people we get?  Apart from possibly considering moving Cleveland Arduino Day to Mahall's, I don't think we have many options.  We might get a lot of people showing up at think[box] looking to work on their projects, even as we run our workshops.  It seems that we should just continue with our location and plan of seeing how many people show up and tailoring our workshops to people's skill levels.  I haven't sent in our agenda to Arduino yet, and would like to see Sam's notes on our meeting, and get some feedback on this update about the Hackathon before I do so.  The good news is that I don't think they have anything specific scheduled at Mahall's during our event, but they do have some cool things scheduled for Friday night and Saturday afternoon, evening, and night.

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[Ross Bochnek]

Our event is being recognized by the Arduino group as a "Community Event".  It's not the same as being one of the 5 "Official Events", but we are being officially recognized.  There is only one "Official Event" in the Americas, and it's at MIT.

[Ross Bochnek]

We can get into the space as early as 9am to start setting up.  Any snacks we can bring would be great.  Let's encourage people to post photos and videos using #ArduinoD15.  To this message, I've attached a link to images we may want to use to make wayfinding posters.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4tdRBJMUMn3d241dEpIRWpTY1U/view?usp=sharing

[Ross Bochnek]

SUCCESS!!!

Thank you Makers' Alliance, Ingenuity Cleveland, think[box], and all participants!

WOW!