Typical nodebots day schedule

[Andre Vermeulen]

All,

I am in need of a bit of Nodebots day mentoring here in Cape Town.

What is your typical schedule on the day? What works well? What doesn't.

I was thinking of something along this lines:

• Get noobs to setup laptops and run some basic examples.
  
• Prepare a few more involved projects people can build/hack along with facilitators.
  
• One independent project - something bigger - that was maybe started before the day.
  
• A speaker of sorts.
  
• A Nodecopter - these are a bit expensive down here.

Thanks 

André

[Adrian Catalan]

Hello André, I'm Adrián from Guatemala, this will be also our first NodeBots day but we have been having NodeBots monthly meetups since january. I'm no expert but these are a few things that we have noticed in our community:

-A lot of people doesn't bring a laptop or brings it without Node.js installed. Our venue is a University lab where I work, so we have some computers available and installed everything there.

-There are always new members that haven't attended before and need more guidance to start. We are 4 co-organizers so one of us help them one-on-one blinking a led, detecting the push of a button, moving a servo, etc. If there are several people attending for the first time we have a short presentation (~20min) with the basics of johnny-five only for them.

-Even after blinking a LED, our newest members feel lost so we have beginner instructions for them, sort of a defined hack to build but as they feel comfortable with the new skills everyone builds something different, their own ideas, groups form spontaneously to hack on something bigger that is a common interest for more than one.

-People really enjoy hardware hacking and doing something different from their day job but for different reasons only a few buy their own hardware so we try to pool things from everyone so everyone can borrow during the meetup and hack (i.e. last month I brought a ps4 controller and some ultrasonic sensors, someone else brought a bluetooth module, another member a xbee, etc)

-Hardware brings you instant feedback and the satisfaction of making something in real life but because of this, is more scarier. We always have questions like can i get electrocuted with this? is this LED gonna explode if I connect it the wrong way? we explain the basics and encourage our members to experiment and enjoy hacking.

All that being said, our plans for NodeBots day is having 4 tracks all using johnny-five (and IO plugins when needed)

 -BeagleBone

 -Raspberry Pi

 -Arduino 

 -Open Hack

Galileo University sponsors with food, venue and hardware (10 beagles, 10 raspis, 15 arduinos, 10 boebots and 5 lego ev3). A few members of the community are bringing hardware also (10 arduinos) and we have some stuff in limited quantities that it will be used for the open hack (5 leap motion, 4 spark cores, 1 nodecopter, 1 tessel, 1 sphero)

We expect ~15 attendees per track, the first 3 tracks will have a 1 and a half hour workshop that will be reapeated 2 times during the day in case that someone want to take 2 different workshops. We will do the basics: blink a LED, push a button, move a servo, use a buzzer, sense temperature, light etc. Besides johnny-five examples, you can use @AnnaGerber's guide and this @NodeBotsUK workshop is also great. We already have a speaker for each track and hopefully will find two or three assistants for each.

Open hack will be for people that have something in mind to build or want to try something out with the harwdware we provide, it will last 3 hours with a short presentation at the end of what everyone built during the day.

We will end the day with a coffee break so the attendees can know each other better.

So the schedule will be
9:00 AM Welcome and workshop tracks start
10:30 AM Workshop tracks repeats
12:00 PM open hack project presentation

Hope this helps :)

Cheers,

   --Adrián

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Saludos,

Adrián Catalán
Elemental Geeks
Celular: +502 50175100

Skype: adrian.catalan

[Andre Vermeulen]

Adrian,

Thanks for your detailed reply, it's really helpfull.

Our day will be bit more modest - was thinking about 20-25 people in total. Needs to gauge the interest.

One thing I was thinking is that your day is quite short - only 3 hours. Is that enough time?

I am using those guides you are mentioning.

Good luck for your Nodebots day!

André

[Raquel Vélez]

Just wanted to share what we’ve done at NodeBots SF meetups and the JSConf NodeBots full-day events:

At all of these events, you will have people who need/want direction and people who don’t need/want direction.

For the folks who need/want direction, we have a project, which will vary depending on how much time we’ve got to spend. At individual meetups, we’re only together for a few hours, so we’ll have something fairly simple (i.e. Spheros, simple circuits, etc). At larger events, we’re together generally for approximately 6 hours, so we’ll do something a bit more complex (i.e. SumoBots or robot soccer). The project itself should take less than half the time to complete; the rest of the time is for letting folks go wild with their imaginations, in terms of what goes on the bot, how to program the bot, etc. 

For the folks who don’t need/want direction, we have a bunch of components available for general hackery. We’ll also have a soldering station or two, plenty of hot glue, popsicle sticks, cardboard, markers, etc.

In terms of a timeline, our days are generally scheduled like so:

First 30 minutes: Everyone shows up, general chit chat, chill out (people are nervous, especially if they don’t know anyone yet; this gives them time to at least say hello to a few people).

Next 30 minutes: Organizers introduce the project, explain where things are and who to ask for help.

General hackery goes on until about an hour to 90 minutes (depending on the size of the group) before it’s time to go home; there should be break time for food somewhere in here.

60 - 90 minutes before EOD: Demo time! Go around the room and let everyone explain what they’ve been working on. Even if it doesn’t work, having an opportunity to show what they’ve been playing with all day is super fun and everyone loves it. Of course, if someone doesn’t want to share, they don’t have to :-P

Last 30 minutes: CLEAN UP. (There will always be cleanup time. Make *everyone* chip in, or you could easily be there all night.)

End of the day (EOD): go home with lots of fun ideas of things to do next time ;-)

Happy to answer any other questions you have :-)

Cheers!!

Raquel

P.S. I think I might add this thread to the issues on GH, as I don’t know that everyone is on the mailing list. Adrian and André, do either of you mind if I put your content up there?

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Raquel Vélez
@rockbot
http://rckbt.me

[Andre Vermeulen]

Raquel,

Thanks for your email it helps a lot.

A Sphero is one cool ball! I didn't know what is was... won't find that in SA (easily anyway!). But it's possibilities here especially as an educational tool is amazing.

You can add the thread to GH, I wasn't sure what the best place was to engage the community. Thought I will try the mailing list first...

I was thinking about doing a tinbot of sorts, if should be relatively cheap to get going. Parts is relatively expensive and scarce in Cape Town. Currently sourcing some components - wheels seems to be the hardest thing to find currently... It would be great to have at least to get a few tinbots going on the day as we will have about 6 hours.

One thing I am wondering about is the Bluetooth support for Johnny-5. If one have a bluetooth module connected to Arduino - what happen from there? How do one download the code onto the Arduino? As one typically run a script with a cable connected which execute on the Arduino. If you can refer me to some "bluetooth Nodebots how-to for dummies", or put up with my "silly" questions about this it will be great. I will poke around more in the mean time.

André

[Adrian Catalan]

Sorry for the delayed response (the World Cup has had distracted me :p)

Raquel, thanks for the detailed answer and please go ahead and publish the thread.

André, thanks for the suggestion, it will be 4 hours (3 hours of workshops + 1 hour for food, networking, etc), we have tried longer events and usually the attendees leave early, hopefully this will work.

I think sumobot jr. is a good option if you have access to a laser cutter or 3d printer. Before the 3D printed version was available we built our own versions using cardboard boxes(v1) and a molded metal sheet(v2) using plastic wheels in both cases(small jars lids) another idea that we didn't get to try was using soda cans. Even thought the result is not the same, it worked to get everyone excited :)

I think it's not possible to send Node commands through bluetooth, for wireless NodeBots we have tried using 2 arduinos and xbee and using and beaglebone/raspi/spark core instead of arduino.

Best of luck in your NodeBots day :D

[Andre Vermeulen]

Do you have any idea on how to convert the cutting plans into a PDF?

The place I contacted for laser cutting asked for a PDF :~)

So far I couldn't see how to convert a PSVG to a PDF.

André