Regular Member Meeting 2013 08 13

Time and Location

August 13, 2013

Called to order at 1950 by Ben.

Members present:

Others present: 7

Quorum?

Quorum met?

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

Regular Member Meeting 2013 07 09

Recognition

• Alberto - for running a classy class and giving the kitbuild tools a maiden voyage, and for tackling the WP autoupgrade bugs.
• Dan Barlow - Laser cutter installation and maintenance, working dehumidifier, cleanup, optical advice, and generally very hard work.
• Dan B & Mirage - Safe laser cutter training training.
• David W - for helping the church guard out by giving him a laptop and hopefully for having fixed it by this meeting.
• Sean N - 1) for successfully forking and merging his genetic code 2) for getting a bunch of us on retroshare
• ITG and Shawn S - for spearheading the next cryptoparty organization
• haxwithaxe - Prototype frame for DIY HacDC projector.

Director Reports

President's Report

Nothing interesting, excited about the laser.

Vice President's Report

• working on the de-datacenter machine. got harddrives, need to install them.
  • more efficient hardware, VM support
• tvb dongle SDR is running at work with gqrx
• website performance is getting better
• planning for wired network inside the space

Treasurer's Report

Here is the financial summary spreadsheet for July 2013: File:HacDC Financials 2013 07.pdf. We gained David Pietrocola as a new member (voted in last month), and prospective members Jeffery Herrity and Robert Ryan-Silva have already started paying dues. Jason Fox and Chris Danicic were voted in as members last month but have yet to pay dues; four other members are delinquent on dues. Graham C., Timothy R., and Nicolas J. (Loki) left. Six people (members and non-members) made non-dues donations.

Project Awesome

Since we only had a surplus of $109.64, I am adding that entire amount to our reserves and declining to declare a Project Awesome dividend for the month of July. Here is the Project Awesome spreadsheet for July: File:HacDC PA Projects-2013 07.pdf. There are currently 15 votes.

Dan mentioned that the Laser project will have money left over. Suggest that money could be put towards a good projector for the space. If members want more laser-related bits, please talk with Dan ASAP.

Secretary's Report

Nothing to report.

Director-at-Large Reports

Shawn Nock

Not present.

Rubin

Nothing to report.

Project Awesome Reports

Project LASER

Dan: an evacuation fan issue arose, still fine for plexiglas, more smoky materials may be a problem. Working on a solution. Laser will eventually go into a cabinet with lock and keys. At which point it'll be done.

Project BYZANTIUM

Ben: next step minor release, done. plan on handing out usb keys. Final report being worked on, which will complete obligations for grant! More, post-grant, work is being planned.

Project KITBUILD

The first HacDC Summer School 2013 session doubled as a Project Kitbuild session. The new soldering supplies were inaugurated and (mostly) work great! Special thanks from Alberto go to Katie B, Martin R, haxwithaxe, and Shawn W for their help that evening. Photos from Katie B linked from the blog post: http://www.hacdc.org/2013/08/summer-school-2013-underway/

Project SUPPLIES

Total expenditure: ~$120

Replenishment

• PLA filament.
• Copper clad board.
• Spare PCB milling bit.

Expansion

• PLA polishing solvent for silky smooth parts.
• Solder paste.

Unaccounted

• Light bulbs for HacDC DIY projector. Not charging to SUPPLIES unless other HacDC members agree they should be.
• IGBT Modules. We may get 3 of these for $3 each. Usual price is $100 each. Credit to Dan Barlow for the find.

Future

• Building up organized list on the wiki. Please feel free to edit. See: http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Category:PA_SUPPLIES FIXME

Requests for Commentary

• Large plastic buckets. Are these within the PA_SUPPLIES project scope? If so, cleanup efforts need them urgently.

Project SPACECAM

No report?

Member Reports

mirage335

Biohacking

Imagnus

Looking promising. Progress has been made, negotiations are still in progress, may give further details later.

Biosignal Amplifier

More comfortable headgear and 24bit ADC final assembly underway. These last upgrades promise plug-and-play usability.

Laser

Taught about 4 people safe laser cutter usage. Walk-ins welcome Thursday, and random weekend days.

Wiki

Most of our expensive equipment is now listed in at Category:Equipment FIXME with pictures. Might be wise to link that to the front page.

Projector

HacDC needs a new projector, ideally 1080p and >5k lumens output.

• DIY is a well-trodden path. Estimate cost around $300 and three weeks, size at 1000mm*515mm*300mm (36"*21"*12") with an 80% chance of high-performance under budget and time. Any unused optics would become core tools in our growing optical lab.
• Commercial-off-the-shelf costs $1500.
• Either way, funding is needed.

DIY

So far, technical design is by me, labor by haxwithaxe, oversight by Dan Barlow.

Progress

• Successful projection with stage light, LCD, and overhead projector lenses.
• Complete light path calculation spreadsheet for redesign.
• Basic optics experiments. Minimum beam expansion with non-laser source (light intensity testing) and Fresnel lens stacking.
• Prototyping frame (excessively large for future-proofing).

Equipment Requests

A high-power visible spectrum (ie. Ar/Kr) laser would trivialize this project.

Dehumidifier

Bought, working, and draining to the outside. Steam pipe opening sealed. (cut on 3 sides to enter, tape afterwards)

Is it sufficient?

Basement is now dry, and temperature is far cooler (around 78F).

Alberto - HacDC Summer School 2013

This class series was a great success by several metrics. Alberto believes that it could form the middle of a 4-month-long HacDC Semester series consisting of at least:

* Intro to Electronics, 
* Intro to Physical Computing (this series)
* AVR Programming
* Interactive Python
* etc.

We had the perk of being part of an NPR ATC broadcast about ArduSat's imminent launch.

Special thanks, again, to Shawn W, haxwithaxe, Katie, and Martin for helping make it possible for me to do this, and an extra-special thanks to Julia L for providing emergency projector provisioning for the last session!!!

Dan - getting rid of stuff

Metal shelves are being used to get rid of a large batch of stuff.

Katie - sample laser etchings!

Katie made etchings on the laser cutter. Samples passed around.

David W

Brought a vacuum pump for a member to borrow. Has ~30 Wyse thin clients.. if anyone wants 'em. His work *may* wish to open a fab lab, please contact him if interested.

Burt

Has Onoculus Rift, invites others to get together with him and create something cool, 1.5 week deadline, [missed details].

New Business

Asking for approval of $300 for DIY projector.

Member approved, 3 dissented.

New Members

The following were nominated and voted in (woot!!):

• Tom L. - long time paying member,
• Brendan -
• Burt - VR & security
• Griffin - mesh stuff
• Evan P. - compared other
• Rob - likes shiny things
• Ann - 3DP, laser cutter, has been visiting us for a while
• Ken - 3DP, misc,

Adjournment

Adjourned at 2050.