Regular Member Meeting 2013 10 08

Time and Location

October 8, 2013

Called to order at 2008 by Katie.

Members present:

Katie, Nadir, Christine, David, Phil, Dan, David, Total of 8 members present, webcam not up.

Others present:

Zac, Brian, Doug, Justin, Blake

Quorum?

Quorum met? No.

Problems in getting Google hangout working on in-house desktop. Got logged in, but no love. "video call isn't available right now.."

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

Regular Member Meeting 2013 09 10

Regular Member Meeting 2013 08 13

Recognition

Silver Spring Makerfaire! They had a great turnout and the organization was fantastic.

Dan, for continuing to do great laser stuff.

Director Reports

President's Report

Absent.

Vice President's Report

Absent, nothing to report from irc.

Treasurer's Report

Here is the financial summary spreadsheet for September 2013: File:HacDC Financials 2013 09.pdf. We gained two new members in September: Alex, who was voted in at September's meeting, and Brendan, who was voted in in August.

Project Awesome

Here is the Project Awesome spreadsheet for September: File:HacDC PA Projects-2013 09.pdf. I'm declaring a $500 Project Awesome dividend, with the remaining $129.54 of the month's surplus going to our reserves. There are currently 17 Project Awesome votes.

Secretary's Report

Nada.

Director-at-Large Reports

Shawn Nock

Absent.

Reuven

Absent.

Project Awesome Reports

Project LASER

Dan: project going wonderfully. Went to NYC for makerfair, talked to everyone w/a laser asked about cleaning. They said they had to clean it all the time. We should stick w/acrylic for now. In the process of getting new longer focal length lens and other mod to scribe on round surfaces and larger objects below the unit. Working on new exhaust fan and a carbon filter for reducing toxicity of exhaust. David W. is helping (funding?) with cabinet.

Project BYZANTIUM

No report.

Project KITBUILD

No report.

Project SUPPLIES

Financial Outlook

Healthy to say the least. At nearly $1k and rising, budget is sufficient to cover most major equipment failures at HacDC. After SUPPLIES budget hits $1k, further allocation to it should probably be reduced to a trickle.

Future Plans

• Spare hot-end for Prusa Mendel.
• Better glass bed for Prusa Mendel with predrilled holes.
• Large plastic buckets.
• Possibly new PCB fab supplies, like CNC milling bits.
• Possible expansion of parts store, after some clean up at HacDC.

Project SPACECAM

No report.

Member Reports

Dan

Found a lamp for the projector that the Open projector ppl have been working with.

Went to NYC Makerfaire. Lots of 3DP variations. Portable mini-router with x-y movement. Arduino for rocket nose cones, brought one home. Multi-layer transparencies in a box.. but filled with liquid of near same index of refraction.. neat effect. Playing with Beagle Bone Black.

Katie

Lightning Talks coming up. Interested? Get in touch with Katie! [email protected] 3:30pm

Christine

Have been looking into badges as a method to accredit people for skills. Particularly Mozilla's Backpack. Especially good for those of us who may not learn in more conventional ways. We do a lot of learning here at Hac, it'd be good to have a more visible way to recognize these things. She has volunteered to lead an effort and be the Awesome lead for the project, although there may not be a need for financial support. Emails to go out and solicit ppl for badge ideas and help.

Nov 16 at 1600 Crypto party!

mirage335

Despite having been away from HacDC for a bit, I've been rather busy on things relevant to it. Pardon the long winded report...

Occupancy Sensor

Easily returned to fully operational status, an even more reliable solution is imminent.

Biohacking

Imagnus

Going well. Obtained permission to discuss some of the details of these arrangements. Although nothing has been signed yet, it seems reasonable to keep their concerns in mind.

NDA

We have negotiated fair, acceptable, and open-source friendly terms.

• Wide latitude to use, distribute, relicense, etc, our own technologies with a few very specific provisions. Basically, we agree not to commercialize a directly competing product as defined by a narrow FDA category, and not to publicly mention Imagnus's connection to the technologies.

Basically, we retain rights to key technologies for our projects.

• Non-transferable. Automatic expiration on conditions that may amount to corporate takeover. Put another way:

There are literally several levels of SCO being wrong. And even if we were to live in that alternate universe where SCO would be right, they'd still be wrong. -Torvalds

This shall not happen to us.

• NDA expires in two years.

Important lessons have been learned negotiating the NDA that probably should be applied to similar arrangements in the future.

Expected Benefits

A few hundred dollars, probably soon. Royalty payments, probably much more significant.

Status

The project is complex, and we are making excellent progress.

Biosignal Amplifier

Revised design for 24-bit USB ADC board. This will soon be merged with the host board, tidying up the biosignal amplifier, and giving it a USB port.

Additionally, the standalone ADC will likely make it to the test cart, providing extremely high resolution signal capture and processing capabilities.

See github for the standalone USB ADC.

Projector/OpenDisplay

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/search/zip?query=projection&zoomToPosting=&srchType=A&minAsk=&maxAsk=

We still need three giant Fresnel lenses from rear projection TVs. A HacDC member recently obtained two of these from Craigslist. We need three more. Project is stalled until we get these lenses.

Design/OpenSource

Just a reminder, the design is published, with CAD models, as OpenDisplay.

https://github.com/mirage335/OpenDisplay

FlexReplicator

Advanced multi-tool desktop factory based on OpenRail.

Intended to simultaneously operate multiple milling, laser, extrusion (FDM 3D Printing), and inkjet (powder 3D printing, 2D coloring) tools. Simulations indicate deflection should be 8mm/metricTon of lateral force.

Nearly complete design, just needs actuators (ie. threaded rod, timing belts).

Project EXPANSION

We might want to fund new purchases (eg. metal working tools) or projects (eg. better laser cutter) to expand HacDC capabilites. Plan to propose a project awesome EXPANSION fund for this purpose.

Would like to see this operate democratically, with proposed purchases/projects and votes on the project's wiki page.

myDAQ and myDSP

AFAIK, Ahmed Aden obtained a myDAQ and myDSP for us almost a year ago. These devices can add core testing and signal processing capability to our test cart.

Eric Miller has been holding them since. Reportedly, he has not been using them, but is unwilling to make a "special trip" to deliver them back to us. It is also possible that he has lost track of, or otherwise did not verify, the software requirements.

Unless they were in fact purchased with Eric Miller's own money for his own use (and he has repeatedly not answered this question), it seems time for them to return to HacDC.

PCB Fab Efforts

Have been trying to fabricate professional quality circuit boards, with 6mils or less isolation widths, and no excess copper. So far, almost acceptable results have been achieved using the laser cutter with fingernail polish resist and chemical etchant. More still to be done.

ToDo Tracker

An experimental project/task management application using web2project has been created for HacDC members and guests. Please see HacDC Projects, and add anything that might benefit HacDC.

HacDC Shelves

Recommend we allocate $600 for two of these shelving units, one in each room. Also recommend someone besides myself build them (eg. haxwithaxe), which shouldn't take more than a day.

Designed for HacDC Basement. Intended for placement a few feet away from wall in both rooms, accessible from both sides, providing a sort of warehouse. 8' high, 16' long, 4' deep, 16" elevations, density-optimized reinforcement. $264.99 for 384 sq.ft. at $1.44/sq.ft.

For comparison, I estimated the shelves on the back wall of the workroom to offer only about 50 sq. ft.

There will still be plenty of room in the basement for the optical table and power tools. In fact, this will definitely increase the available space both upstairs and in the basement as items are taken off the floor.

Please see github for CAD model, BOM, and simulation results.

Alberto

(Sorry to have to miss the meeting. Work!)

I will be sponsoring one of Washington Project for the Arts' Professional Practices workshops. On Nov 3, two speakers will talk about 3D printing software workflow and some how-tos to about 18 participants.

Smithsonian Institution's x3D conference in November will have a HacDC presence. I've asked Andy T. to setup a demo of his hi-res 3DP DIY project. If anyone has any open source 3D printing projects that are pushing the envelope, it would be great to have another project represented. I plan on flying the HacDC flag on the table. We'll set up in the exhibits area. If there are more materials to distribute, get in touch with me. More later. Oh, the emphasis will be on 3D printing for museums so if anyone is interested, register at the site. It's FREE but seats are limited.

Old Business

Nada.

New Business

Nada.

New Members

• Blake - been coming for months, esp. on Mondays for MicroControllers, loves it.
• Justin - wants to make an automated baking bot (may need cookie testers!).
• Zak - on-board vehicle monitoring.

All 3 were nominated and voted in!

Adjournment

Adjourned at 2056.