Regular Member Meeting 2017 09 12

Time and Location

Date

Called to order at xxxx pm by xxxx

Members present:

Members remote:

Others present:

Quorum

Quorum met?

Project Awesome Reports

Project Electron Microscope (SEM) - Enrique

I am not working on this; too many other things. Julia et al are working on providing a digital interface to the new vacuum gauge with an opto-isolator.

I may have managed to read out a similar ROM chip - should able to have a crack at dumping the ROMs from the machine - Oni

Project CRISPR -Enrique

We repeated the protocol carefully with Sophia doing the plating and protocol and good temperature control during the process. But it didn't work, again. I suspect our freezer may not be good enough for long-term storage of the protein and DNA ingredients. I've written the vendor to ask for help because we've spent over $500 in both HacDC money and donated supplies and equipment so far and it hasn't worked once. Regardless, we're planning to press ahead with a Saturday workshop so people can learn about CRISPR and get a hands-on feeling for what the process is like. Nancy and Sophia are working on a video. [email protected]

Project SpaceBlimp -Enrique

We aborted the launch of Spaceblimp 7 during the solar eclipse. Long story short we were not ready and driving 8 hours down to the SC border on a weekday was a high bar for a group of volunteers. We should do Spaceblimp 7 more locally just as Spaceblimp 6 and take our time testing things and making an interesting payload. I now have a cylinder of Helium at home that we're paying $0.20/day to rent, so we're actively losing money not doing anything. But the tracker(s) are still broken or untested, for example. Contact [email protected] for more information.

Director Reports (Governance related stuff)

Treasurer's Report

• I'm resigning as Treasurer. Good luck y'all.
• We broke about even in August. August financial report is linked below.

Media:HacDC_2017-8.pdf

Director-at-Large Reports

Kevin

I printed up another 150 flyers and took about 50 to "Escape Velocity II" the Museum of Science Fiction conference, where I shilled for us. Sadly, I did not know we could have had a table for free. The MoCo Makers of Rockville did know, and the guy shilling for them, Matthew Zamora, thought there might be opportunity for collaboration. They're launching a Kickstarter for their own FPGA board. In addition, a gent, Oguz Yetkin, from the Next Gen Systems group of the University of Louisville offered their prototype open source EMGduino "at cost" to us if we're interested. See the links for details.

Also, as a result of the conference, students that I mentor at the Arlington Career Center may be part of a team restoring the original KITT from the horrible "Knight Rider" television series, for the next Escape Velocity. The owner of the Season 1 & 2 car is interested in bringing it back to life. The ACC has a an auto repair shop, and two years ago, together with computer science students, we had 3D printed parts and a touch screen Raspberry Pi capable of rudimentary voice recognition ("Hey STACi, turn on the rear defroster.") I don't think the Pi made it into STACi before the end of the semester, but with MoSF offering to help with stuff, I expect there will be a bigger push towards a finished product. I don't know that there will be opportunity for HacDC in that project, but if there's interest and commitment, I'll see what I can do. This would almost certainly be weekday after-school stuff, not weekends.

I will be out of the country for the upcoming second Community Network gathering being hosted by THRIVE DC, but Julia has taken that on.

Adjournment

Adjourned by at xxx by xxx