Regular Member Meeting 2017 08 05

Time and Location

Date August 5, 2017c

Called to order at xxxx pm by xxxx

Members present:

Members remote:

Others present:

Quorum

Quorum met?

New Business

• Enrique - Should we invest in off-site storage unit, move the majority of the contents of the basement shelves to this cold storage, remove the basement shelves, install bright lighting, seating and work surfaces in the rear room?

Project Awesome Reports

Project Electron Microscope (SEM) - Enrique

No change, it's still a large paperweight. Electronics need to be checked for debris that may have fallen into it and could short stuff out. In retrospect we shouldn't leave a 15kV power supply uncovered so random shit can fall into it. After that, power on, see what happens to pressure. We need space to work on this, so it should be a separate SEM workday (date TBD).

Project CRISPR -Enrique

Preparing a Saturday workshop. The check of the as-received bacteria and antibiotic was successful: bacteria grow, but not on the antibiotic. The time constraints are still problematic; 4-hour and 12-16 hour steps don't lend themselves well to an after-hours hobby. Sophia took the samples home last time to get the timing right. Also found a short Prezi.com presentation of someone else obviously doing the same experiment and having the same issues we had (control also grows), weirdly reassuring.

Project SpaceBlimp -Enrique

As of this writing, we haven't located the Spaceblimp components: balloon, filling hardware, rigging, payload enclosure, radios, GPS... everything. There seems to be an entire bin misplaced or missing and if we don't find it soon this is not happening. A bunch of us will go down to NC/SC to watch the eclipse regardless though.

Director Reports (Governance related stuff)

Treasurer's Report

• I filed for a DC business license and a solicitation license from DCRA (https://dcra.dc.gov/), which together came to over $600 for two years. This is so we can legally get more than $1500 in donations or grants per year, which we should aim for. Next: find & seek grants! With all our paperwork in order I think we should contact the DC government (mayor?) directly and ask if they have a mechanism to help us financially.

• I applied for a hardware donation from SparkFun and were awarded $150. We have to build a wishlist and send it to them (and complete the Program Agreement form). They want to see photos and stuff they can use for promotional purposes and I think we should oblige and hope to get more stuff from them in the future.

• I asked Lockheed Martin for $1900 to support an FPGA programming workshop. (Surprise, Julia!) We'll see what they say.
• Waiting to hear back from Northrop Grumman's Employee Charity Organization (ECHO) about their application requirements for charities.

Secretary's Report

(Ben Resigned - Enrique)

Adjournment

Adjourned by at xxx by xxx