NodeBots SF February 2015 Meetup

nebrius commented 9 years ago

For this meetup, we plan to solder all the things! Well, hopefully not all the things... :)

I'm still thinking on how exactly to structure it, but here's my current train of thought:

Start with a mini-lecture on what soldering is and safety, then move on to hands on
Have some sort of basic circuit that we will be soldering...maybe a blinky light powered by a 555 timer or something
- If we want to get really fancy, maybe a custom PCM from http://www.oshpark.com/. We could probably get them for $3-5 for the kinds of boards and quantity we will want, and it would really make an impression. Plus, they're purple like our logo!
All through-hole, no surface mount (unless we want it as an "advanced" challenge?)

For this meetup, we'll need a venue and a hardware sponsor. At minimum, we will need someone to cover the consumable hardware (boards, components, solder, wick, etc), but maybe also irons?

I'll be going through the inventory later this week for the JSFest event, and I'll make sure to inventory our soldering supplies and come up with a BOM for the meetup.

Thoughts on a venue to reach out to?

dshaw commented 9 years ago

Hardware friendly locations:

Highway 1
Spark
Skycatch

MylesBorins commented 9 years ago

David Nugent recently offered us pub nub as a space to use as well

nebrius commented 9 years ago

Pub Nub is a great space, although I'm not sure how good it would be for ventilation. Maybe keep them in mind for February?

Spark could be really fun. I'll reach out to Emily and see what she says.

nebrius commented 9 years ago

FWIW we learned at RobotsConf that lead free solder is terrible for teaching beginners to solder, which unfortunately does mean more fumes if we go with leaded.

nebrius commented 9 years ago

I reached out to Emily and she said their space isn't really big enough (max 15 people, and it would be tight).

@SaraJo, do you think Highway 1 would be interested?

KarbonDallas commented 9 years ago

I may have a lead on a very nice space in/near SoMa that would be a lot more comfortable. Are we still looking for a space?

MylesBorins commented 9 years ago

We are indeed figuring out a space for the soldering workshop. Does it have good ventilation?

Would you like to join us for the planning meeting?=

KarbonDallas commented 9 years ago

I'll be stopping by tomorrow to view the space as well as get acquainted with the staff. I'll let you know!

I'd love to join you for planning, what are the details?

MylesBorins commented 9 years ago

https://github.com/nodebots/sf/issues/23

nebrius commented 9 years ago

Awesome, thanks @nexxy! and yes, I wo love for you to join us for the planning meeting :-)

nebrius commented 9 years ago

I updated the title to match the fact that this will now be our February 19th meetup.

nebrius commented 9 years ago

I just created the meetup page for this event, and will announce in the morning: http://www.meetup.com/nodebotssf/events/220265810/

We still need hardware, and someone to sponsor the hardware. I'll try and get the circuit and boards designed in the next few days...gotta get through ForwardJS first though.

Would someone be willing to do some research into soldering irons? How many do you think we should get?

nebrius commented 9 years ago

Speaking of ForwardJS, PubNub agreed to sponsor the food for the workshop, so we're going to donate the proceeds to charity. Dave recommended Black Girls Code and SF AIDS Foundation, which I think is a great choice. What does everyone else think?

nebrius commented 9 years ago

I put together a list of hardware that I think we'll need.

Parts List

My thoughts are that we will use the Adafruit perma-proto boards for this lesson, which are actually pretty awesome. It would have been nice to do custom printed PCBs, but I ran out of time and missed the deadline to get stuff from OSH park on time (and the others are way expensive at this late date).

For the circuit, I'm thinking about keeping it simple and just doing an LED powered by AAA batteries. This will mean soldering one LED, one resistor, and headers for plugging in the battery. If people want to do more, or we have extra time, we can wire up multiple LEDs in parallel for fun colors.

We currently have 37 people registered, so I'm guessing 15-20 will show. I think it's overkill to try and get soldering irons for everyone, so my list has 10 irons. I'm thinking people can buddy up and take turns building their circuits.

The parts not on the list that adafruit doesn't have are solid flux for tip conditioning (my preferred way, and I do want to spend time talking about caring for irons so that tips last more than a few weeks), LEDs, resistors, and AAA batteries. I'm thinking we can just get these at Fry's or Radio Shack.

What does everyone else think?

We also need to find a hardware sponsor. Any suggestions?

nebrius commented 9 years ago

So I was thinking about it some more, and I want to add a bit to the workshop: removing the LED and replacing it with a different color so we can teach people about solder wick and solder suckers. As such, we will need to increase the number of wicks and suckers to 10 each, raising the total to $508 from AdaFruit.

nebrius commented 9 years ago

Here's an updated BOM:

Soldering stations:

Item	URL	Unit Cost (for 10+)
Iron	https://www.adafruit.com/products/2163	$22.46
Stand	https://www.adafruit.com/products/150	$5.40
Solder Sucker	https://www.adafruit.com/products/148	$4.50
Solder	https://www.adafruit.com/products/1886	$5.36
Wick	https://www.adafruit.com/products/149	$2.70
Solid Flux/Tip Conditioner	Not on adafruit	couple of bucks

Project hardware

Item	URL	Qty	Total Cost
Coin cell battery holder	https://www.adafruit.com/products/783	30	$52.80
Coin cell batteries	https://www.adafruit.com/products/654	30	$54.00
White LED Pack	https://www.adafruit.com/products/754	1	$6.95
Green LED Pack	https://www.adafruit.com/products/300	1	$8.00
Blue LED Pack	https://www.adafruit.com/products/301	1	$8.00
330 ohm Resistors	Not on adafruit	50	cheap
Permaproto Boards	https://www.adafruit.com/products/589	10	$76.50

I capped the number of RSVP's at 40 because I don't want this group to be too large, both for cost and safety reasons (amount of fumes, chances of someone getting burned, etc). As a result, I expect about 20-25 to show up.

nebrius commented 9 years ago

@emilyrose is still working on a possible hardware sponsorship, but I went ahead and placed the adafruit order today and stopped by Fry's to make sure we have everything in time for the event. Total cost for everything was $759.35

nebrius commented 9 years ago

BTW, hardware has been ordered and shipped, and Spark is going to cover the hardware (thanks @emilyrose!). It'll be close, but it'll be arriving at the Rdio office on Thursday.

MylesBorins commented 9 years ago

Woohoo!

On Feb 17, 2015, at 2:42 PM, Bryan Hughes notifications@github.com wrote:

BTW, hardware has been ordered and shipped, and Spark is going to cover the hardware (thanks @emilyrose!). It'll be close, but it'll be arriving at the Rdio office on Thursday.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

melanielok commented 9 years ago

Nice! I'm sad I can't make it.

nebrius commented 9 years ago

Hardware is in! I'll planning on getting there around 5:30 tonight.

dshaw commented 9 years ago

Woohoo! Just in time.

Unfortunately, I blew my back out on Tuesday and will not be able to make it out tonight. I'll miss you all. Have a great meetup!

nodebots / sf

NodeBots SF February 2015 Meetup #20