May Meetup

[nebrius]

It's that time again, another meetup. @alexglow has agreed to lead this month's workshop!

I was looking at the calendar and the normal day would be April 16th, but there's another event that night called Dancehall of Beautiful Radiant Things I already agreed to go to, and a few others may be going to. It's really awesome actually, you should check it out: http://www.dancehallofbeautifulradiantthings.com/

Anyway, I was thinking that since there are 5 Thursdays this month maybe we could do it on the 23rd (the forth one). Any complaints?

Also, we're still working on a specific hack idea, so input is welcome!

[melanielok]

April 23 is great. I was wondering if it's possible to do a series workshop to build something more substantial. Maybe 2-3 sessions to build a quadcopter or something.

[alexglow]

Yes! 23rd. I'll be out of town on the 16th – probably on the way to Dallas or somesuch.

We could do a bike lights workshop! First session could be to build 'em, then the others to make them smart? http://www.instructables.com/id/CyGlow-Bike-Lights-Workshop/ I've run a bunch of these.

Or... another thing :)

[nebrius]

That. Sounds. Awesome!

If it were next fall. I would say that this would be the perfect use case for a Spark Electron (@emilyrose, project idea 😁)

Do you think that hackster.io would be willing to sponsor the hardware?

I'm up for trying a multi-day event, perhaps two months in a row, another event a week or two later, etc.

I'm also wondering if this could be a good thing for teams to tackle in a single night? I doubt that many people will have bikes with them, so maybe we could bring a few extra light strips for people to hack on such that their code is ready to go once a bike is built?

What does everyone else think? cc @TheAlphaNerd @emilyrose @Frijol @dshaw

[Frijol]

This sounds cool! I know lots of people who have been looking for excuses to make bike lights and hook them up to things, especially @HarleyKwyn.

Would it make more sense to do this on a weekend, though? @alexglow your instructable suggests 4-5 hours– how far would you expect people to get in a standard Nodebots night?

[kwyn]

So down, I've been wanting to do this for a long while.

[nebrius]

I'm up for trying a weekend hack instead of a normal evening. My Saturdays are booked the rest of the month, but I'm free most Sundays. What about the 19th or 26th?

[melanielok]

Bike lights would be awesome! I'm getting my son a new bike for his b-day so we can pimp it out.

[melanielok]

Would it be too weird to make LED lights and body tape them to my daughter's back so she can be a cylon for Halloween? She has a great spine structure for that...

[nebrius]

Bump. What is everyone else's thoughts on dates? I can also make the 18th work, in addition to the 19th and 26th, looking at my calendar. What works best for you @alexglow?

[melanielok]

Any of those work for me.

[alexglow]

Hey hey!

a - I can't do 4/18 or 19, since we'll be in Dallas, but 23 or 26 works!

b - I would create a slimmed-down version of the bike lights workshop, which requires some advance preparation on my part but would make everything go faster. Basically, everyone builds a taillight (or Cylon body lights :) ), instead of a full custom design. The lights I use are non-addressable, but we can program them to blink in various ways. If we expect people to attend who don't already know how to solder, it might be best to go with something different.

c - Hackster isn't in a position to sponsor hardware, but that's partly why I'm looking to co-host with someone from Tessel or Spark ;) If someone has a preference, we can reach out soon.

All in all, things are pretty hectic and it would be awesome to chat with someone about this soon. Are any of you around for lunch tomorrow (Tuesday)? I think that would help a lot with direction :)

[nebrius]

I can do lunch tomorrow, and we can chat a lot more about details then. For now, here are a few thoughts:

c) Awesome, I kinda like the idea of having more time to get everything together :)

b) I kinda like the slimmed-down idea. We could use this as a starting off point that could perhaps escalate into a larger-scale build at a future date. There will be a mix of people who can and people who cannot solder. Hopefully we can pair groups up so that they all have people who can solder. If not, I'm sure a few of us can lend our soldering talents to whoever needs them :)

c) Not a problem at all. @emilyrose do you think Spark would be willing to sponsor since you already have the soldering equipment?

[alexglow]

Perf! Will message you about lunch.

[nebrius]

So just an update: I suspect we're going to settle on April 26th for our meetup. There's a node school the same weekend, and we're coordinating so we don't overlap, and also so we can maybe possibly use the same venue. See https://github.com/nodeschool/sanfrancisco/issues/56 for more info.

We're still looking for a venue. PubNub is a no go, GitHub is most likely a no go, and @TheAlphaNerd will be out of town, so no famo.us.

The weekend does make it a bit tougher, so any suggestions? Maybe New Relic (I don't have any contacts there)?

[Frijol]

What are requirements of the space? HeavyBit or Zoosk might be amenable.

[nebrius]

@Frijol The key requirement is that we need to have space and OK from the building to bring in bikes into the space. Zoosk may not work well, HeavyBit could be a really good option though! Do you have contacts there, and would you mind getting in touch with them if so?

[MaxZoosk]

We hosted bikes last time! Or was there a problem :P To be fair though I think its unlikely I can get Zoosk to host on the weekend, but just in case I started asking around and a guy here has a connection at the LGBT Community Center and he said he thinks he could get them to host you if you run out of options.

[nebrius]

Thanks @MaxZoosk! So this event will involve actually hacking on bikes, so not just a place to store them, but space in the room for them :)

[MaxZoosk]

Ahhh, I should have put 2 and 2 together. I retract any faux-outrage implied by my previous message.

[Frijol]

@ukd1 is at HeavyBit– Russ, do you know if the space would be amenable to bike hacking for a Nodebots meetup?

[nebrius]

I checked and Rdio can't host on weekends, even if it's just in our lunch area.

So here's what I propose, since it's already April 13th (!!): let's punt this event until next month when we have more time to find a venue, and doing something easy this month.

The two thoughts I've come up with so far are: 1) Have @Frijol and friends come in and do a Tessel meetup 2) Have an open hack night

@alexglow does a May workshop work for you?

[nebrius]

Oh right, I just remembered @Frijol is out of town. If no one has any complaints, let's just do an open hack night.

[nebrius]

Hey everyone, the meetup page is live and the event is scheduled for April 23rd! http://www.meetup.com/nodebotssf/events/221829323/

We still need a venue. @jlord or @skalnik, I realize this is kinda last minute, but would GitHub be available and interested in hosting and sponsoring food that night?

[skalnik]

I'm out of town and it looks like there's already an event scheduled the 23rd. Sorry :crying_cat_face:

[jlord]

I live in PDX :evergreen_tree: now so I can't be the Hubber host, so another :crying_cat_face:

[dshaw]

Weekend does make it a bit more challenging to host. Maybe, @kitcambridge at Mozilla or @timfpark at Microsoft.

[ghost]

Unfortunately, I'll be traveling all of next week, so I don't think I could host...but I'll definitely ask around.

[dshaw]

Thanks, @kitcambridge.

[nebrius]

@drnugent, is PubNub available on Thursday the 23rd?

[drnugent]

@bryan-m-hughes On the 23rd we're hosting: http://iot.streamconf.com so I think everyone will be over at the Bently Reserve. (LMK if any of you would like to attend.)

[dshaw]

@bryan-m-hughes @drnugent Perhaps we should merge streams and encourage folks to go to after event hangout. (If there is such a thing.)

[nebrius]

@dshaw @drnugent I can get behind that

[drnugent]

@dshaw @bryan-m-hughes Yeah, happy to. We have drinks in the venue from 5:20p-6:30p but yeah happy to direct people elsewhere afterward!

[MylesBorins]

I�ll be at the iot event. Definitely up for being a guiding force bringing folks over the pub nub.

If we have a bunch of tessel and spark stuff we could definitely build on the IOT interest

[dshaw]

So who's down there in the Finacial District? Loggly, Docker, Lever.

On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, Myles Borins notifications@github.com wrote:

I�ll be at the iot event. Definitely up for being a guiding force bringing folks over the pub nub.

If we have a bunch of tessel and spark stuff we could definitely build on the IOT interest

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/sf/issues/28#issuecomment-93025855.

Daniel Shaw @dshaw

[nebrius]

I'm actually not familiar with the financial district. Do you think holding it on eastern SOMA would be too far? I'm thinking New Relic or Google.

[nebrius]

Just a heads up, I've got a line on a few possible places nearby, will update once I know more.

[melanielok]

Eastern SOMA is not far from the place we had the meeting in February. It's walkable.

[nebrius]

That's a good idea if this doesn't pan out. Fingers crossed though, these two places are just a few blocks from the IoT venue!

[alexglow]

So Geekdom is actually down here too. They have events here a lot, but I'm guessing it's a paid venue. I'll ask around!

I'm happy with May, with the caveat that only the first and last weekends are open for me. Sorry for the slow response – I just assumed I'd get notifications when this thread updated :sweat_smile:

[nebrius]

Ah, GitHub's notifications system...I still get bitten by that :)

I'm still waiting to hear back from Redfin and Switchfly, will update once I know more.

[nebrius]

I still haven't heard back yet.

@alexglow do you have contacts at Geekdom we could ask?

[nebrius]

So I've been giving it some thought, and I kinda want to cancel this month's event :-/

We still haven't found a venue, rsvp's are kinda low due to the late notice, and I just realized it's scheduled for the same evening as ReactJS SF's React && Give Back event (http://devonbrookelindsey.com/blog, http://www.meetup.com/ReactJS-San-Francisco/events/221841685/).

What does everyone else think?

[kwyn]

I'm flexible with anything personally, would love to see this happen still. I wish I had a lead on a suitable venue but I'm not that connected within SF.

On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 10:39 AM Bryan Hughes notifications@github.com wrote:

So I've been giving it some thought, and I kinda want to cancel this month's event :-/

We still haven't found a venue, rsvp's are kinda low due to the late notice, and I just realized it's scheduled for the same evening as ReactJS SF's React && Give Back event (http://devonbrookelindsey.com/blog, http://www.meetup.com/ReactJS-San-Francisco/events/221841685/).

What does everyone else think?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/sf/issues/28#issuecomment-94518829.

[dshaw]

@bryan-m-hughes Seems reasonable.

[nebrius]

Event has been cancelled, emails and tweets sent out. Hopefully this will give the React meetup a bit of a boost, it's a really great idea.

[alexglow]

Ah, sorry, missed the request for Geekdom contact. Good call. I'm trying to work out if we can use LightBlue Beans for this – if we can control them all from a central hub, that'd be fantastic! :) Right now, the library seems to limit us to a single UUID at a time, but maybe? If anybody's interested on working with me on this, either for May (if that's still on) or another time, let me know!

[nebrius]

@alexglow Yes, let's do this in May! Looking at the calendar, May 16th and 17th is Maker Faire, so that weekend is probably out.

What about the second (9th/10th) or second to last (23rd/24th) weekend?

@drnugent is PubNub interested/available to host any of those four days?

[alexglow]

Aargh, I've got hackathons both of those weekends. The last weekend in May is probably the only one I can do at this point – 5/30 or 5/31. Since my schedule is so wonky, if someone else wants to do something, I will gladly step out and make room. :) But I'm also excited to do it!

[nebrius]

JSConf is that last weekend, so I suspect many (most?) of us will be out for that. Perhaps we can do this workshop in June then?