Last night Ely Makers met at the High Flyer for our first pub meet casual social get-together and as an opportunity to share our projects, a bit of show and tell, and inspire each other.
It was a very enjoyable evening and we decided to do this every second Thursday of each month and anyone is welcome to join – whether you are working on any projects or not doesn’t matter. Please join our mailing list for on-going information about this event. This would be in addition to quarterly Sunday meet-ups for the whole family.
We would like to emphasize, iterate and re-iterate that we want to be about anything STEM and Maker-related so this is not just about electronics and computing and if your interest is more towards maths, chemistry, bio-technology, mechanical engineering, visual design, arts, textile, cookery/baking and other areas that I missed, either for yourself or for someone else then please join us to share your insights or to learn about something new. So we will always try to broaden the interests represented in the group.
At the table we chatted a bit about Pi Wars – reflected on the event, discussed the robot and possible ideas for future enhancements. We discussed about how our own individual work could help contribute to the work of others – for example, how we could share code between us and work to create re-usable libraries and components. So perhaps working to align with others without hindering the freedom and creativity of the individual. While an individual can create a lot in isolation we believe that as a community working to a shared interest and goal one can achieve so much more.
Paul shared some experiences about the work he has been involved in at the Library Code Club, and we discussed how our group could also contribute to that. We discussed about how to engage and teach coding to children. Paul promised to next time bring a cool robot toy he has at home.
Simone brought his Quad-bot and explained how he had sourced the various parts and what he was hoping to do going forward. Simone is also building a digital harpsichord which is a real challenge. It will require exceptionally good audio quality to be able to mimic the real instrument and the behaviour and sound when pressing and releasing the keys. Simone will be doing a deep-dive into the area of optics in the next few weeks and that sounded really exciting so we’ll look forward to hearing more about that.
Jason brought a box full of on-going projects which was exciting to go through. There was a laser distance sensor connected to led matrix display which he demoed to us. Also there was a small robot with caterpillar tracks which he is working on. Jason also explained that there are quite a few people at his work place that come from Ely and who might like to join so he took a few flyers to share around the office.
We left a stack of Ely Makers flyers in the pub and I even think we got a new member in the bartender pulling the pints for us. We will start to create more flyers and posters to distribute among ourselves. We also discussed a bit about how to engage other local businesses.
So that was a bit of a summary of the evening we had. Hope you can find time to join us at the next pub meet which will be on the 14th June, 2018 – as per the second thursday of the month rule.
