Member Meeting Minutes for Sept 15, 2015

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Minutes by Agenda Topic

  • Attendees
    • Chad
    • Alex
    • Jim Freach
    • Simon
    • Johnathan Lewis
    • John Balacko
    • Geno
  • Called to order at: 7:43pm

New Members

  • N/A

Recent Events

  • Friday Sept 4th - Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream
    • Froze stuff, had fun, still have liquid nitrogen left, lets use it
  • Saturday Sept 5th - Mechanical Club
    • Went to Niagara Falls for Tesla Club
  • Monday Aug 7th - UV Club (Software)
    • Worked on Power Wheels
  • Wednesday Aug 9th - Tesla Club
    • We worked on the Power Wheels car
    • Tesla trip to Niagara Falls 9/5
      • Had fun, got wet, looked at historic Tesla stuff, ate wings, checked out BuffaloLabs Makerspace
  • Friday Aug 11th - Digital Games Night (Artemis)
    • Fun game, new guy showed up, killed many space monsters
  • Saturday Aug 12th - LUG and Android Databases talk
    • Successful talk
  • Monday Aug 14th - UV Club (Hardware)

Upcoming Events

  • Thursday Sept 17th - Model Railroading Club
  • Saturday Sept 19th - Music & Technology Club
  • Saturday Sept 19th - IC Chips and Basic Project Control
  • Monday Sept 21st - Maker Faire Media Shoot
  • Monday Sept 21st - Software Club (Software Edition)
  • Wednesday Sept 23rd - Tesla Club
  • Thursday Sept 24th... - SHIT WE NEED TO GET THIS DONE FOR MAKER FAIRE NYC!
  • Friday Sept 25th - Movie Night
  • Saturday Sept 26 - 27th - Maker Faire New York
  • Saturday Sept 3rd - Mechanical Club
  • Saturday Oct 3rd - Pittsburgh Maker Faire orientation
  • Monday Oct 5th - Software Club (UV)
  • Wednesday Oct 7th - Members Meeting

Potential Evening talks/events

    • Scott Holistic Brain talk
      • October 29, 7:30pm
      • Inaugural meeting
    • Eli, basic welding class
    • Simon, make your own video game
    • Arduino/PI networking class: John Lewis and Balacko
      • Very popular, lets do this soon

Learning Tracks

  • Motor Control
    • Geno will take it over
      • Found slides for it, need to get info from Anthony
  • IC Class
    • Scheduled Sept 19th, 6pm.
  • Electronics Class
  • Change Arduino learning track to Embedded learning track
  • Raspberry Pi learning track

Shop Projects / Updates

  • Autonomous Power Wheels
    • We now have the world's biggest RC car.
    • Next step, make it autonomous
    • Software team frantically working on Lidar and ROS
    • Working on wireless killswitch
    • Crunch time!
  • Power wheels
    • Regular power wheels car needs to be polished, cleaned, and made more presentable for race in less than 2 weeks!
    • Possibly put new motor in it.
    • Geno is working on getting power wheels train ready and working on BTTF-3 theme moxie skit
    • Getting car and train to NYC: Gabe might have a truck, if not, Geno is renting a pickup truck.
  • NYC Maker Faire Sept 26,27
    • We rented a house near the fair in Queens. Contact Eli ASAP if you plan on coming
  • 3-D Printer
  • Needs to have Z Leveled... (Alex, Eli)
    • We did this after the meeting, printer works again!
  • Foundry project by Alex and Wesley
    • No updates
    • Steven Morrisson can help Alex, working on his own foundry
  • Server
    • It works
  • New Mill
    • It's here!
    • Next Mechanical club we will take it apart, oil it, get it ready for operation
    • Alex ordered additional parts for it
    • Need to find space for it
  • Fabric Arts Area
    • It is now called "Fabrication Station"
    • Lets hang the sign
  • Welder
    • We got more wire.

Old Business

  • Sign Ideas
    • Due Date: September 12
    • 2 submissions in currently
    • Keep submissions open until next members meeting
  • Pittsburgh Maker Faire October 10 and 11.
    • Meet the makers on October 9th
  • We need to get rid of some stuff here at the shop.
    • Still need to get rid of ATM.
    • Vending Machine (Back on the chopping block). (Need to contact Anthony)
      • Functional soda machine over broken vending machine. Yes!
  • Printers need ink
    • Got ink, printer is giving errors, tried to fix with rubbing alcohol, still doesn't work
    • Send it back, get replacement
  • Resurrect the members forum, members only
    • Bad idea, need to keep info in centralized location
    • Document our projects better on the website, not just on wiki

New Business

  • Get new/bigger space for HackPittsburgh
    • Take over space next to us, 1500 sq feet, $1450 a month
    • Paramount Building basement, 3000 sq feet, currently used for storage
      • Move storage stuff to current HackPGH building, move shop there.
      • Make as much noise as we want, within reason.
      • This space has heating and air conditioning!!!!
      • We need to take a tour of that space
  • Raise dues to $50 a month in order to pay for the new building/space for the shop
    • Up to members, we will vote on this, members have final say
    • Tiered membership for $30 a month. Only RFID card, no key, other people need to be here to use shop
    • Create hours when full members are guaranteed to be in shop for tiered members
  • Move WPLUG to October 24th


  • Suggestion to have shop clean once a quarter or once a month
    • Especially important if we plan to move to new space

Project RollCall

  • Geno: Modify Moxie trophy for Maker Faire, need 3d printer, must fix
  • Chad bought eyefi card. We can upload photos directly to Flickr, awesome!
    • Use awesome Kodak printer to print any photo on Flickr automatically, 25 cents a photo
    • Have HackPGH funds similar to Panther Funds


Move to Adjourn

  • John Lewis motions
    • John Balacko seconds
  • Adjourned at: 8:53pm

Meeting notes by: Geno