This Friday February 18th at Republic Coffee we’ll have members showing off their Arduino projects and answering questions about the Arduino platform. We’ve had a lot of interest in getting started with various Arduino boards so come learn more about the great things you can do with an open source platform.

What is an Arduino? Arduino is a physical computing platform and a software development environment for controlling various things like motors, sensors and even entire devices. The hardware and development environment are open source and there is a very large community of developers and hardware hackers out there working on projects. The hardware is also quite inexpensive. There are also “Getting Started” kits that are a package of items to help you hit the ground running with your Arduino.

Chain Mail Class – Come Learn how to make chain mail with us.
Our NEXT meet will be December 3rd at Republic Coffee. We will be having an abbreviated meeting with a class on how to create chain mail led by John Wood. If you would like to participate in the chain mail class the cost will be $10. You’ll be able to keep what you create as well as the handy pair of pliers you’ll be using in the class. Feel free to prepay by using the paypal link on the front page of http://www.midsouthmakers.org

The class will consist of the start to finish exercise of creating a section of chain mail material out of readily available aluminum electric fence wire. The process will involve taking a coil of electric fence wire, explaining how to make a coil out of the wire using a portable drill and a metal rod. Then taking the coil and creating individual links. Lastly how to construct a section of chain mail material out of the links using hand tools.

LAN Party Part DEUX
The LAN Party will be held at same location as last time: 2203 Freemont Rd. Kevin will be making Cincinnati style Chili and grilling hot dogs. Joe will be bringing Rotel cheese dip and we’ll have plenty of drinks + chips. The exact cost for food is still being determined (should be on par to last time ~$10). If you’d like to bring something to share (1UP Cakes, Strawberry cakes of awesome)  please feel free.

If you have any suggestions for games please let us know, I’m going to throw out Left 4 Dead 2 + I’d like to get Walter to carry me through the rest of the hard mode alien swarm! Also a few us of WoW addic…..players will have a fresh expansion to play through so I’m sure WoW will be represented as well. Feel free to suggest anything else. Last time SC2 and UT2k4 was a big hit.

Relief Press Printing is the process of taking a medium, removing specific pieces of it so as to make it thinner in areas, and inking the raised portions of the medium to press onto a desired surface.  The purpose of this workshop is to demonstrate an easy way to create your own linoleum stamps, and more specifically how to apply this to T-Shirts. Through this you can take a linoleum block, carve out any design you wish, and print it onto any shirt that you would like. The cost to participate in this workshop is $20. Because of the cost of materials it is necessary for us to have a very clear number of how many people plan to participate so we are able to order enough supplies. For more information, check out our T-Shirt Printing Wiki.

If you would like to prepay to participate in the workshop, you can visit http://www.midsouthmakers.org/events/ and select your shirt size, and click Buy Now. We’d like to recommend that everyone interested pre pay so we’re able to have shirts and materials for those interested. If you’d rather pay cash feel free to talk to Daniel during any meeting.

The HAM Radio Technician License is the entry level licensing for Ham Radio operators to get their call sign and the ability to talk over the air. On August 13th (after an abbreviated regular meeting) we’re going to hold our very own study group to prepare to take the Technician’s License test. We won’t be administering a test, but we will be covering where and when you can take the test and we’ll be covering topics covered on the test. If you’re interested in learning about HAM radio please join us at 7pm in the Nolan Building at Christian Brothers University. There is no cost involved. (Donations are welcome)

So for those who aren’t aware, we’re still alive and looking for potential locations to call home. After our visit to Nashville’s Hacker Consortium, spirits are rekindled and the drive is on again. Earlier this week we scheduled a viewing of a space that was located at 3527 Southern Ave, Memphis, TN 38111, and I must say that it was awesome! Now I know, we don’t want to get too excited about it as we may not get it, or even better find a space that is just that much more outstanding. Even still, it really is pretty cool. It really is a shame that more of the members couldn’t make it to check it out, but in place of that we did try to document things as best as possible on the Wiki. Pictures of the space are on the Wiki if you click on the thumbnail on the previous page, or you can always checkout the pictures on the Flickr account as well. From the pictures you’ll see that it could use a little care, and does lack a garage door, but everything else about it just screams “makerspace!” With everything around it like Brother Juniper’s, RP Tracks, and the University of Memphis, we could make great use of this location and the room that it has in it.

The space is approximately 2000 square feet and used to be a TV repair shop. The great thing about that is the fact of three phase power already being run to the location! It already has workbenches on one wall, and has a storefront that we could re-purpose for other things. You can check out simulated 3D photo of the main workshop at photosynth. There is just a lot to be said for the potential of the space. From the layout of the place, we would be able to build us a server room, possibly a kitchen, a storage closet, plenty of workbench space, individual cubbyholes, a lounge, and a maybe even a learning lab. We will be discussing all of this with everyone at the next couple of meetings to get ideas for potential layouts and what we can do to make the most of what is available. The owner has even generously agreed to give us the first month for free and $800/mo for the first year before raising the rent to the requested $900/mo. If we can get enough paying members interested this it really could become a reality quite soon.