Arduino meetup Thursday 12/8. Featured: The Chronotune’s guts

We’re kicking off i3 Detroit’s new Arduino meetup series with a show-and-tell project that’s near and dear to our hearts: The Chronotune, (as previously covered all over the freakin’ place).

For those following along at home: The Chronotune’s user interface is a rotary encoder, read by the Arduino. Year is indicated on 7-segment displays, and audio files are handled by a uMP3 board. (That’s what we had sitting around. If we had it to do again, we’d use an mp3 shield.) The speaker is driven by an LM386. The dial is moved by a stepper motor from an inkjet printer, with an EasyDriver.

Anyone tinkering with the Arduino experimenter’s platform is welcome to attend, as are those who are curious but don’t know where to begin. We’ll also have a look at the Arduino-LabVIEW bundle recently offered by Sparkfun. Things get under-way this Thursday (12/8) at 7pm.

If this is Friday, it must be Open Shop!

Last night’s tabletop gaming meetup was a great success, as I counted over a dozen players at three simultaneous games. Games of what? I haven’t a clue, I was working on other stuff. It happens again in two weeks!

Tonight is Open Shop, meaning non-members are specifically invited to bring a project to work on, help with someone else’s, or just come check the place out. There should be a member around by 7-ish to open the doors, but much earlier is possible too. Follow us on Twitter to get up-to-the-minute info on that! (Or just look at the upper-right box on this very page…)

Game Night

Thursday will be our twice-monthly board game/card game event, open to the public. The turnout last time was great! Once again, pizza will be provided. Let me know if there’s anything specific you want to play. Available games will include Carcassonne, Cards Against Humanity, Dominion, San Juan, Pandemic, World War 5, Rattus, the Emergo I made with our vinyl plotter, and many more. If you can’t make it, we hope to see you on the first Thursday of the month!

P.S. Speaking of Thursdays: microcontroller fans, don’t forget the Arduino meetup next Thursday.

Announcing i3 Detroit’s Arduino meetup, second Thursday of each month.

With a combination of affordable hardware and easy-to-use software, the Arduino microcontroller development platform has made a big, big splash in the hobbyist market. But what’s better than having oodles of example projects and online resources to teach yourself from?

Why, a local user group, of course! (Bonus points if it’s a group that meets in an electronics lab chock-full of components, test equipment, and benchtop gear. Hint, hint.) You can find Arduino users here any day of the week, but a focused time might be better…

So, let’s kick this off. On the second Thursday of December, starting around 7pm, just get here! Ring the doorbell, sign in, and make your way to the electronics lab. Non-members are welcome, of course, and there’s no cover charge or anything like that. Bring a project to work on!

(CC-licensed photo by Must Be Art on Flickr)

Android meetup, Tuesday 11/22, 7pm

Got Android?

The fourth Tuesday of the month is i3 Detroit’s monthly Android meetup, and you’re invited! Member or guest, expert or noob, all are welcome to hang out, swap tips, and watch SWiT break his Epic 4G while attempting to replace the glass. (Kidding!)

Actually, SWiT’s planning to broadcast that procedure via a G+ hangout, and this post will be updated with the details when that goes live. Other hackery is sure to ensue…

(CC-BY-NC image by Jake Devincenzi, courtesy of iFixit)