Hello all!
I hope exams are going well for you, and wish those of you unlucky few, (like me) with plenty still to go, lots of luck!
Well this week Chris and I went to the delightful Societies Federation meeting. Nothing really to report~ a few new societies ratified, and more vague hints towards the new website societies are being promised. We’ll let you know more on that front when we know, but it should be the end for OnCampus (hurrah I hear you cry).
There was also a meeting of old and new committee members. We decided on an official handover date of the last day of term (18th June) and started planning some exciting new events for the year to come! So watch this space everyone, and in the meantime keep tinkering!
Greetings all fellow tinkers! This is Kezzy, your new communications officer elect! As many of you will know it was the Tinkersoc AGM last week. Thank you everyone who turned up and voted, it was great to show the union officers the effort you guys put into Tinkersoc, and great to see you all. So without further ado here are the new positions.
President~ Chris Roberts (formerly Vice-President)
Treasurer~ Emma Johnson (formerly Treasurer)
Secretary~ Martin Ellis
Communications Officer~ Kezzy Robins
As you will have noticed, there is now no longer a vice-president position and there has been the creation of a communications officer. As comms officer I’m taking some of the jobs the secretary did last year (as there are loads), and I am also here if you have any feedback. The president and treasurer jobs will be the same, and the secretary will be doing some of the stuff they did last year.
So congratulations everyone on their new positions, voted in unanimously nonetheless, you’ll be hearing more from us soon. Until then fellow Tinkerers, ttfn, ta ta for now!
The time has come again for the TinkerSoc AGM and for us all to choose the committee for 2010/2011.
The meeting will be at 6.00pm on Wednesday 7th April in KSLR4; we will give a short presentation on the past year, a discussion about the state of TinkerSoc and last but not least,we will hold our elections. As this is a meeting that directly affects every member, you will all need to be there. If you cannot make it, please email matt@tinkersoc.org with your apologies.
Next year’s committee is going to be slightly different from this year’s. We will have still have 4 positions, but they will be slightly different:
* President
* Secretary
* Treasurer
* Media/Communications Officer
If you want to apply for any of these positions, or just learn more about them, please go to our wiki page at http://tinkersoc.org/wiki/agm2010
Remember: This Wednesday, 6PM, KSLR4. See you there!
Last night we built some kits. We were aiming to just do the MintyBoost kits, however they were so quick and easy (most people took about 20 minutes) we decided to start off on some MiniPOV kits as well! (As seen above).
Some people have been having some issues charging Apple devices with their MintyBoost. For the answer to this, have a look at the MintyBoost FAQ with the answers. It will require putting some different resistors into the kit – so if you’re having problems with it then come to the OpenLab next Monday (same time same place) and we will give you the required parts from our stock.
Also, we’ve got a page about our custom MiniPOV firmware, TinkerPOV. We’ve burned a custom firmware to them to make them easier to change the message, and that requires slightly different instructions to the normal MiniPOV kits. They can still be burnt with whatever firmware you like, but you can more simply change the message by uploading the string to the EEPROM memory (it’s also a lot quicker!).
NOTE: If you are having problems with the kits, please contact US at kits [AT] tinkersoc.org. Because we’ve used our own parts, Adafruit can’t give you technical support. They won’t want to know :p
If for whatever reason you couldn’t make it to this week’s lab, fear not as you can pick up your kits at any of the sessions.
In other news, Animesoc and SFX and Adventure Gaming Society are having GeekFest tonight in the Lighthouse, from 7PM.
Today will be the first day of the Kit BuildFest 2010. First session is tonight at 6PM in the Jennison Lab, if you ordered a MintyBoost then please do come to build your kit!
Starting tomorrow, we will be having the OpenLab sessions every Monday in the Jennison Building Project Labs to make/break/hack stuff and have fun during the process!
Join us tomorrow to discuss our plans to modify an RC car to do awesome stuff.
This coming Monday we’ll be spreading festive (and glowy) cheer
throughout campus in our Christmas CampusMod event in the spirit of
our very successful Freshers Mayhem. We’ll be decorating the campus
trees and social areas with custom-made TinkerSoc LED gadgets and have
a good laugh at the time.
This will be the last TinkerSoc event of the term, so make sure you
come along and be merry before heading home for Christmas!
This event will start at around 1800hrs in the Rutherford Common Room,
rather than Keynes as usual, so make sure you come to the right place.
Remember, Rutherford Common Room at 6. See you there!
The next TinkerSoc event is going be an OpenMic evening on Monday, 7 December in our usual place (KLSR4) starting at our usual time (18:00).
In OpenMic sessions we have short (~20mins max) slots for members to come and show the rest of the crowd cool stuff they have been working on or just stumbled upon. You can talk about anything you like or show random videos/pictures if you do not like talking. We want to see cool things!
Details and a list of talks can be found in our wiki. Keep in mind people like last minute wiki-edits so you’ll probably see more talks than the only one currently listed on the page. Also, please feel free to add your name to the list if you are planning to talk
This week we had our introduction to the Arduino, and in next week’s session we will be be going a bit more in-depth to tell you how to interface with the chip.
We will cover how to connect your computer to your
Arduino, your Arduino to the network, your doorbell to your Arduino to your computer, your website to your Arduino to your room lights…
This workshop will be held in KLSR4 at 1800 hrs on Monday the 30th of November.
