At this months meeting we had the President of the SW Science Council and Julie their Project Officer pop in to visit us and see what we get up too.  We had discussions on the various science and Ag. business and community interests around the South West of Western Australia.  We would look forward in holding some public demonstrations of our projects.

Rob brought along an interesting quick project that had sprung out of a recently defunct microwave oven:

At the moment, this is going to be an environmental chamber for growing crystals.  It has a thumping big peltier mounted at the end with a large heatsink (silver block) and fan, with the hope of getting down to -10 degrees and up to 50+ degrees in a controlled manor.

Someone has discovered the colourful 3D Doodling pen, which might have sparked other interest in it too:

Drone with VR googles - no flying inside a library though:

Colourful cards galore:

The Pi Cluster was back on the table:

Along with the Dobot robotic arm:

Some special fabric pens where being tested out:

Lots of electronic projects on the table - the LED driver project is progressing:

Only a few steadfast people showed up, with a few members of the public stopped by to see what was going on.  Missed taking a photo of Stephens current project.

Building a radio:

An Arduino based ultrasonic alarm circuit:

The Felix 3D printer ran hot printing out some fidget spinner housings:

Another style of LED driver board was being tested:

Designing up a SMD LED display board in KiCAD:

There was a lot happening this meeting. Once again, I apologies for missing photographs for people working on:  learning electronics via a kit, 3D doodling, muscle wire, Fusion 360 3D design of a fidget spinner.  There was a discussion around using SigRok for electronic decoding of signals.

Note: Stephen could be running a Fusion 360 CAD tutorial at the Eaton meeting in either July or August.  There will be an announcement via the mailing list closer to the event.  Fusion 360 has a free version for hobbiests, and it can generate files suitable for 3D printing, laser cutting and CNC work.  You can sign up for the mailing list via the above menu CONTACT link.

An M-n-M sorting machine is being designed up:

A Delta 3D Printer getting ready to go:

Playing around with a Windows 10-Arduino based  Latte Pander:

Tying off a quilt:

A 6309 based digital logic analyser is being reverse engineered, complete with ROM contents being disassembled:

Someone has a new computerised paper cutter, that was busy cutting out very intricate shapes:

A home lab has recently been upgraded with a new oscilloscope and function generator:

This spinning wheel has been very busy over the last month:

Below is an example of the different SMD component sizes you can purchase and use in electronics:

Due to it being school holidays and other events on around the district, it was a small turn out than usual - even though it was a World Create Day!

Tufting up a community donation quilt:

Getting ready to start programming up the Raspberry Pi cluster notification LEDs:

This robot project will eventually be able to be programmed in various languages, eg: Logo, Picaxe, Python, and others:

Playing around with Arduino Neopixels, testing PCB VIA rivets, various home made SMD LED boards and a LED driver board:

Come and join us at the Busselton Library on Saturday the 22nd April 2017, from 11:00 to 16:00.  Location details on the home page.

This months Eaton Makers meeting had a real mix of projects being worked on.

Some things that where discussed:

http://hackaday.com/2017/04/07/platformio-and-visual-studio-take-over-the-world/  a new programming IDE that came up last week on Hack-A-Day

http://sirlagz.net/2017/04/03/exagear-deskop-2-0-review/  a Raspberry Pi based addon that allows you to run some Windows based GPU based programs.  
https://eltechs.com/product/exagear-desktop/exagear-desktop-features-and-prices/  it's not free, but looks promising if you're  looking to run older Windows games on a RPi.

There was mention of the different 3D CAD packages that we use, here is a list of free-to-use:

• http://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/students-teachers-educators  ; there is a free Makers version available
• https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/home 
• https://www.tinkercad.com/
• https://www.freecadweb.org/
• http://www.openscad.org/
• https://www.blender.org/
  

No flying inside the Eaton Library, but it comes with a 4K video stream - very nice piece of kit

A very pretty kaleidoscope Raspberry Pi Unicorn Hat

The Pi-Cluster is having an assortment of surface mounted boards created:

A close up of the above boards.  These PCB's have been milled with a CNC router, then hand soldered:

Someone has a wedding coming up, so some prototype wedding cards where made up:

The ROS based robot is now moving and is currently controlled via a Bluetooth network connection.  It's being powered form an old laptop battery:

I haven't seen a spinning wheel in action for quite sometime, but some people where testing it out:

An Arduino Mega being put through it's paces to see if it still worked - yes, it does:

more patchwork and fabric art being worked on:

A willow tree woven with wool basket was being worked on:

an ePaper/Arduino Nano based Temperature sensor/display:

an order for 10 ePaper displays arrived last week:

I didn't get any photos for the M & M colour sorter project that was being fleshed out in a 3D CAD program.  Nor the discussion on designing computer game layouts.

This was the first big event for Busselton.  We a few new people show up for a look at the kinds of things we get up too.

Unfortunately, I got a bit carried away with chatting with people and I completely forgot to photograph peoples projects.

Calum and Euan had further developments on their robot build, Murray brought along a few robots he is building and demonstrated his software environment that he is writing, Phillip brought along his 3D printer to work on and some Arduino gear, Diane worked on some fabric art, and made up some Chinese finger traps for people who had not seen them before, Paul continued work on an Arduino based LED board.  My apologies if I missed anyone.

Another good turnout at the Eaton Library, with some interesting new projects and it was lovely to chat with some new found local Makers.

Present, but not photographed:  Esther and Evan brought along two line following Makeblock robot kits for people to program using scratch.  Jaylen and Rhys are working on a M and M colour sorter project and Phillip brought along a Raspberry Pi MAME console, all running a multitude of retro games.

Kade brought along a Raspberry Pi, with three different 'Hats'.  One being a mini electronic piano:

Rob brought along a his new Arduino based robot that he is building and some new interesting books he's picked up:

More delicate paper artwork being made:

Stephen brought along his 16 Pi cluster to work on:

As well as a 80W laser tube, so you can see how big they are - 1.2m long!

More fabric art being worked on:

Paul brought along his Raspberry Pi based macro photography rig:

and has finally started designing up a PCB board for Raspberry Pi Zero based camera board:

A big thanks for Rob who designed up and cut out a vinyl sign for the group:

NOTE: due to the April meeting falling on Easter next month, there won't be a meeting at the Eaton library in April, however, the Busselton meeting will be on the 22nd of April 2017.  See the home page for location and time details

The inaugural SW Makers meeting was held in Busselton on the 24th of February at the Busselton Library.  It was a short two hour demo/intro day to some of the things we get up too and was attended by over 30 people.

The next meeting will start with a public demo at 11:00 on the 25th of March and once the library closes to the general library public at 12:00, we will then start work n some personal projects and maybe offering some help and mentoring for Arduino and Raspberry Pi projects.  There will be more info on this around a week before hand via the groups mailing list.  If your not already on the mailing list, you can join by filling in the form on the websites contact page

Stephen brought along his 'The Box Box' 3D printer:

Along with a colourful bunch of previously printed parts:

Euan brought along a prototype of an Arduino Mega based robot that he is working on:

Phillip brought along his Felix 3D printer and had it printing out SW Maker medallions:

Stephen also brought along his CNC machine and some examples of what it can do:

Diane brought along and example of some Tech Fashion.  This generated a lot of discussion about where it's all heading:

We haven't seen the DoBot robotic arm out in public for a while:

Esther had her line following Makeblock robot out and running on the floor:

Paul brought along some electronics, a Raspberry Pi based timelapse infra-red photography rig, and a few other parts:

Our first meeting of the year started with our biggest turn out so far.  This was our first meeting at the Eaton Library and it worked out well.  It was exciting to hear of new peoples projects that they have been working.

Dylan picked up a Oculus VR headset over the Christmas break and brought it along for people to explore:

Phillip brought along his 3D Felix printer and printed out a purple bird feeder part:

Stephen brought along a bunch of electronics, 3D scanner, CNC cutter and 3D printer:

Too big to bring along, So Rob showed off some videos of a home built laser cutter, along with some intricate test cuts in various materials:

Kade brought along his Raspberry Pi, that now includes the official RPi 7" Display.  He was experimenting with the Astro Pi add on hat:

Paul from West Coast Makers came down from Perth with his hybrid rocket, that includes a data logger:

Another Paul brought along an Arduino based SMD Toaster oven reflow controller:

A close up of some of the test PCB's that have been processed on a laser cutter, and an example reflow LED board:

My apologies to the other people who brought projects along:  paper art, fabric art and the Arduino robot.  It was a busy morning and I didn't get to photograph everything.