A few people couldn't make it, however there was a good turnout with robots running around and LED's blinking away.

Some laser cut Sashico templates:

The Chip-8 breadboard computer is progressing well:

Someone finished off soldering up a Jaycar electronic dice kit:

The Alphabot2 has had a 18650 Li-ion battery upgrade:

Bunnings sell a compacted foam board, on which I ran some laser cutting tests:

The Arduino Sensor PCB has had most of the sensor software written up for it:

Same with the basic ESP32 RGB LED PCB:

We might see the Raspberry Pi based Z80 controller assembled by the next meeting?

First meeting of 2021 and we saw and talked about a lot of new projects people have been working on over the Christmas break.  Discussions about Raspberry Pi Pico projects, learning KiCAD electronics design software, Laser cut able stamp rubber from AliExpress, lots about 3D Printing and electronics of course.

Harry has stripped down an old monitor, so that you could see through the LCD part of the screen:

He has also designed and 3D printed a set of RGB lights all controlled from a Raspberry Pi:

Rob received a special Christmas present - an Altair 8800 clone kit.  Looks very spectacular with all the blinking LEDs:

He is also working on building a front panel for a controllable Power Supply Unit:

Not wanting to dig out his Ferric Chloride and etch a PCB for a set of keys, he carefully dremeled the copper off the PCB:

Phillip brought along his Felix 3D printer and was printing out mounting brackets that he had designed up for Glad wrap and al-foil etc.  These are now neatly stored on the back of the pantry door:

This is a small two wire joiner I picked up from Aliexpress:

My apologies to the rest of the table for not photographing their projects (and mine).  Too much talking going on.

Another meeting that just was not long enough to chat with everyone.

A bunch of new people showed up, and one brought along a very cool Lego EV3 based Rubics cube solving machine:

This beautiful three dimensional art work has been built up from a compost of many materials:

Lots of new hand made 3D Christmas Cards:

Pre-Christmas present?  A new flexible stamping platform that was some extra 3D printed supports added to it:

A 3D printer was kept busy churning out new objects:

Someone has a bunch of new books to read:

Due to a number of different circumstances, a lot of people could attend this months meeting, so Phillip and I thought we might actually have some time to work on our projects during the meeting.  We where pleasantly surprised by some new people showing up.

After the library closed, some of us went out onto the front lawn and had a pleasant picnic lunch and continuing the conversations.

Congratulations to Caitlin who has published a Diyode article about her recent Women in Technology meeting that was held recently in Bunbury.  You can read it online:  diyodemag.com/features/model_makers_inspiring_more_women_to_get_into_tech

Peter dropped by and gave a demonstration of his 1980's dead-bug style electronic art work that incorporates LED's and electronic music synthesis:

We have a budding junior engineer who is exploring architecture:

Phillip has acquired an oscilloscope, so he can now see what's going on inside his computer build:

After a few mods and a few feature creep items, a new revision of the 12V Power Distribution Board is under way

Likewise with the USB LED board.  The microphone has finally been debugged and tested, so a new revision of the PCB will shortly be sent off for manufacture:

A new project has been started.  All going well, it will be demo'ed at the next meeting.  This is the core processor and power supply:

It was great to see so many new people pop in for the meeting.  Lots of Robots on display and new ideas flowing freely!

A dedicated Robotics (free) meeting is starting up and will meet monthly on the 3rd Sunday afternoon of the month:  https://www.imakers.net/events.html

Some new Raspberry Pi powered robots where being tested:

A PiCar-V had it's vision being tested:

More pop-out cards with unique folding built in stands:

and embossed outlines, created by ink topped with a powder, then baked:

Textiles abounded with colour:

Version 2 of the 12V Power Management Board:

A Microbot was flashing away, wrong side up:

Some home made test Electret ultrasonic amplifiers boards (MAX4466 and LM324):

The LED Matrix was being played with:

It was great to see everyone back at the Eaton library.  unfortunately I was engrossed in conversation that I forgot to take any photos of the event.

Some of the conversations centred around ESP32 projects, ultrasonic audio detection, PC building, art and craft, SAP1 computer build: deeprajbhujel.blogspot.com/2015/12/sap-1-architecture.html 

On the 15th of February we visited the Collie Library for the first time and showed off some of our projects to library visitors.

Some of the SW Makers working and chatting around a table:

A pin-up board with SW Maker Project information:

Phillip was busy 3D printing a hinged box with his Felix printer:

Ross was still working on his plane technology.  Testing out an Arduino based  servo motor control:

Stacy was creating some card art:

Diane worked on her dress tech and did one of her daily art pieces:

Rob whipped up an ultrasonic range finder:

And brought along a few interesting books:

My Cat Buzzer PCB has arrived back so I soldered on the components:

and started writing some MBed code for it:

A small meeting, but lots of different conversations going on at the September meeting.

Someone forgot a 10 year old HP laptop power supply and another member said they have one of those in the car, and a minute later he was up and working.  He found that TinkerCAD now host a virtual Raspberry and Arduino section on their website.  This means you can be playing around writing code and testing it out with having to purchase any hardware - very cool.  Alternatively, you can test it out on-line while waiting on newly purchased hardware to arrive.

Phillip printed out a replacement spool holder (long peg of red plastic sticking out the lower RH side of printer).  The broken one is on the table below:

No photos, but we had members doing their Cybersecurity homework, others working in TinkerCAD designing electrical circiuts and another knitted up a full length scaf.

Some other things going on....

A SW Maker luggage tag:

The mobile gaming rig now has a 3D printed servo mount for a stylus and sports a Raspberry Pi 2GB computer:

A tiny 5mm long photo-interuptor sensor:

A Raspberry Pi powered Bubblator Art project in the making: