[ELECTRON] update from the social night - ideas for next open day

Thu May 7 17:38:57 UTC 2009

Good news about the date change for me. I am willing to offer handson things for the public to make from the electron club's old keyboards, in the hope they would put donations in the tin.
There are various tech-themed edibles on Instructables.com. Also, how to make your own batteries with lemon juice etc.

Regards 
Nina Baker 

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Being a councillor: http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/YourCouncil/Council_Committees/Councillors/w10c2694.htm
My steampunk blog:  http://greensteampunk.blogspot.com/
Maker fair blog: http://mcmadsat.blogspot.com/

--- On Thu, 7/5/09, Simon Yuill <simon at lipparosa.org> wrote:

From: Simon Yuill <simon at lipparosa.org>
Subject: [ELECTRON] update from the social night - ideas for next open day
To: "Electron Club members" <members at electronclub.org>
Date: Thursday, 7 May, 2009, 12:53 PM

Hi,

We had a smallish but productive social night. Amongst other things,
Graham brought along some mighty tasty home-made sushi and Roy came to
talk about the Fablabs. A new face, Andy, who is doing Phd research on
the use of Fablab systems in fabric design also came along.

We had a chat about things to do for the next Open Day.

As Dan has already said in his email, we have decided to re-arrange it
for Saturday 13th June to give people more time to prepare and get the
word out. Thanks to Dan for helping out in putting this on.

I have booked the CCA's cinema space for the day (we have it form 4pm
til the end of the night), and am thinking it would be good to have some
film screenings as part of it - more on that later.

In terms of stuff to do on the day ...

Fablabs - Roy and possibly a few others will give a presentation about
fablabs, what they are, how they work, how they benefit communities and
independent designers/makers. This will be with a view to raising
awareness about the idea of setting up such a lab in Glasgow. This could
also include stuff like small-scale PCB manufacturing facilities as well.

Cardboard - or 3D paper engineering to give it it's proper name. Graham
turned up with some elegant polyhedral cardboard cut-out designs and Jim
is a very excellent cardboard model maker (see:
http://www.clockworkrobot.com), so one idea is to have a cardboard
modeling make-and-do area where people can build kits and take away
patterns for themselves etc - might also link in with films ...

Citizen's media - as some of you may be aware there have been some
impressive examples of what is known as 'citizen's media' coming
out of
Glasgow in the past couple of months, such as the use of the internet by
parents involved in the campaigns to save local schools and other stuff
which has made it into the mainstream press. One idea is to have a
workshop/discussion with people who were involved in some of these and
looking in a concrete practical fashion at how media technologies can
empower communities. We also get approached from time-to-time by groups
such as Glasgow Media Access Centre (GMAC), the Govanhill Baths
Campaign, and environmental groups who are also interested in this kind
of thing, so the event could be a way of bringing these together.

Food - an Electron Club Open Day would not be complete without some
excellent home-made bakeries to stuff our faces with. Andrew's
suggestion of edible circuits seems well in line with what we're about,
and there is the possibility that Graham will bless us with some fresh
sushi prepared on the spot. Nonto, from Digital Desperados, also had
some fruit-powered electronics in her film so maybe we should circuits
you can eat, and food that can power circuits? As long as the two don't
get confused ...

Sunshine - it will be Summer, so why not make the most of it? Time to
dust off those solar bots from the Winter hibernation and get them out
on the street. Maybe also an idea to take over the steps onto Scott
Street and have some stuff going on there, a banner or such, that could
attract passers-by?

Films - I've got some short alternative technology films we can show -
such as 'How to Turn a Bicycle into a Record Player', as well as Craig
Baldwins' classic sci-fi cut-up 'Spectres of the Spectrum', but am
currently also trying to source some Eastern European Sc-Fi films from
the 50's and 60's such as 'Ikaria XB 1' (see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyraLxGHgzo).

But why not make our own film? Jim has a stereo-optic camera which some
of you will have seen at the previous Open Day and at the Makerfair and
a bunch of 3D glasses we can use for a screening. There are quite a few
people in the Electron Club with film-making experience, others who can
make music, 3D paper engineers who can help with scale-model sets,
people who can make small robotics and weird electronics stuff, and some
genuine vintage electronics that look like they're straight out of Flash
Gordon, so why not make our own 3D film and show it in the cinema?

So that's a few of the ideas that are in the air at the moment, I think
we could have a really good Open Day with quite a few new things we
haven't done before and, dare I say it, it could be a lot of fun ...

We also had a chat about the broadband fund. Current totals are:

Money towards setup and first year of use: £281.56

That's a pretty good start. Thanks to everyone who has chipped in so far!

We need a further £157.38 to cover the full amount of setup and first
year's broadband(the total for that is £438.97), so anyone who feels the
urge to chip in a fiver here or a tenner there would be much appreciated.

Francis from CCA has been away so we are still waiting on news about
their possible input, but we are really not that far from making enough
for our first year of usage.

For the 2 year total, £706.87, we currently have £431.56 (that's the
£281.56 plus an additional £150 currently promised towards second year
costs), so for that larger amount we still need to raise £275.31.

In terms of what we might raise form the Open Day, suggestions so far
for fundraising activities are: a general donations box, charging or
asking donations for the baking, Electron Club badges and tshirts
(possible customised on the day), and Jim has offered to put any profits
from sales of his electronic kits at the Open Day towards the fund.

Pat from SOLDER also suggested approaching the British Science Association.

I haven't had a chance to follow up Nina's suggestion of Council
funding, but at present we are not constituted or formalised in any way,
which I think we need to be for that.

If anyone has any other suggestions just send them in.

All in all, looks like things are making good progress and we'll be
having a cracking Open Day. There's still plenty room for ideas and
contributions of all kinds.

best wishes
Si

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