I am not sure why @iMakeRobots locked his last thread, Its a exciting and awesome thread.
I am willing to make everyone a deal. I will teach any of the following classes/workshops at VHS in-exchange you must teach a workshop on a topic, any topic at VHS.
I pledge to host, at a minimum, two more “Papercraft for Rapid Prototyping” workshops as the last one was a hit. If we can somehow make it work out, there was also had interest in taking the Papercraft to the next step and teaching basic fiberglass, but the new space isn’t suitable for that. I may possibly find a place to host that one off-site. I was also thinking perhaps one papercraft workshop where, instead of individual masks or trinkets, each person would be assembling part of a larger whole. Maybe something like building a “life-size” Wall-E or a Star Wars “Roger Roger” battle droid together or something like that.
I also pledge at least four chainmaille workshops. I am more experienced in the jewelry-scale work and work in very very tiny rings but someone [I’m terribly sorry but I forget who!] donated a bunch of larger rings that are quite suitable for beginners. So between their donated rigs and mine we can manage at least 2 beginner classes and 2 intermediate/advanced classes. If there is interest, that can easily be turned into a weekly project night starting with larger rings and basic weaves and progressing to a jewelry piece such as a necklace, bracelet, watch strap, etc.
I have an acquaintance who is not [yet?] a member but is very much interested in a Sewing 101 course that I’m sure someone better equipped than I can find time to host and I’d be willing to open/bottom-line for if needed.
I want in on the Arduino, home automation, pen turning, and laser cut maps classes.
I’d also very much like a Solidworks and/or Sketchup workshop and possibly a “Designing Gears for laser cutting and/or 3d printing” lesson, and I would like to request a lesson on proper use of the lathe now that it is running. I have a couple projects which would benefit greatly from being able to turn some aluminum rod.
Solidworks is a workshop that I could potentially run. I’ve held off, though, because we have just one computer that has a license, and I doubt very many of our members have legitimate licenses to follow along. I don’t know any format to make a SW tutorial interesting.
At the new space, I will be running some more intro to electronics workshops. I’m thinking of branching out to some niche beginner topics:
How to breadboard a schematic
Intuitive understanding of voltage, current, and resistance (with LEDs!)
I’ve been promising that for a while but due to work craziness I’ve been unable to follow through - I have done a lot of the planning for it at least. I hope work to be more at a simmer than a boil by the time the new space is up and running, and will organize classes on the lathe, mill, and CNC mill then. I’ve been tossing around a lot of ideas of how to run this, and keep going back and forth on quick vs long. The former certainly is attractive from the perspective that I have so little time currently, but I’d really like to do the later so that there is a strong knowledge base in the membership that can then be passed on further. We’ll see when the time comes!
To summarize, I’ll be running classes on:
Lathe
Large + tiny manual mills
CNC mill
Format TBD; it may be a all-in-one course over several weeks or might be a 30 minute intro. Or both.
Some classes I may run (see above about work craziness) are:
Introduction to KiCad for schematic capture and PCB layout
The same as above but for EAGLE
Introduction to Autocad Fusion 360 (similar to Solidworks, but I find it more intuitive, and many people/orgs, including VHS, fit into their FREE category)
Making/customizing your own micro Linux distro with TinyCore Linux.
Another request, perhaps there would be enough interest in a “Programming for Android 101”? Most Android devices have wifi and buetooth and I dare say most of us have at least one spare laying about, they should be ideal to work into projects either s remote controls or as integrated touchscreen interfaces. But how?
Yeah, my only/best thought would be to get the projector set up and do it as a presentation, but that is obviously not ideal.
I’d really like to run my Fixed-Wing Airplane workshop this year, preferably in early/late spring so we can have plenty of flying/learning/fixing/hacking time during the summer.
Edit: I’ve finished the foam part of my first Flite Test build, I printed out and taped together paper templates and cut it all by hand. It went pretty well.
I will trade you the “Raspberry PI home automation course” for one of the chainmaille workshops.
I will trade you the “Papercraft for Rapid Prototyping” workshops for the laser cut maps.
I can run a workshop on gears as well.
We can make the first three planets (no moons!) of a Orrery
What kind of example project were you thinking of running with the 555 timer? Atari Punk kit is one of my favourites.
Also, there was talk of designing and building our own [open sourced?] version of the EP-130. If nobody steps up to take that on, I may possibly. Then we could have a group build day, keep some for the space and sell some to pad our coffers a bit.
I’d be up for helping with the 555 workshop. I’d rather not do an atari punk style synthesizer, rather focus on all the things that you can do with one that people keep using micros for.
I can run a Sewing 101 workshop or two. I could also do another yarn swift workshop at some point.
If I can ever figure out an easy way of making a yarn ball winder, I’ll run a workshop on that too. (By easy, I mean for people that don’t have access to laser cutters or workshops.)
I could run a Technical Writing workshop as well, but I have a feeling that won’t get much attendance.
The title Technical Writer can be misleading. I prefer Documentation Goddess but my boss won’t let me use that in my signature.
I am toying with the idea of maybe providing a task-oriented writing workshop/review session. If you write instructions for courses or instructables, it is sometimes good to get feedback from people on how clear the instructions are.
Stuff I’d attend: Anything Geo/GIS related, programming, arduino, SMD soldering, woodworking, CNC, robotics, animatronics, 3D prototyping, web dev - Ruby, node.js, android app design, etc.
Stuff I can offer if interested: How to Solder, Rewiring drop in night: Fix that lamp, small appliance, etc, toy hacking.
I’m trying to do less crafty stuff and more techno stuff as my own personal challenge but if people really want to learn how to knit socks or any other knitted item I will teach. Have been knitting for 40 years even though I am only 29.
@funvill, I’d love to attend a workshop on Mapbox and/or laser-cutting map, and @Janet, I’d love a rewiring workshop. Also am interested in intro Android and iOS classes.
I can teach a sewing 101 class (say, with a tote bag project) or help out @InezG with one. I also promised @3bien that I’d teach a class on theory of elliptic curve crypto this year—does anyone with more experience on the “practice” side want to team up for a two-part workshop?
I’m coming from a background in game development, if anyone is interested in a bit on making games I could probably come up with something.
In addition/relatedly I’d do a workshop on Unity3D. It’s a great environment for games, of course, but also for prototyping interactive environments, 3D simulation, visual/graphic exploration, and so forth.
Interested in pretty much anything that has electricity running through it, and as well I’d love to learn to use as many tools as possible.
FWIW, I suggested the Embedded Systems MOOC as a relatively pain-free way to provide a “course” at VHS co-operatively. I hope to see how it goes, maybe we can adapt it into something that could reside on the Wiki. Something that could provide a program for self-education that’s in-depth without all the baggage that MOOC’s carry.
Something in the form of a module/tutorial series? My personal Holy Grail with all this stuff is to figure out a (hopefully) small number of topics that require serious study, which then tie together all the other misc. bits which are no longer confusing, given a solid base-skill set.
Further down the road, I’d like to find some good op-amp or other analogue projects - I know there must be a lot of interesting ones out there.
