Spark.io Build Night

Okay signed up for another build night with Instructables.com. I already have a couple ideas myself and at least 1 of the guys from Tinkerine has jumped on board with some ideas of his. I’ll be figuring out a good date for a meeting in early November to get together. If we can get something really cooking i can do several more days in November.

Meanwhile to get your creative thoughts flowing here is the email and some links

Hello Makers!
We have a lot of fun things happening with the build night program through the end of 2014! I’m excited to announce our build night with Spark.io in November. They make a development kit for amazing connected products.
Check out some projects that have been created with the Spark board here including: Building a WiFi Outlet, An e-paper, wifi keypad, and Spark Doorbell.

Some fun updates!
Build Night FAQ:

I’ve shorted the event announcements and synthesized all general build
night details in this nifty FAQ. Please read this along with the event
announcement.

Suggestion Box: Have a question about the build night program that should be included in the FAQ?
Have suggestions for improving the build night program or new features
we can add? Submit them to the Build Night Suggestion Box!
Check out more information about the event here.

Cheers!

this looks amazing

Last winter I was going to monitor the vhs furnace thermostat so it would tweet when the switch was turned on and off and when thermostat started/stopped the heat. The furnace is not ours so this would need to be done passively by sensing current in the wires. Would make a great spark.io project.

Okay now that’s a cool (warm) idea. And we can add a thermister or 2 to get some temperature measurements as well.

Isn’t the furnace gas? So we’d have to measure the fan I think. We have anything at VHS we could use as a sensor to monitor the current?

Dan there is a 24vac control circuit between the furnace and the thermostate with individual wires. You should be able to sense the current by wrapping a coil around one of the wires or some kind of fancy sensor like a hall effect sensor perhaps…

First Meeting for those who want to help with building a couple spark projects will be next week Wednesday the 12th.

It will be at Tinkerine Shop (NOT at VHS this time) because I’m also inviting members of 3D604 to join us if brainstorming ideas and that’s their usual meet up day. Wednesdays at VHS the Ham Radio club has its weekly meetings. Also at least 3 of us who work at Tinkerine will be working on ideas. And Eugene has promised to 3D print us some refreshments :).

Tinkerine
341 W 6th Ave
6pm - 9pm

Hi,

I’m honestly not sure what this event is. It sounds kind of interesting, though.

I may or may not be busy on Wednesday and I may or may not feel like coming out at that time, too. Is this something where I can just show up? Or would you like an RSVP beforehand?

I’m of the same mind as Jarrett - sounds great, but reading the Instructables FAQ I’m not sure what stage the meetup represents. I take it this an initial brainstorming session? If you need an RSVP let us know - I also may or may not be available Wed.

Had a quick look at the projects done - the homebrew Nest thermostat kind of jumped out and sounds similar to what Tom suggested (I think?).

(New member, first post - hopefully it works right! I have worked in medical elect service for a number years, and puttered around with programming but I have no idea what useful skills I may have to add to VHS - but I’m keen to find out)

This is the first meeting this month of those who are interested in developing or helping someone else develop an Instructable worthy project using the spark.io board.

I have already been contacted by 2 members who had projects in mind and helped them get started with preliminaries,

If anyone else has a project they want to do, RSVP is a good idea as I can point them to the relevant pages on the manufactures website.

If you just want to come down and see how these things work and what you can do with them you welcome and don’t need to RSVP.

In order to get these boards I had to commit us to do at least 2 projects that will be documented and posted to Instructables website. And they had a low acceptance rate for applicants. So we need to also make them noteworthy. As well failing to live up to the requirements will most likely disqualify us from participating in any future build nights that they run. Example December they are offering to supply parts from http://chibitronics.com/ for a build night. I’ve already applied and I’ll make a post if we get accepted.