21 August 2013 Main Meeting

Meeting Summary…

August’s topic featured Ed Togami and his son Kenzie, who talked about the “Maker” movement. The basic premise is to use simple computer interfaces plus various electronic hardware, transducers, etc., to make simple devices to do fun and useful things. As with all things computer, the hobbyist uses software to control his/her devices and to determine what they do. This harkens back to the days of early amateur radio when everyone built his/her own gear, and later to early home-built personal computers. Ed talked about the Maker community in Santa Barbara, and Kenzie demonstrated a project that he built.  Ed and Kenzie brought some Arduino microcontroller projects to show how the Macintosh can be used to program them.

One attendee had this to say…
“I would like to thank Ed Togami and his son for the very interesting presentation. I especially like the part where he said young people can experiment with Aquino [Arduino?] devices. I ran across a statistic about how far down our country is in science education of young people compared with China and a lot of European countries.  The open house on Aero Camino was really interesting with the 3D printers and the people there were friendly and demonstrated the printers!”  Anonymous

Ed Togami’s overview of the presentation :

The Maker Movement has a feel much like those early days. There are many avenues to explore, but as in those early Mac days, a little guidance and support go a long way to help keep frustrations to a minimum. An exploration of Make: http://makezine.com/, Instructables http://www.instructables.com/, and Hackerspace  http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hackerspaces> will show some of the expanse. 3D-printers, Arduinos, and DIY are all items that get tossed about freely.  

Before the presentation — a roundtable discussion centered on ways to monitor and keep clutter to a minimum on your CPU. Kenzie suggested two products: DaisyDisk, an analyzer tool for Mac OS X that visualizes hard disk usage; and GrandPerspective, a small utility application for MAC OS X that graphically shows the disk usage within a file system. Some tools will show if you have a giant ZIP file. Ricky talked about the Library Folders and Utilities. It was recommended to keep the Desktop clear by making a Folder and putting items in there.

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ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT PUBLISHED Jul 19, 2013 @ 07:54 
PRESERVED BELOW…

Our general meetings are on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, in the meeting room

Petrini’s Italian Restaurant, 5711 Calle Real, Goleta.

Time: 6:00–8:00 p.m.

Presentation by Ed and Kenzie Togami: What Do Macs and Maker Culture/Movement Have in Common?

As always, we’ll have wireless internet access and good company! Plus, the drawing for a $100 gift card to the Apple store: Each member who attends gets 2 free tickets, and if you renew your membership or become a member at the meeting you get a 3rd ticket! Members can also buy additional tickets for $3 each.