[Noisebridge-discuss] Where's Circuit Monday?

[Liz Henry]

Johny Radio,

That is how I started doing CHM when Mitch, Rolf, or Miloh weren't able to
do it. People would show up from out of town kind of excited and want to do
stuff.  So I would sell them kits either that I stocked up on myself, or
from Mitch's stash of kits, and show them how to solder and go through the
instructions. Simple enough.  Nearly everyone who shows up has a smartphone
at least to look up the kit instructions.

It is not too hard to mobilize others in the space to help lay out some
soldering irons and equipment on Monday afternoon.

When we run out of solder, which we do often, you can take up a collection
to buy new solder. I have in the past restocked the solder and other
equipment. It is best to buy a big roll but in a pinch just go by Radio
Shack.  http://www.mpja.com/ is good for buying solder in bulk.

People sometimes will buy one kit and take turns doing the bits of it. So
you don't even need that many kits to start off with.  If you don't have
the money to lay out for $20 kits you can find cheaper, but less exciting
ones. I really liked having the Maker Faire robot badges since they are
cheap and easy and give people a taste of what is possible. The last batch
I got of them for the Burton High kids were not as good for explaining
circuits though because the instruction sticker covers the printed circuit,
so you don't see that it is one continuous wire printed on the board.

I never asked Noisebridge to buy the CHM equipment, but sometimes took up
collections around for specific needs (like the solder).     As long as you
have solder, and you can access and properly track the kits already in the
space, you can run CHM without having any capital up front.  I don't think
that $10 a month is going to help you.  Batteries are in the kits!   Write
the kits down on a paper and put it in the plastic tubs then email Mitch
which ones people bought and paypal him the money, or get together with
someone who can do it.

Most of the irons could use a cleaning with tip tinner and those metal
brillo things.  There are a bunch of extra tips in the red metal bin on
wheels.

If you get a lot of people coming to CHM, it is really helpful to sort out
who has ever soldered before, and pair them up sitting near the people who
haven't, so they can be helpful!

- Liz




On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 8:27 PM, Johny Radio <johnyradio at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Hi,
>
> there are about 5 peeps here at da Bridge for Circuit Hacking Monday,
> including a nice lady and her kids visiting from Alaska. They wanna hack.
> Is somebody leading this?
> I would run it, but we don't even have known working batteries (well, i
> asked the membership for $10/month for circuit stuff, but no go).
> Anyway, is somebody doing Circuit Hacking Monday tonite?
>
> Johny Radio
>
> Stick It In Your Ear!
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
Liz Henry
lhenry at mozilla.com
lizhenry at gmail.com
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