Meetup Fun
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We had a very good meetup tonight. Lots of technical talk and even some problem solving.
Richard showed off the box he had designed and laser cut at Hull MakerSpace. You never know, you might see it on a train one day.
Brian had brought along a new M5Stack device that looks awesome. It has a lovely touch display and was running a little program that showed off all the internal sensors really well.
Karen had questions about Circuit Python vs Micro Python. General consensus was that they are both jolly good. Circuit Python is easier to get started with and has lots of lovely Adafruit libraries. But it doesn’t support interrupts so programs have to poll whenever they want input. Micro Python has a few more advanced features, but is a little harder to get to grips with. You can get started with Thonny really easily for both these platforms.
I was showing off PCBs just received from a company in China. Five large boards for less than twenty pounds. Yes please. Brian used Kicad to make a really nice layout for a PCB for the Pico MIDI Cheesebox and I was in charge of sending of the files to get them made up. All we need to do now is get the surface mount parts and solder them into place. We fired up Kicad, got the part descriptions and ordered all the bits. On my super-cheap laptop.
We all took a look at the PICO W. Very nice now running on a Pico Display. A very powerful combination.
We solved a problem with aerial connectors. Female to female doesn’t work…..
We discussed the creation of 3D printed jigs for holding surface mounted devices in place for hand soldering.
I showed off my Pure Data sound generator on my super cheap laptop. But I really need to bring a proper speaker so that everyone can hear it over the noise of the laser cutter.
And there was lots of non-technical chat too
The next in-person meetup is on the 3rd of August at the Makerspace. If you’ve got tech you want to talk about, come and find us.
