Norwich Raspberry Pi User and Developer Group

[stevepdp]

Website: norwichrpi.org Reddit: /r/norwichrpi Twitter: @norwichrpi IRC: [url=irc://irc.freenode.net#norwichrpi]irc.freenode.net, #norwichrpi[/url]

Saturday 12th April 2014. 12pm to 6pm.
The upper, mezzanine level of the Norwich Arts Centre Cafe.

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For a couple of months now, some close friends and I have been thinking about organising a Raspberry Pi focused hacker space in the city centre.

Norwich has several popular technology groups already, such as Anglian Linux User Group, Norwich 2600, Mac's Computer Club and Norwich Ruby Users Group, but few of these groups offer a venue where you can set up a Raspberry Pi on some screens and demonstrate (or collaborate) on projects.

What we're aiming to do is hire a venue in the city centre over a weekend, so anybody can attend, every three months. We may even hold micro meetings at a regular food/drink establishment to break up the waiting time if this idea catches on.

If you're interested in this idea. Please visit the website, follow us on Twitter and join us on irc.freenode.net #norwichrpi.

And of course, keep a very close eye on this thread

Thanks

I will be editing this post frequently with meeting announcements and such.

[extravagoose]

I'm based in Norwich, so this would certainly interest me Will also spread the word to some of my other Raspberry Pi friends in Norwich - I believe this would interest them too!

[stevepdp]

Many thanks for your support extravagoose.

To give you an update on where we are regarding venues, I'll be querying The King's Centre about rental costs and electrical rules this week. Another potential attendee who contacted me last night is looking into 47 St. Giles near The Waffle House.

We would like the first event to take place late July / early August.

[extravagoose]

Sounds exciting... have you considered seeing if the UEA School of Computing Sciences could host anything? Surely this sort of thing should be up their street? If not, I could perhaps have a chat with a few of the lecturers since I'm studying there at present.

As for electrics rules - at least venues can be relieved in that the Pi draws a very modest amount of electricity

[stevepdp]

have you considered seeing if the UEA School of Computing Sciences could host anything? Surely this sort of thing should be up their street? If not, I could perhaps have a chat with a few of the lecturers since I'm studying there at present.

We have, but until now we haven't had any contacts within the UEA. Please do see if anybody is interested and can secure a room there.

As for electrics rules - at least venues can be relieved in that the Pi draws a very modest amount of electricity

True.

When we first came up with the idea we thought about holding the meetings in pubs.

The thinking was that we could use a bunch of battery powered in-car LCDs to run a couple of Raspberry Pis and we would jam whilst holding a pint...

Yeah... a hired room is a MUCH better idea

[extravagoose]

We have, but until now we haven't had any contacts within the UEA. Please do see if anybody is interested and can secure a room there.

I'll see if I can have a few words and see if anyone is interested... no promises though, but could be a good thing if they are...

When we first came up with the idea we thought about holding the meetings in pubs.

The thinking was that we could use a bunch of battery powered in-car LCDs to run a couple of Raspberry Pis and we would jam whilst holding a pint...

Yeah... a hired room is a MUCH better idea

Although it makes me wonder how long a battery could power a Pi... perhaps that's another idea for having fun with

[stevepdp]

A quick update on where we are.

I've been in contact with the King's Centre a couple of times over the past week and we have decided that due to the lack of disabled access for the rooms we wanted and the potential costs involved in hiring the ground level rooms, we will instead be on the lookout for another venue.

I'm currently emailing The Cube, which is a very good looking venue at The Forum, right in the heart of the city centre. If we get the go-ahead with them, then we'll most likely hire out their room for half a day on either a Saturday or a Sunday in August if available.

If anybody else has found other venues, please let me know.

[jamesh]

I'm a UEA CS grad, but think there are very few people left there from when I was present! (86-89) Prof. Andy Day would be one option I guess, and I still recognise a few other names. Also I live on the Norfolk border, so could probably manage a trip to Norwich on occasion.

James

[liz]

I had an ex-boyfriend who went to UEA. And I think Cambridge needs something called a Waffle House.

[stevepdp]

I think Cambridge needs something called a Waffle House.

I would certainly recommend checking them out.

Try a pair of waffles coated in bolognaise with waffles and ice cream for desert. Lovely

[rlp10]

Just registering my interest.

Also, who could we get to come along by way of a guest speaker if we were holding such a meeting?

Richard

[rlp10]

The Forum is a lovely venue. Good choice.

[extravagoose]

I'm a UEA CS grad, but think there are very few people left there from when I was present! (86-89) Prof. Andy Day would be one option I guess, and I still recognise a few other names. Also I live on the Norfolk border, so could probably manage a trip to Norwich on occasion.

James

Yes, I would maybe also say Drs Mark Fisher and/or Pierre Chardaire too? They both have interests in low level coding and C. Also, Mark Fisher heads up the Embedded Systems module which is focused around the ARM architecture.

[spamurai]

I live close to Norwich. I just got my RPi a couple of weeks ago too.
Although i may not be clever enough to participate in projects, the discussion and meetings/watching others projects develop is definitely something that would interest me.

Also, i'm currently studying Computing Science at the UEA and several students on the course and people i know own Pi's and would of thought this would be right up their street.

Would probably need to contact UEA directly if you wanted to host it there, but i know they have seminar rooms available for outside events.

I look forwards to more details

[spamurai]

Thanks Richard.

I can't quite say it's set in stone, because I'm sorting out the papers, but by tomorrow lunchtime I should be able to announce that we'll be holding it at The Cube in The Forum between 12:00-17:00 on Saturday 25th August 2012

I'll update the top post, twitter and website with all the details later tomorrow.

I've just posted this on the UEA Computing Sciences Facebook group. A Hand full of us own RPi's.
Please post here if the date changes so i can forwards it on.
Hopefully they'll join this forum anyway and see this

[extravagoose]

I've just posted this on the UEA Computing Sciences Facebook group. A Hand full of us own RPi's.
Please post here if the date changes so i can forwards it on.
Hopefully they'll join this forum anyway and see this

Hmm, which group is this? I'm about to go into 3rd year...

[spamurai]

I've just posted this on the UEA Computing Sciences Facebook group. A Hand full of us own RPi's.
Please post here if the date changes so i can forwards it on.
Hopefully they'll join this forum anyway and see this

Hmm, which group is this? I'm about to go into 3rd year...

I've just finished my first year, about to go into the second.
The Facebook group is a closed group called "Computing Science 11/12"

I think there are a couple of groups with a mixture of people from different years kicking around too.

[extravagoose]

I've just posted this on the UEA Computing Sciences Facebook group. A Hand full of us own RPi's.
Please post here if the date changes so i can forwards it on.
Hopefully they'll join this forum anyway and see this

Hmm, which group is this? I'm about to go into 3rd year...

I've just finished my first year, about to go into the second.
The Facebook group is a closed group called "Computing Science 11/12"

I think there are a couple of groups with a mixture of people from different years kicking around too.

Ahh of course... makes sense...

How many folks in your group are Pi users? We've at least 4 in ours...

[gadgetoid]

I'm trying to find a venue, sponsorship and help to create a permenant Norwich hacker-space. I'm not aware of one that exists, and judging by the venue choice for NorwichRPI I'm going to go ahead and guess that one doesn't?

Presumably the UEA would have the sort of facilities we desire, but it's not like you can waltz in there and do what you like.

I'd like to find a permanent home, centrally located, with parking for electronics workstations, with good isolated power supplies for soldering/tinkering, desks for programming/other things and, if we can possibly help it, a laser cutter and 3d printer for building project cases, mounting plates and whatnot.

I don't think any lathes, milling machines, or other big scary CAD/CAM machines would be on the cards though, as much as I'd love them!

This sort of venue would be the perfect place for a local Raspberry Pi user group! And would perhaps offer us benefits such as the ability to bulk-buy and stockpile components at a saving and hopefully get some sponsorship out of the growing interest in re-kindling electronics/computer education.

Looking on http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces ... Norwich is an abyss

[gadgetoid]

Looks like I spoke too soon. The gears are turning for a hackerspace in Norwich, and all interested parties should check out Makerspacenorwich.com and get in touch via the unofficial but growing google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgr ... -hackspace

[stevepdp]

Hi all.

We're now able to confirm a date and venue. Saturday 25th August, 12:00-17:00 at House Cafe on St. Benedicts Street.

I've updated the top post, and the website has also been overhauled a bit as it now runs on Wordpress.

For more details about the first meetup, see the meetings page here.

Many thanks for all your support so far, and I hope to see you there!

[stevepdp]

Now comes the really hard work: marketing

We have this forum entry, the website and the Twitter feed, and I'm going to be mailing each of the lists I'm aware of such as ALUG and Make Norwich shortly.

If you can help in getting the word out in any way, please do so! Particularly if you have hooks into the UEA and City College.

[nevilley]

Well, I've bookmarked this meeting in my calendar. Unfortunately it clashes with my regular monthly mensa meet so I'll not get there until sometime after 2.

I'll probably have to bring the geekette with me but can not bring my Pi as it's running 3 websites 24/7.

Nev (yes that one)

[extravagoose]

I will see if I can make this, I do have a lot going over the next several weeks

[stevepdp]

I'll be trying my best to capture photos, video and audio throughout the day to aid those who can't attend. The feed to follow will be the Twitter account and the #norwichrpi hash tag. We'll have a blog up sometime soon to document the events too.