Jigsaw Space Manager, Tim Clemans, has started a new GitHub project called Influence API to develop web services enabling developers to integrate optimized communications features in their apps.

Fork the repository on GitHub here, and email Tim if you’d like to join the project.

The Seattle Arduino Meetup met up at Jigsaw last night, bringing in lots of people. Not a lot of SCRoW activity, as everyone wanted to hear Bob Harris’s presentation on the internals of the Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

Following the talk, something odd happened. For some reason, Monica decided to lick a 9V battery. I don’t understand it, but I did manage to snap a photo:

Those nutty Arduino folks!

On the less-nutty end of the Arduino fan spectrum was Rame Chitturi.  Rame was fascinated by Team Elcano’s autonomous vehicle and told of his career in industrial automation.  Rame’s career path started as a child watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and was hooked.

Lastly, here’s Monica again chatting with a fellow Arduino fan after the night’s presentations were complete:

What a fantastic event!

First meeting of the 2013 Jigsaw Board of Directors, with several other members participating

Please help me welcome your 2013 Staff Volunteers:

Benevolent Dictator / President: Tom McDonald
Master of Coins / Treasurer: Michael Park
Aspiration Manager / Membership Director: Budi Mulyo
Nerds Wrangler / Development Director: Monica Houston
Guild Master / Space Manager: Tim Clemans
Tools Master / Tools Room Manager: Alan Krum
Feng Shui Master / Raspberry Pi and flute maker: Steven Devine
Resident Wiz Kid / Network Administrator: Pat Tressel

We are a learning and making community with around 250 of interesting creative active members and supporters. Part of the benefit of having this vibrant community is that we have a safe, fun, and engaging place for diverse people to make things around and with others. We are a safe space to fail and to succeed, and we empower people to make anything they want.

But I don’t need to tell you that. That’s why you are here isn’t it?

We have a handful of generous, dedicated volunteer staff who are committed to keep that vision alive. We need way more! Those who have not yet committed PLEASE, PLEASE step up and email staff@JigsawRenaissance.org. To get momentum, we need as much participation as possible.

What a find Jigsaw member Steve made recently!  Seizing the opportunity to save some stuff from the dumpster while an Inscape Building neighbour was moving out, Steve found a number of gems that will enhance Jigsaw.  One of which is this piece of AV furniture which is sturdy with nice castors:

If only we had a picture of this unit when Steve first showed it to me.  It was covered in paint and plaster, and looked very shabby.  With more than a little elbow grease and imagination, Steve remade this piece.

Thank you, Steve!

On Thursdays, Ned comes in and either tears something down (for educational purposes) or fixes something up. I’m not sure what tonight’s activity counts as. He brought in a Big Mouth Billy Bass, and he and Rehana have been hacking into it, taking control of its servos. In the picture, you can see them causing the fish to flop about. Unfortunately, you can’t see them rubbing their hands together and cackling with maniacal glee, but they are. They are.

UPDATE:
Here’s the project page: http://mbed.org/users/bikeNomad/code/billy_bass/

Pictured above is Akisa from Germany (his hackerspace: RaumZeitLabor). He’s traveling down the coast doing a tour of hackerspaces. Jigsaw was his first stop. Here he’s talking to Meredith, Tom, and Budi.
There was quite a bit of activity during SCRoW last night, like actual soldering, coding, and robotics! Team Elcano was hard at work, as always. I’ve been trying to learn some Raspberry Pi stuff, and Danny helped by installing CherryPy, turning the Pi into a webserver(!) Meanwhile, Mike and Ed were in the other room working on something cool, I’m sure (I didn’t get a chance to see, unfortunately). We’re glad to have 3-D printer guy Scott back in the saddle, and last night he was doing his 3-D printing thing.
Hey, if you have any interest or experience with the Raspberry Pi, come to the next SCRoW; I want to talk to you. Also, if you’re interested in op-amps, Danny plans to do a tutorial on them next SCRoW.

Jigsaw’s resident autonomous vehicle expert, Tyler Folsom, nears completion of the build phase of his Elcano vehicle for the Elcano Autonomous Vehicle Project.

Team Elcano is a sponsor of the Transportation Research Board‘s conference on challenges and opportunities for vehicle automation—one of the world’s biggest vehicle automation conferences.   Hosted by transportation research board of the national academy this is a smaller sibling event to the TRB’s general conference which annually attracts 5000 people.  Three members of the team will attend and demonstrate the Elcano autonomous vehicle.

In other news for Tyler is a talk he will be giving on May 30th via video feed to a meetup gathering in Somerset, NJ who’s members are forming a self-driving vehicle group.  Feel free to check it out: http://www.meetup.com/Self-Driving-Vehicle/events/116598222/

Lastly, we caught some of the team in a moment of celebration:

Zombie Orpheus Entertainment—prolific film company and Jigsaw coworking space member—is running a fantastic Kickstarter campaign.

ZOE has engaged with a partner in Ontario, Canada, to film onsite two web miniseries projects set in the world of their existing film series “The Gamers”.  With work already happening on the new Gamers and Journey Quest series (in addition to other projects) the ZOE team has found a way to squeeze in another project.

The Kickstarter campaign exceeded its original goal within the first three minutes and is now on track to reach all seven of their stretch goals.  Check out ZOE’s Kickstarter video featuring chief executive Ben Dobyns breaking down the project:

Nice job ZOE!  We can’t wait to see the completed projects, and watch out for the oubliette…

New member Steve set a goal to make a new flute from Pacific-Northwest-grown bamboo, and recently set out on a hunt for the perfect pipe.

Here we see Steve after returning from a successful hunt and testing a first tone on a currently one-holed chi flute.  Work from here includes determining proper position for remaining holes and drying.

We look forward to reporting on the finished project, Steve.  Looks (and sounds) great so far!

Jigsaw’s own Tim Clemans hosted the King County Sheriff’s Office last night to demonstrate robots used by the Bomb Squad and SWAT teams.  Wow, what a great demonstration and crowd on hand for the festivities.

The main robot on display here is made by iRobot, of Roomba fame.  The model seen here was used extensively in Iraq and has proven itself in the field.  The unit demonstrated for us will be capable of some degree of autonomous operation with it’s next firmware upgrade.

In all, the Sheriff’s office was very generous in making time for Jigsaw, and we welcome them back any time!

Here, our demonstration robot practices a couple of highly articulated movements:

Time for a closer inspection.  Can those servos be upgraded?

A great time was had by all:

Here’s the full video of the event: