Winston Salem Project Night! Autonomous vehicles (#uav), #PyData August 17th

Do you have a project you want to show off? Or do you need a second set of eyes on your code? Would you like to hack on an open source project? Perhaps you need help getting a module on a specific platform? Don't have a project but would like to help others or to learn more Python?
Whatever the case may be, project nights are your opportunity to get some help or to help others, so bring your laptop (or Raspberry Pi or whatever device that can run Python) and let's get things going.

We need some help with some work on the Quadcopter. In particular, how to send and receive Smart Bus (FrSky) data from a Raspberry Pi, hardware level conversion etc. Computer vision work needed too. And some of us will also be working on our PyData Carolinas presentations.

When

This meeting will be on Wednesday, August 17th at 6pm in the Dash room at Inmar:

Where

Inmar

635 Vine St,
Room 1130H "Dash"
Winston-Salem, NC

RSVP

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/232966709/

UAVs and perception at Winston Salem Project Night - November 18

UAVs, ultrasounds

We are continuing the UAV project, still quite a bit of work to do!

If your interest doesn't lie in UAVs:

Do you have a project you want to show off? Or do you need a second set of eyes on your code? Would you like to hack on an open source project? Perhaps you need help getting a module on a specific platform? Don't have a project but would like to help others or to learn more Python?
Whatever the case may be, project nights are your opportunity to get some help or to help others, so bring your laptop (or Raspberry Pi or whatever device that can run Python) and let's get things going

As always, plenty of projects to work on, mentoring available and interesting conversations. 

When

This meeting will be on Wednesday, November 18 at 6pm in the Dash room at Inmar:

Where

Inmar

635 Vine St,
Room 1130H "Dash"
Winston-Salem, NC

RSVP

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/226489994/

UAVs and sensors at Winston Salem Project Night - October 21st

UAVs, Raspberry Pi Sense Hat

We are continuing this project. Progress has been a little slow, but we are hoping to pick this up again this coming Wednesday.

If your interest doesn't lie in UAVs:

Do you have a project you want to show off? Or do you need a second set of eyes on your code? Would you like to hack on an open source project? Perhaps you need help getting a module on a specific platform? Don't have a project but would like to help others or to learn more Python?
Whatever the case may be, project nights are your opportunity to get some help or to help others, so bring your laptop (or Raspberry Pi or whatever device that can run Python) and let's get things going

As always, plenty of projects to work on, mentoring available and interesting conversations. 

When

This meeting will be on Wednesday, October 21 at 6pm in the Dash room at Inmar:

Where

Inmar

635 Vine St,
Room 1130H "Dash"
Winston-Salem, NC

RSVP

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/222999414/

Coming to our senses for Project Night Winston Salem - Sept 16th

Raspberry Pi Sense Hat, that is.

Continuing the UAV quadcopter project. We have an assembled frame, one frame ready to be assembled, we have micro sd cards ready to be flashed with different distros (we need to choose). 

I also have a Raspberry Pi Sense Hat on hand! (see:https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/the-sense-hat-headgear-for-the-terminally-curious/) It is an amazing piece of tech, available for only $30 and it includes a gyro, compass, accelerometer, air pressure sensor, humidity and temperature and even a tiny joystick and 8x8 RGD led matrix. But wait, there is more, if you call in the next 5 minutes... :)

Seriously, there is more, an atmel microcontroller (an arduino basically) that is wired through i2c. And that can be reprogrammed on the fly from the raspberry pi... Which is basically the architecture we wanted to design for controlling the UAV!

If your interest doesn't lie in UAVs:

Do you have a project you want to show off? Or do you need a second set of eyes on your code? Would you like to hack on an open source project? Perhaps you need help getting a module on a specific platform? Don't have a project but would like to help others or to learn more Python?
Whatever the case may be, project nights are your opportunity to get some help or to help others, so bring your laptop (or Raspberry Pi or whatever device that can run Python) and let's get things going

As always, plenty of projects to work on, mentoring available and interesting conversations. 

When

This meeting will be on Wednesday, September 16 at 6pm in the Dash room at Inmar:

Where

Inmar

635 Vine St,
Room 1130H "Dash"
Winston-Salem, NC

RSVP

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/224796370/

Drones at Winston Salem Project Night August 19

Flight

Some months ago, we gave PYPTUG members the choice: Flight or Invisibility. Which superpower would you choose?

Well, it was really more of a choice between a high altitude balloon flight in near space and a stealth drone. Of course the HAB won, and the rest is history as they say as #NSC01 became the first HAB flight to include a computing cluster of Raspberry Pi. (Imagine a beowulf cluster of... nevermind)

We will continue to provide assistance to students and schools in the area interested in launching experiments into near space, and we will be discussing this at this meeting. Stay tuned for more details.

Invisibility

So, we've already been discussing some details of the type of things we want to do with drones, and stealth (invisibility) is not at the top, actually.

We are starting our official DRONE project on the 19th. Collision avoidance is one aspect that is gaining a lot of momentum with the group, but there is more to it. We invite anyone interested in T copters, quadcopters, drones, UAVs, logistics, regulations, machine learning, computer vision, GIS etc. And If you have hardware you think might be useful, do bring it.

As always, plenty of projects to work on, mentoring available and interesting conversations. 

When

This meeting will be on Wednesday, August 19 at 6pm in the Dash room at Inmar:

Where

Inmar

635 Vine St,
Room 1130H "Dash"
Winston-Salem, NC

RSVP

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/222899737/

PYPTUG Meeting: Project Night July 15

As always, plenty of projects to work on, mentoring available and interesting conversations. Come and join us. I think I've overheard people talking about stealth drone something something computer vision something something big data something...

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/221997402/

This meeting will be on Wednesday, July 15 at 6pm in the Dash room at Inmar:

Inmar

635 Vine St,
Room 1130H "Dash"
Winston-Salem, NC

This will be at the Inmar building in downtown Winston Salem.­

Why launch a balloon into near space

A Python user group and space?

If you've just stumbled on the PYPTUG website because you've heard of the imminent launch (April 21st) of Team Near Space Circus' NSC01 HAB (high altitude balloon) satellite, you'll want to read this background information as to why we decided to build one and to participate in the Global Space Balloon Challenge.

Rocket Man and the Near Space Circus

Our flight is an homage to some of the original NASA Balloon flights of 1969 described in the following 1971 NASA PDF document:

Earth Photography from High-Altitude Balloons


Finally, you'll want to marvel at how a hundred year old technology is as relevant today for near space exploration, as it was for photography back then (from http://www.3dfuturetech.info ):

Vintage Kite Aerial Photography Postcard

Learn from the past - 103 years old technology in space