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/

PYPTUG Meeting - October 27th (Data Analysis with Python, dealing with unicode)

PYthon Piedmont Triad User Group meeting

Come join PYPTUG at out next monthly meeting (October 27th 2015) to learn more about the Python programming language, modules and tools. Python is the perfect language to learn if you've never programmed before, and at the other end, it is also the perfect tool that no expert would do without. Monthly meetings are in addition to our project nights.

What

Meeting will start at 6:00pm. PLEASE NOTE, 6PM!

We will open on an Intro to PYPTUG and on how to get started with Python, PYPTUG activities and members projects, then on to News from the community (devopsdays, datascience lunch and learn, etc).

Then on to the main talk.

Main Talk: 

Data Analysis with Python: Financial Analysis with Pandas

by Melodie Moorefield-Wilson

Bio:

Melodie Moorefield-Wilson is a Business Analyst at a financial software start-up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She got her start trading options for a financial newsletter, where she discovered the power of Python to improve her analysis.

Abstract:

Learn how Python's Pandas data analysis library can be used immediately to dramatically speed up your data analysis efforts with just a few lines of code. 

Lightning talks! 

We will have some time for extemporaneous "lightning talks" of 5-10 minute duration. If you'd like to do one, some suggestions of talks were provided here, if you are looking for inspiration. Or talk about a project you are working on.

We will have a lightning talk on handling unicode (somewhat) transparently.

When

Tuesday, October 27th 2015
Meeting starts at 6:00PM

Where

Wake Forest University, close to Polo Rd and University Parkway:

Manchester Hall
room: Manchester 241 

Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109

 Map this

See also this campus map (PDF) and also the Parking Map (PDF) (Manchester hall is #20A on the parking map)

And speaking of parking:  Parking after 5pm is on a first-come, first-serve basis.  The official parking policy is:

"Visitors can park in any general parking lot on campus. Visitors should avoid reserved spaces, faculty/staff lots, fire lanes or other restricted area on campus. Frequent visitors should contact Parking and Transportation to register for a parking permit."

Mailing List

Don't forget to sign up to our user group mailing list:

https://groups.google.com/d/forum/pyptug?hl=en

It is the only step required to become a PYPTUG member.

Meetup Group

In order to get a feel for how much food we'll need, we ask that you register your attendance to this meeting on meetup:

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/225444507/

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/

PYPTUG Meeting - August 25th (Basic data types, security, UAV)

PYthon Piedmont Triad User Group meeting

Come join PYPTUG at out next monthly meeting (August 25th 2015) to learn more about the Python programming language, modules and tools. Python is the perfect language to learn if you've never programmed before, and at the other end, it is also the perfect tool that no expert would do without. Monthly meetings are in addition to our project nights.

What

Meeting will start at 5:30pm.

We will open on an Intro to PYPTUG and on how to get started with Python, PYPTUG activities and members projects, then on to News from the community.

Then on to the main talk.

Main Talk: Python Basic Data Types

Bio:

David Handy is a software developer with over 15 years Python experience. He works in Inmar's Digital Promotions Network, developing web services and platform APIs. Previous experience includes supercomputers, enterprise web applications, telecom systems, and VLSI design. He has taught several programming seminars for beginners and wrote an introductory programming guide titled "Computer Programming is Fun!". He is a homeschooling dad and volunteer science instructor. In his spare time he tries to get some sleep.

Abstract:

A tour of Python's built-in data types, plus explanation of mutable vs. immutable data types, mapping vs. sequences, and more. Also basic program structure: modules and packages, and where to put your code. Suited for beginning and intermediate Python programmers.

Lightning talks! 

We will have some time for extemporaneous "lightning talks" of 5-10 minute duration. If you'd like to do one, some suggestions of talks were provided here, if you are looking for inspiration. Or talk about a project you are working on.

We might have a security lightning talk or something, cant really get into details.

When

Tuesday, August 25th 2015
Meeting starts at 5:30PM

Where

Wake Forest University,

close to Polo Rd and University Parkway:

Manchester Hall
room: Manchester 241 

Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109

 Map this

See also this campus map (PDF) and also the Parking Map (PDF) (Manchester hall is #20A on the parking map)

And speaking of parking:  Parking after 5pm is on a first-come, first-serve basis.  The official parking policy is:

"Visitors can park in any general parking lot on campus. Visitors should avoid reserved spaces, faculty/staff lots, fire lanes or other restricted area on campus. Frequent visitors should contact Parking and Transportation to register for a parking permit."

Mailing List

Don't forget to sign up to our user group mailing list:

https://groups.google.com/d/forum/pyptug?hl=en

It is the only step required to become a PYPTUG member.

Meetup Group

In order to get a feel for how much food we'll need, we ask that you register your attendance to this meeting on meetup:

http://www.meetup.com/PYthon-Piedmont-Triad-User-Group-PYPTUG/events/224289814/

UAV Project

We will conclude this meeting with some work on the quadcopter UAV Project and the basic airframe will be reviewed. Paper instructions are ok, but it's easier to understand how to build this, in person (in case anybody is interested in starting their own UAV build).

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.­