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Weekly Content Journal: 2nd Week of October (Late Edition)!

tariq.ahmad

Greetings Best Community Members in the Galaxy!

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Apologies for not getting this up sooner.  I thought I would quickly post a quick run down of all the activities going on currently in the areas that I am on.  I've been really behind on things,  and didn't want to do a rush job.  The reason we started doing this journal was to organize all the activities that go on with our monthly project competition Project14 ,  Webinars, Training and Events , Arduino , and of course element14 presents.  As you know there is more to the community than just those programs.

 

Having been transitioned to managing the Webinars, Training and Events I've really been given a great appreciation for everything that goes on there and the work that my teammates put into these things because they don't just happen.  I'm talking about things like RoadTests & Reviews ,  Design Challenges , BeagleBoard ,  Raspberry Pi ,  micro:bit , Essentials , and Tech Connection .  For example,  just launched a new poll called Poll: How Can I Get You More Active In The RoadTest Program?  in support of the Roadtest program which you should take and give advice that he can pass on to help shape the Roadtests.  Everyone works really hard here to bring you content that resonates with you guys.  So we hope to provide you as many vehicles as possible for dialogue and discussion on what you would like to see us do.  Whenever there is an opportunity for cross-collaboration with the other program managers we can do some really exciting and big things.

 

The year is drawing to an end.  There no way to look into a crystal ball and see where it will take us.  As I look back at the past year, and forward to the path ahead there is reason for optimism and some concern, such is life, but I know that whatever form these programs take we'll get by because of we've got such a great community of members.  These weekly updates are also a way for you to give feedback when something is not working or you have ideas on how you would shape the many things going on.  Of all the things that I work on Project14 and now Webinars, Training and Events take the biggest chunk of time but I've been challenged to get more activity in the Arduino space for this coming year.  If any of you have any ideas of things you would like done in Arduino let me know.  Project14 always produces a lot of great Arduino projects, there's a lot of exciting possibilities with Arduino and Arduino compatible boards in webinars, but maybe we could have a few more Arduino specific challenges in the Arduino space?  This year the big things that we did with Arduino were IoT:In the Cloud on Arduino Day, MKR Vidor giveaway we did with Programmable Logic,  and we saw some really great Arduino projects come out of Remote Monitoring & Control.  As the end of the year creeps closer will be doing  a lot of thinking about what Arduino specific activities we could do next year and would be grateful for any advice from any of the members.

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Also, want to do what I can to refresh and shake up the Project14 program as I want to make sure there is no fatigue with the program.  I have taken the first steps by uploading a Giphy videos to honor and commemorate all the winning projects from our past competitions:

 

In webinars,  I created some webinar archives to make it easier to access Webinar Recordings of past webinars On Webex and a complete On-Demand library of webinars that we've done on On24:

 

Animatronics and Halloween Cross Promotion!

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As, Halloween creeps closer that means its time for to launch his annual Halloween - Projects and Videos .  Over on Project14 we recently launched Animatronics so there's natural overlap which means there is some exciting opportunity for collaboration.  The first time I got to work closely with Phil was during the Arduino webinar series, he's also a member of the element14 presents team with me, and as our resident maker along with they are indispensable members of the team.  So I asked Phil what he thought about cross promoting the Halloween - Projects and Videos with what we've got going on in Project14 with Animatronics and he thought it was a great idea.  Unfortunately,  the designer is on vacation so we'll need to wait for her to come back to figure out the best way to do that.  A theme like Animatronics is very interesting to me personally,  so like every theme we've run since the program began,  we just hope and pray that we do it justice and it gets the attention it deserves on the community:

 

The two example projects this month come from ,  who also came up with the Animatronics  theme, and both projects were posted in the Halloween - Projects and Videos:

 

Over on element14 presents there have been some really awesome projects from Ben Heck and which you can use as inspiration for your Animatronics project:image

 

Energy Harvesting Judging Begins!

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Volunteering for the Energy Harvesting has begun.  Last week,  I took a day off to celebrate my birthday and as I left I was worried we didn't do this contest the justice it deserved.  So upon coming, t was a pleasure to see a flurry as we hit the finish line.  I could think of no better birthday present than seeing these projects and that the competition had worked.  I know a lot of you are doing Azure Sphere projects at the moment so it meant a lot to see these projects come through.  Also,  this round I would like to welcome and as volunteer judges for this round of voting.  They are joined by , , , and who have graciously volunteered their time to help decide the winners of the competition.   You can view all the projects that were submitted in support of the Energy Harvesting competition here:

 

Congratulations to the new the Decider Badge winners from the man who coined the term:

 

 

All Beaglebone AI Boards Claimed for Vision Thing Projects!

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We have gone through all the comments and all the Beaglebone AI Boards that were provided to us as marketing samples have been claimed.  If you received a board the expectation is that you will complete or at least attempt a project in Vision Thing by November 18th.   Because the competition is so short we were sending out boards almost as soon as they were available so people could begin posting content.

 

If you were not chosen then I do invite you to purchase a Beaglebone AIBeaglebone AI and complete your vision thing project with it or with whatever board you want.  This was a bold experiment as we've never launched a new product launch at the same time as a Project14.   Decisions on who to send these boards took past community activity along with likelihood of completing a project before competition closes.  Obviously,  some tough decisions were made as there were a lot of great discussion in both the theme doc and the original announcement:

 

Even a discussion on heating issues generated a robust discussion:

This was a successful collaboration with who runs the BeagleBoard program on the community.  In the interest of space we will save the round up of all the activity related to the launch of Beaglebone AI and the Vision Thing Competition till next week.  

 

Antenna Sample Kits for the Upcoming RF (Radio Frequency) Competition!

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The final regular monthly theme for this year will be a RF (Radio Frequency) competition and its based on the results of the November 18' Poll:

 

You may recall we did a webinar with Molex where we gave out free antenna samples kits.  Each kit included Bluetooth / Wi-Fi Antennas; GNSS Antennas; Near Field Communication (NFC) Antennas; Cellular Antennas; Ultra Wide Band (UWB) Antennas, Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) Antennas, and Combo Antennas (Wi-Fi, GPS, ISM, Cellular).   You can view an On Demand recording of the RF Webinar with Molex here:


You can read an FAQ on RF that was taken from the questions raised during the webinar, read RoadTests & Reviews that used Molex antennas, see projects from past Project14 and Arduino  competitions here:

 

We will be giving away more antenna kits away in support of this competition, we're trying to get more that we can use, and will be working on an RF quiz.    We are currently discussing how we can tie in all these separate initiatives in support of each other.   If you previously won an antenna kit feel free to use it as part of your RF (Radio Frequency) project for Project14.   (Looking at you:  , ,  , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and !  image)

 

In December:  We Interrupt Your Usual Programming to Bring You The Holiday Special!

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Every year at the end of the year we have an annual Holiday Special on Project14. You can view past projects in the The Holiday Special and Merry Boxes & LEDs .   Last year we also ran a monthly theme A Question of Scale in December on top of the Holiday Special.   This year we have scaled things back and will not be launching a regular monthly theme in addition to The Holiday Special.   I know many of you have been hard at work with projects for Sensing the World Challenge and the Think ON Design Challenge so there is no shortage of things to do on the community.   Its been a long year so its kind of a relief to get a break from launching monthly themes which we haven't had for a long while.  For the theme poll for December 19' we are asking us to help finalize the theme for us in:

 

After seeing some early results I made a few changes.   Although its non-binding (we need to get preparations underway asap) we've already made a few changes based on early voting so stay tuned.

 

Webinar Update:  Welcome Back MATRIX Labs!

 

The first webinar I hosted was with MATRIX Labs in support of the Home Automation competition that was happening on Project14.  You can check out an On Demand recording of this event here:

 

During this event they were special guest and got to view show & tells by community presenters ,  , and .    This was followed shortly afterwards with show & tells / discussion with community presenters , , , , , and in support of the Month of Robots competition which you can view an on demand recording of here: 

 

recently reached out to me about doing another event on the community and we decided to do a webinar where she and would be presenters.   I have also invited to come back as a special guest to show off the Spider-Man:  Into the Maker-Verse that he and worked on as it used AI.   It will also loosely be associated with the Vision Thing competition we are currently running.   We didn't have a lot of sign ups so we moved the date to October 30th and could really use your help in making sure there are plenty of people at this exciting event:

 

Webinar Update: Thingy:91 Giveaway and Webinar!

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Nordic Semiconductor is one of our newest suppliers and they have a cellular prototyping platform called Thingy:91.   This was moved to November 6th so that we could allow more people to sign up and ask their questions.   As a bonus we are running a giveaway of the Thingy:91 for asking good questions during the Q&A session following the presentation.  Sign up here for your chance to win:

 

This webinar is open to people from all regions and you are encouraged to attend and ask questions.

 

Unfortunately, due to Export Licensing Restrictions the Giveaway Contest is Limited to residents of the EU, US, CA, AU & NZ.

 

Attendees have a chance to win one of five Nordic Thingy:91s for asking interesting questions about the Nordic Thingy:91, a multi-sensor prototyping platform aimed at cellular applications. The Thingy:91 is based on the nRF9160 System-in-Package (SiP), with LTE-M, NB-IoT, and GPS connectivity.  It is ideal for creating proof-of-concept (PoC) projects, demos, and initial prototypes in the cellular IoT development phase. 

 

Iron Man Helmet by Donnie Darko and Kaleb Clark Debuts on element14 presents

 

recently created a really cool Episode 415: Iron Man Helmet Heads Up Display on element14 presents and this week we welcomed who built a practical Episode 416 - DIY #3DPrinted Label Spooler that he made for his wife.   Also,  recently went over what a Workbench Wednesday 15: Instrument Basics: Spectrum Analyzer does on WorkBench Wednesdays and did a microwave teardown on The EIectronics Inside 09: Microwave Teardown in The Electronics Inside .

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That's all for this week.

 

So long for just a while

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