[dorkbotsea-blabber] Some kind of club for Bates Technical College

[Steve Greenfield]

OK, I want to borrow your brains. I'm posting this on a few lists, while it isn't strictly on topic, there is some cross-over and I know there are a lot of creative people here. That's right, flatter them while asking for a favor. ;')

Some of you know me, many don't. I've been an electronics tech for many years and I'm back in school at Bates Technical College, looking to get a 2 year degree as an Electronics Engineering Technician. Not quite an electronic engineer. Part of what will go on my resume about school, and affect my final evaluation, is any clubs I've been in and what I've done in them.

Someone started an Engineer's club but quickly wienered out on it. Their ideas were rather grandiose and overreaching, I felt. Many of them involving entirely untried and unproven over-unity devices or schemes involving pumping water to the roof and using the stored energy to charge a battery that would power a pump to pump water to the roof... :'/  Several people said I should have run for president of the club, but the previous president and officers ran so quickly from responsibility that there was never a second meeting despite my pestering.

I talked to the schools club liaison, and was told there is no point doing anything during summer quarter, lots of people either take the summer off or aren't interested in doing anything after school. So I have until the beginning of September to come up with my ideas.

So I'm thinking of starting a club at Bates. It would have meetings probably at lunch to start with, and I'm thinking one day every 2 weeks a meeting right after 3pm once we get going, maybe as often as once a week if necessary.

I need it to be something within my field but broad enough to include others in the other classes and something they will find appealing. A club about building things. Things that make us go.

I need a name for the club, too.

Hm... I wonder if I should just use something similar to the Northwest Propmasters idea, futuristic but with an eye to prototypes of real devices. Which aren't that far from sci fi right now. 

It could cover a very wide range. Gadgets with blinky lights that look good (er, I mean prototypes of PDAs and cell phones and test equipment), interactive consoles, bits of set design, redesigning of real devices, and that sort of thing. Too bad there isn't an upholstery class at Bates any longer, many of the cool command chairs in sci fi are just reupholstered car seats.

I have to figure out what my target membership is. I'm one of very few electronic engineering technician students there,  there is only one other who's ahead of me in classtime and in AutoCAD, but behind me in workable electronics knowledge. There are students in electrical engineering technician, mechanical engineering, architectural engineering, industrial electronics technician, and various computer disciplines.

This could encompass electronic, electrical, architectural, and mechanical fields in design, AutoCAD, construction, and troubleshooting. Computer controlled milling machine. Ergonomics and basic usability. Esthetic design. Computer/microcontr oller programming. Data communication standards including wireless and RFID. Imagine an automatic sliding door that reads an RFID chip on a security badge and only opens for the correct security level, and sounds an alarm if the wrong security level or someone not wearing one tries to slip in with someone who has the correct security clearance. Or a prototype for a piece of test equipment that has a color screen with a host of sensors including an infrared camera, humidity sensors, etc.  Or perhaps it has an oscilloscope with microphone and probes, digital voltmeter, FFT (frequency display), and various audio test signals it can output. Tricorder, any one?

I do need to stay modest in the projects, based on how many people join and stay. I think each project would need to have a reasonable chance of completion in one, two quarters at the most. A proof of concept prototype might have all the "fixtures" in place but not be 100% functional but it is still a succesfull project. I'm not too hot in robots as a project for a variety of reasons.

I'm thinking I'd have to set up some kind of online area (maybe a Yahoogroup? I do also have the ability to set up a forum on my website, password protected) as a central point to store and disseminate project information. I -don't- want to end up with someone dropping out of the club without leaving us with the work they've done so far. Because that will happen, I guarantee.

I don't want to say "prop" in the name. Sounds too frivolous. "Prototype" is good but is it too engineery? Don't want to scare off the non-engineers, we'll need them for this! 

Ideas? "POP!" has been suggested, short for "Perfecting Operational Prototypes" or "Perfectly Operating Prototypes".

Most Bates clubs seem to fall apart after a few quarters (or a month) when the originators get too busy or lose interest or figure out they'll have to put some effort in. A few have been around for a while because they stay interesting or the members have a drive to gather and take part, such as the music club. I'm sure having a clear successor lined up helps some of the clubs. The computer club seems to be one that formed based on the ambition of the club officers to have something nice on their resume and get Bates to pay for a few pizzas, and nothing more. It only had a few meetings and they didn't bother telling anyone outside the computer class about meetings or the one field trip.

I don't want this one to make those mistakes. I want something nice on my resume, but I want it to be AutoCAD blueprints and photos and write-ups of actual objects we've built. Not just the fluff of saying "club officer" on the resume.

Steve