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TECH COLLECTIVE, I’VE COME TO BARGAIN!

Last month, in a stroke of cunning or perhaps desperation to come up with new events, our astute board members Jeff Schulthies and Jak Silver invited everyone in GWTC to see the (relatively) new Doctor Strange movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch as everyone’s favorite spellcaster. As someone who barely knew anything about the hero Doctor Strange, his origin story, or who/what his arch-nemesis was, I was pleasantly surprised at the euphoric joyride that Marvel Studios has, once again, managed to produce. And by “euphoric joyride,” I mean tripping more balls than I did while watching Inception. Seriously, the visual effects alone make this movie well worth seeing, especially in 3D.

Oh, and the Chinese food we all had before we went to see the movie was great, too. Considering how early we went (we arrived at the movie theater around 2 hours before the movie was going to start), stopping for dinner at Chinatown Express was a pretty good idea. Arriving early also worked out quite well for us, since we managed to get the best seats in the theater and avoid having our eardrums explode from sitting at the front of the theater (as some of us have no doubt experienced). Regardless, Doctor Strange was a blast, and everybody could chalk up this Techies on the Town as a success.

Once again, members of GW Tech Collective set out on our annual adventure to the World Maker Faire in New York City.  This year marked the 6th trip GWTC has made to NY for the Faire, only having missed the very first one back in 2010.

Here are some of the highlights of the trip.

Indoor Booths

(Giant 3-D Printer)

Indoor LED and lighting focused area. 

(This is a hologram display using a volumetric display. The above gif shows a flower being flicked by someone's hand. Project's website )

Early Products

(Visual Effects Paint. The masks above were 3-D painted then coated with a latex.)

(A message in a bottle! The creator designed the circuits to go into the bottle and created his own tools to solder them together inside.)

Outdoor Booths

(Microsoft Hololens. The Smithsonian unveils some demos of interactive exhibits.)

(Homemade Arcade machine)

Drone Racing!

(Drone racing has become more popular as a sport in recent years. This year drone pilots use VR headsets to fly the drone in first person.)

(Techies with Grant Imahara from the television show Mythbusters. He spoke about the making culture and how making women and men are both equally involved in making.)

 

Outdoor Activities Area

(A giant wheel machine.)

(Interactive steamboat)

Techies on the Town (KBBQ Edition)

Buffalo Wild Wings

After gaining some web development experience getting the GW Tech Collective website up and running on OrgSync, Mark and I decided we would tag team a workshop to pass on some of the knowledge we obtained and insights we had about how to get started. I handled more of the frontend explaining HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap, while Mark explained the backend tools he used like Flask, Python, and SQLite. The entire workshop centered around a small website we built called DankTank, which basically delivers the user memes that the user can vote as being "dank" or "dusty." We had a great turnout for the workshop, seeing many new faces, and while neither of us are self-proclaimed web dev experts, we were able to give others some idea of where to get started. I think the most important part of the workshop may have simply been to show others that jumping in is not impossible as long as you are smart about the resources available and build piece by piece. 

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Board Member

The full livestream of the workshop can be found below. If you have ever wondered how the internet delivers dank memes to your computer, look no further. This workshop will take you through the basics of creating a website with dynamic content.

Workshop Goals:
1) Discuss the components that comprise a website
2) Briefly cover how websites are delivered
3) Build/modify a small but entertaining website using what has been learned
4) Have some fun with technology

Here are some buzzwords: HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, Python, Flask, SQLite

Trying to be even more active during E-Week, for the first time ever, GWTC actually held two events. Our second event was a Maker Movie Double Feature including the documentaries Design & Thinking and Maker: A Documentary on the Maker Movement. Both movies really showed the background and expansion of the Maker Movement from the mindset it developed out of to the grassroots organizing that led to things like makerspaces and Maker Faire. It was the first time I had seen either documentary, and I think it really worked playing them back to back to see how the first really led into the second. This was really a great way to close out E-Week and get everyone excited moving into the rest of the semester. 

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Board Member

Our 555 Time Mini Synth Workshop was something we had been thinking about doing for quite a while, but really wanted to do the right way. Knowing this would be one of the last GW Tech Collective workshops that Mark and I would run together, we wanted to go all out and make sure everyone was about to go home with a compact little synth they could show off to their friends, complete with a custom PCB. Working for a couple of weeks leading up to the event, Mark and I designed a custom PCB around the outline of a 9V battery to hold all of the components and make the buttons easily playable as a small instrument. Using the properties of the 555 timer and RC circuits, we were able to design the board to play 8 distinct notes through a tiny onboard speaker. 

Honestly, one of the most rewarding parts of GWTC has been the ability to lead workshops and teach others some of the skills we have picked up along the way. The turnout for this event was great, and we were able to teach many people some basic soldering skills if they had never soldered before, some of the fundamentals of how the circuitry works, and then see them be able to put the pieces together and build a working project by the end of the workshop. I would also like to extend a huge thank you to Eleanor Kaufman Khan for taking some fantastic photos of the event and allowing us to use them!

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Board Member

One of the best parts about E-Week is being able to get out to support other E-Council orgs at their events. In that spirit, Mark and I decided to check out the Society of Women Engineers' "Nerd Olympics" in hopes we could go in and take the gold medal home for the GWTC crew. It was a fun night filled with multiple events from a variation of flip cup to shooting ping pong balls with a small catapult to throwing playing cards into half a watermelon. While we had a bit of a slow start picking up a whopping 0 points in the first event because our old bodies could not bend far enough over to pick up paper bags, we came roaring back throughout the rest of the events to find ourselves in 2nd place. I am hopeful that even more engineers will get out next year during E-Week to support all of our E-Council orgs in their various awesome events. 

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Board Member

Nando's has become one of my favorite places to eat during my time in DC. This was probably the second or third time we have come to Nando's for a Techies on the Town, and I highly doubt it will be the last. The chicken is always fantastic, but I absolutely love their garlic bread. The techie gang was once again not satisfied with simply having dinner together and had to head out on a second journey for dessert. This time around, dessert was ice cream from Nicecream Factory in Clarendon. I had never tried liquid nitrogen ice cream before, but after having it at Nicecream Factory, I can definitely see what all the hype is about. The texture is incredibly smooth and the process of making it right in front of me was awesome as somebody that loves science. I highly recommend it if you are ever in the area. It is definitely worth the trip.

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Board Member

HackGW

This week, GW Tech Collective members gathered for another great GWTC Movie Night in the SEH Lehman Auditorium. Once again, we watched one of our favorites, Primer. This was actually the second time I had seen the movie, but for many of the techies there, it was their first. Without giving too much of the movie away, Primer is an awesome low-budget sci-fi masterpiece that really makes you think about the reality of time travel. This is one movie that you definitely need to watch more than once to wrap your brain around it and try to fully understand what is going on. Go watch it!

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

Tech Collective member Kevin Weiss recently ran an Intro to Arduino workshop. The Arduino is a small microcontroller that is commonly used for prototyping of electrical circuits and is useful in many different scenarios. Many attendees had never used an Arduino before, so the workshop was truly an introduction. The main goal of the workshop was to create a frequency counter that would compute the frequency of an AC signal input into the Arduino’s pins. We started with the absolute basics of the Arduino programming language, the setup and loop functions, eventually moving to more complex methods and functions. After the code was complete, everyone familiarized themselves with how to operate the function generator and how to successfully connect it to the Arduino’s input pins. By the end of the workshop, everyone there had learned how to install the Arduino IDE and drivers, write and upload a sketch to the board, and measure the frequency of an signal. Part 2, a more complex Arduino workshop, is slated for this coming Spring.

– Chris Poole, GWTC Head Board Member

Mark and Brandon built the Blink: Learn to Solder Kits designed by Emma Fletcher (GWTC cofounder) for Rocket Department in California. They were fun, simple, and unexpectedly more amusing to play with afterwards than we thought they would be!

The Glowsters Workshop was something we had talked about for quite a while and finally had the chance to actually run. Led by Kassidy Schmitz, this workshop involved making glow-in-the-dark coasters from some wood we chopped up and epoxy resin spiked with glow powder. After selecting a batch of wood pieces to work with, I made a base out of blue painters' tape to hold the entire coaster together while the epoxy set. After laying out my wood pieces on the tape base, I pulled the sides up tight to the wood to seal it from having any leaks where the epoxy could escape. We then mixed the epoxy with some glow powder and filled it into the cracks of the wood and finally let it set up overnight. The next day, I removed the tape and had an interesting coaster. One thing to watch out for in the future would be preventing the glow powder from sinking to the bottom of the epoxy while it is setting up and preventing any of the wood pieces from floating up in the epoxy. Other than that, it was a great hands-on workshop showing that GWTC does much more than electronics or software projects.

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

Somehow, this was the first time I had ever been to a Benihana. It might have been one of the best decisions of my life. When someone tells you they want to get dinner and a show, Benihana is the place to go. Ten of us made the journey out to Bethesda, which was surprisingly not too bad to get to. The food was amazing and the artistry of the chef is something to behold. This was a great Techies on the Town because it saw the return of an old face in our good friend Adam Apostoli and a new face in freshman Jak Silver. After not receiving the right order, Jak promptly earned the nickname "He Who Makes Us Wait." As with our many other Techies on the Town events, it was a great night with great friends, enjoying something new together. 

One of the best parts of the night was actually after we were done at Benihana. In a two for one special, we all decided to follow Adam over to Max Brenner Chocolate for a decadent dessert. This place was filled with chocolate, literally oozing in big vats right in the middle of the place. If you like chocolate, this place is heaven. I highly recommend checking out if you ever get the chance! 

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

On November 5, 2015, the world almost lost the man, the myth, the legend, Mark Tentindo. Mark had injured his right carpal and scaphoid bone after a biking incident. I had a chance to speak to Mark and he clarified the entire situation.

Jeff Schulthies: “Mark, can you explain what happened?”

Mark Tentindo: “I was avoiding feral children on my bike. It was basically like Mad Max. I quickly turned to the side to avoid them."

JS: “What happened to the feral children?”

MT: “They survived. I selflessly sacrificed myself so that they may tell the tale.”

JS: “How did you survive after the crash? You’re here now.”

MT: “The children dragged me to hospital and after that I became their leader.”

JS: “Alright, so what’s the first thing you’re going to do once your cast is removed?”

MT: “I’m going to enjoy being able to write again.”

Mark’s recovery is going smoothly and we expect to see him back at full health in 6 weeks.

Mark has gone through so much yet his dedication to Innovate, Educate, and Create has driven him to go above and beyond for Tech Collective. 

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Just two days after his tragic biking accident, Mark led the Intro to MATLAB Workshop. MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory) is a programming language used mainly by engineers to perform computations. The workshop was held in the Science and Engineering Hall and went over basic syntax and best practices for MATLAB projects. We walked through two different programs. One was a page rank program, which demonstrated the basic idea of how search algorithms work. The other was a speed test, which demonstrated the differences between and how much faster vector calculations are compared to for loops. Mark explained how this was a major pitfall experienced programmers faced when programming in MATLAB. Loops are slow in MATLAB, so avoid them.

For those who did not attend the workshop, the code is on Tech Collective’s GitHub account.
https://github.com/GWTechCollective/matlab-examples

– Jeff Schulthies, GWTC Member

Mark leads the workshop in a lab in the new Science and Engineering Hall

Every year, Epsilon Sigma Alpha (ESA) holds a charity Thanksgiving-themed eating competition called Gobblefest, with the proceeds of the event going to St. Jude's Children Hospital. There are five people on a team, with each team member choosing a different Thanksgiving course from apple sauce, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. And there's one catch: you can't use your hands at all.

This year was GW Tech Collective's first year competing; Kassidy Schmitz ate the apple sauce, Grant Kowalik chose the mashed potatoes, Jess Soslow had the green beans, Matt Spadafora wanted the stuffing, and I (Elliot Liskin) ate the pumpkin pie. We finished in under two minutes (1:53 to be exact), which we were pretty proud of as most teams took well over two or even three minutes to go through all five courses. We hit a couple of interesting snags along the way: Matt said the stuffing was particularly clumpy, which made it difficult to chew and swallow, and the crust of my pie got stuck to the bottom of my plate, and it was tough to peel off. Kassidy managed to slurp down the apple sauce super quickly, Jess ate the green beans in two big bites, and Grant powered through the mashed potatoes, even though they were a bit dry.

All in all, it was a ton of fun, and ESA announced they raised over $4000, a record for the event.

– Elliot Liskin, GWTC Board Member

The date is October 21st, 2015. Instead of finding yourself in the Delorean, you find yourself in the semi-lit, movie theater-esque Lehman Auditorium. You forget how you got there even though you secretly clicked “going” on the Facebook page that was created months in anticipation prior to the event.

As you settle in at the back of the auditorium with dinner and snacks, you’re reminded how Marty made you actually want to go to your high school prom while Doc inspired you to build your own flux capacitor.  The lights dim and the marathon begins and you realize the sentiments of your childhood.

You realize that some predictions have become real: wireless gaming and video conferencing are now the norm, meanwhile the closest thing to THE hoverboard is the hoverboard now banned on GW's campus. But somehow, the Cubs winning the World Series takes the cake on the list of impossibility aside from time machines - but I guess the fact that the Mets are going to the World Series comes pretty close.

As time moves forward and the last movie wraps up, the clock acknowledges it’s some time after midnight, officially marking the future of the future. Along with the several dozen other students that dropped by to watch, you wouldn’t have rather been anywhere else that day, except maybe the front of the room enjoying the unlimited popcorn machine.

– Nancy Mannebach

Elliot's Intro to iOS Development Workshop was an absolute blast. The turnout was great and we especially brought in a lot of people that were new to GW Tech Collective. He went through a lot of different concepts related to object-oriented programming and how they related directly to the simple iOS app we were creating. It was cool to see how quickly you can throw something together and have an increasingly complex and functional app as you continue to build on top of what you have.

The final product, however, was less important in this workshop than just picking up some of the basics of coding for iOS in Xcode. One feature that was especially useful to learn had to do with setting particular spacing and padding of elements to ensure that they display properly on iOS devices with different screen sizes. This allows your app to run and look perfect on any iPhone or iPad, regardless of the screen size. Many people found alternative implementations throughout the workshop, and instead of having a red ball bounce around the screen, I replaced it with the GWTC logo. Overall, I learned a lot and had a great time learning iOS development from a real live Apple intern, Elliot Liskin. 

Check out some pictures from the workshop as well as the complete recording of the live stream below!

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

 

On October 3, 2015, the Techies went out to Regal Theater in DC's Chinatown to see THE MARTIAN. Murphy's all grown up and is now leading an expedition to Mars. Will the Techies forgive Matt Damon for leaving Matthew McConaughey? 

But in all seriousness, The Martian is a book by Andy Weir and is one of the most scientifically accurate science fiction novels about the "what if we landed on Mars and what are the logistics." Weir did his own research and as he serialized The Martian, his audience in the scientific community would help correct the ideas that he illustrated. The Martian film is a faithful adaptation. For anyone who has not seen The Martian, I encourage you to look up an interview Weir did with Adam Savage to get a deeper appreciation for the science found in the film.

At 3:45 the Techies met on Tompkins Lawn and rode the metro to Gallery Place-Chinatown right next to the theater. Once the techies arrived, they found that The Martian was sold out and the 3 people who did not buy their tickets online had to improvise a way to view The Martian. The Techies managed to figure everything out and once they entered the theater, the Techies were greeted by the first two rows of seats. The worst seats in the house. But the Techies endured, and they were rewarded with a riveting film about space exploration and survival. Even though some of the technologies do not exist yet (e.g. Spacesuits that can be put on by yourself), they are pieces of tech that could exist within 5 years. This display of what can be done with the technology today and in the near future acts as a source of inspiration for us to Educate, Innovate, and Create. 

To summarize, I enjoyed the film as did all of the other techies and most of us were inspired by all of the gadgets and hacks that were done throughout the film. And we did forgive Matt Damon.

The Martian Receives GWTC's Seal of Approval

– Jeff Schulthies, GWTC Member

In our first GWTC Live of the semester, Mark Tentindo shared his experience assembling a KitRex velociraptor he purchased at last week's World Maker Faire in New York. 

Mark gives it the GWTC Seal of Approval

Once again, members of GW Tech Collective set out on our annual adventure to the World Maker Faire in New York City.  This year marked the 5th trip GWTC has made to NY for the Faire, only having missed the very first one back in 2010. Each year, the selection of makers expands, the interests become more varied, and the show just keeps on growing. One of the best parts about Maker Faire that gets the least attention is the terrific speakers, which truly makes spending the entire weekend at Maker Faire worthwhile. One of my personal favorite parts of the Faire has always been the indoor LED and lighting-focused projects, which really stand out. Going to the Faire as a graduate student was a rewarding experience, being able to talk to some of the younger members of GWTC and see how excited they were about the different makers presenting and give them tips on how to bring some of that innovative thinking back to GW with cool workshops and projects. While this was my last Maker Faire officially at GW, I look forward to meeting up with the members of GWTC again next year at the Faire and experiencing it together.

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

This year marked the second year that GWTC visited Maker Faire: Silver Spring. While this Maker Faire is generally more community driven, with many activities being directed towards younger attendees, it still has much to offer. My favorite projects included a chaotic pendulum and some competition proven FIRST Robotics robots that were exhibited.

– Mark Tentindo, GWTC Board Member

I personally have never been a huge sushi fan. That was not because I had tried a ton of sushi and did not like it, but because the thought of eating raw fish just did not sit well with me. The last time GWTC had an event at Sushi Para, I skipped it because of my irrational fear of sushi, but all I heard were rave reviews of how awesome it was. This time, I did not let the opportunity pass me by. 

About a dozen Techies made the trek up the red line, we walked into Sushi Para, and immediately I saw another group of people chowing down on one of their famous boats full of sushi. To say I was instantly impressed would be an understatement. Once we sat down and got menus, I was completely out of my element and had to rely on Mark's sushi knowledge to figure out how and what to order. Two of this, three of that, one of those, and four of another. It all sounded so good. Once they brought out our food, I had to contend with my biggest adversary of the evening – chopsticks. For whatever reason, chopsticks have always seemed to baffle me and put up a fight even though I know they should be simple to use. The first few pieces of sushi were slow-going due to the chopsticks, but instantly I realized how delicious it was and wondered why I had entirely shied away from sushi for so long. Once I started shoveling the sushi into my mouth, the chopsticks seemed to finally work with me. It was an exciting evening, to say the least, filled with new adventures, some minor controversy, and great friends. This was another in an ever increasing list of successful Techies on the Town events. 

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

At our meeting on September 21, 2015, SEAS alumnus and longtime GWTC member Muhammad Abdul-Rahim gave a riveting Tech 'n Tell about some of the real life experiences he has had while job-hunting and showed off the web and game development he has been doing since graduation. His expletive filled tirade about contract negotiations may be my favorite Tech 'n Tell moment ever. I will always read the contract, always. Check out his game dev startup 3 Halves Games and play some Animal Crackers!

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

On the weekend of September 19, 2015, the Maker-focused organization Hackster hosted its final Hardware Weekend Hackathon for the USA, this time for the Washington, DC area. The theme of this "Hack to the Future" centered around Internet of Things devices, and three intrepid techies (Victoria Zheng, Jordan Takayama, and Janice aka me) represented, curious to try our hands at building with the MediaTek LinkItOne, Pebble watch, and other hardware provided. The hackathon, while hosted by Hackster, was sponsored by MediaTek, Ubidots, and of course, Microsoft, who graciously hosted the hackathon in their Chevy Chase building.

General Atmosphere:

The Hackster volunteers running the weekend were helpful, high-energy, and some even worked on their own projects at the same time as the rest of us. During the judging before the awards ceremony, we were also able to see a performance from Tenaya Hurst aka Arduino Woman, who performed her original parody "This is How We Make." The food was phenomenal - instead of an unlimited supply of pizza and Red Bull, we received three meals each day: Einstein Brothers bagels and fruit salad for breakfast; Peruvian chicken and tacos for the lunches; and Chinese food and sandwiches for the dinners. Plenty of fruit, tea, soda, and coffee was also provided. In spite of this, we maaaaay have skipped the first dinner to make it to Techies on the Town because come on, who’s going to pass up unlimited Sushi Para?

The Hackathon:

The weekend started off with workshops from the three sponsors: MediaTek and Ubidots explaining how their hardware works, and Microsoft providing instructions and free Azure credit to use with their Azure Mobile Services. With all of the cool kits floating around, we wanted to start messing with them immediately, but the hackathon had one rule: you could keep any hardware you used, but you had to create a project page and plan before receiving any hardware. I personally haven't been to many hackathons, let alone ones that encouraged planning ahead, completing a mini-development cycle, and documenting all of the work accomplished. It definitely helped us get the most productivity and learning out of the weekend, which would not have happened if we tried playing aimlessly with everything there. Having the mentors from each of the sponsoring organizations on hand was also incredibly valuable - the Microsoft Azure tech evangelist was able to get our project "unstuck" several times, preventing us from wasting valuable time clicking through endless Stack Overflow questions.

Necessity was the mother of our invention, which largely outgrew from our (aka my) frustrations of having to stop in the middle of bike rides and runs because slow-paced songs starting playing through Spotify. We named our project BPM Biker, since we felt the marriage of the MediaTek GPS sensor with the Microsoft Azure Mobile service could serve as a speedometer that we could use as a control for a selector of a Spotify playlist with matching beats per minute. We didn't actually figure out in time how to coordinate an Azure Web Job to launch the Spotify playlist, but by the end of the first day we had the GPS logger working. It took us the second day to get the Wi-Fi to connect and set Azure up so the speed would log and save in the database. Every bit of progress felt like such a little thing, but it still was really cool every time another piece fell into place. Turns out, we impressed the judges enough to win the Microsoft prize of the night: 3 SparkFun Inventor Kits and all the hardware we used! The source code and documentation is available on our project page for anyone who would like to look at it.

All in all, super fun experience, definitely check out Hackster’s hackathons next year. In the meantime, there are plenty of fun projects to browse and build on hackster.io!

– Janice Rosado, GWTC Member

June 12-13, 2015 at the University of DC

Summer of 2015 marked the first ever, full-on National Maker Faire. The faire was held at the University of the District of Colombia. Two of our senior members, Mark Tentindo and Brandon Bernier, attended as makers to show off one of GWTC's more popular projects, "All of the Lights." Many other universities and local makers were in attendance. Projects included an open source underwater remote operated vehicle (ROV), consumer grade pick and place machines, and 3D printed lab tools provided by the NIH. 

– Mark Tentindo, GWTC Board Member

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We had an awesome time representing GW Tech Collective for the first time ever as makers at a Maker Faire. It was a thrilling opportunity to be on the other side of the table answering questions about a project we designed and built, and it was great to see just how many people were interested in how it worked. One of my favorite parts of the National Maker Faire was actually some of the other makers we were nearby and able to interact with. Directly across from us was a group of students from the University of Nevada, Reno who help operate a makerspace in the DeLaMare Library on their campus. They had the same passion for making and technology as we do in GW Tech Collective.

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

 

We recently bought some Lots of LEDs (LoL) shield kits for Arduino. The best part of the kit is that you have to solder all 100+ LEDs onto the board by hand. YAY. 

For the last general body meeting of the year, we decided we would do a livestream to reach the hordes of Techies around the world that could not make it to Tompkins Hall. This is the first in a new series from GW Tech Collective we are calling GWTC Live. Keep an eye out for future livestreams. 

Design to Prototype: A Lesson in Making Awesome Things with Sammy March
Event held on April 15, 2015

In GWTC's first attempt at livestreaming an event (which in and of itself was a hilarious endeavor), Sammy March, former GWTC board member, triumphantly returned to deliver an intimate presentation all about taking your ideas from design to prototype. He covered a lot of different topics along the way including how to research your ideas, where to start when you are coming up with a design, and how to take the jump to actually buying parts and building something awesome. While this was basically a presentation for the current board who attended, we were very happy to see many alumni join us on the livestream to ask questions and interact. The recording of the presentation and Q&A afterwards is worth the watch, but feel free to skip past the first few minutes where we attempt to figure out if we were actually streaming or not. This was the first in what we hope to be an ongoing series of GWTC Live events that can grow our audience beyond GW students to anyone on YouTube.

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

On April 2, 2015, GW Tech Collective took its second trip to Micron, about an hour drive away in Manassas, VA. Our first trip to Micron two years ago is still especially important to me because it was the first Tech Collective event I ever attended, and I have been hooked ever since. This time around, I went in with an entirely different perspective having taken multiple classes in VLSI Design and gaining a much better understanding of the entire fabrication process since then. The tour started with an info session to teach everyone a little bit about Micron's business, what this specific fabrication facility does, and how the technology has advanced through the years. One of the more interesting topics discussed was Micron's Automata Processor, which they have engineered specifically to handle complex, unstructured data in a massively parallel architecture. I also learned that the majority of the memory produced in the Manassas plant goes into automotive applications. During the tour of the fab itself, the complexity of moving the wafers from process to process, the amount of highly expensive equipment, and the sheer size of the fab itself is really amazing. 

One of the other great things about this trip was the mix of people that joined us. Overall, we had about 50 total people go with us on the tour, and many more graduate students went on this trip than on the previous trip. Besides the many undergraduate and graduate students that toured Micron with us, we had multiple faculty and staff members join us as well. Professor David Nagel, Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, recounted what struck him most about the experience:

"If you ever get a chance to go through the fab, I highly recommend it. It's amazing. They go through all of these processes. One of the things that was most striking about that tour is the silicon wafers, which are now a foot (300mm) in diameter, are moved around in wafer carriers and they go on tracks. So they are lowered into position, they open up automatically without exposure to the room around them, and they are very clean inside. The wafers move in, get processed, come back in, then are picked up in the tracks again and moved around. So you just stand there and watch these silicon wafers moving around the tracks in the overhead. It was a really nice experience."

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

Event held on March 29, 2015

In order to catch up with new members of GWTC, Adam attended a dinner during a weekend visit to DC. The techies decided on Nando's Peri Peri, a restaurant chain offering chicken with various marinade options. Many topics were discussed including the fact that the silverware in many restaurants is magnetized due to the way it is handled for cleaning. Seriously, next time you go out to eat, try picking up your fork with your knife.

– Mark Tentindo, GWTC Board Member

Workshop held on February 19, 2015

All of the Lights was an awesome idea dreamt up several semesters ago by board member Sammy March, in which the user could plug a music source into one end of a circuit, a lamp into the other end, and the light in the lamp would beat to the bass in your music. That was a ton of fun when we first did it, and since then Mark Tentindo and Brandon Bernier revamped it, redesigned it, and created a more compact version in which the whole circuit is self contained in a discrete black box. Mark and Brandon led a fun and informative workshop in which everybody learned how and why the circuit works, with no knowledge of electrical engineering required. At the end, every student was able to take home their very own All of the Lights!

I’ve setup my All of the Lights box in my room this year in South Hall. Our room is facing the inner courtyard and is right next to the giant windows of the main hallway, so whenever we are playing music and have the lights flashing at night people walking by always stop to look and are amazed at our system.

– Elliot Liskin, GWTC Board Member

Workshop held on January 31, 2015

Brannon McGraw led an exciting workshop teaching the basics of UNIX and how to install Linux on your laptop. Much of the workshop was spent debugging different issues people encountered while trying to install Linux, and almost everyone had it properly installed by the time they left. Just as important as teaching some of the basic command line commands was teaching what NOT to do to avoid rendering your laptop unusable. Always be careful when using sudo! Overall, the event was a lot of fun since everyone helped each other work through issues and get Linux up and running on their laptops. 

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

Originally posted on November 15, 2014

GW Tech Collective took a group trip out to Crystal City, VA to tour TechShop. TechShop is a nation-wide makerspace that allows makers to design and build anything they can think of, from 3D printing an Iron Man mask to designing a foldable kayak to lazer-cutting glasses. This makerspace provides anyone that has an idea with the tools and equipment to turn it into something tangible. Here are a few students’ favorite things:

Kassidy Schmitz: My favorite part was the laser-cut pumpkins. I would have never thought of using a laser-cutter with something like that.
Chris Poole: The coolest part of the tour was seeing the water jet. This machine uses a high pressure stream of pressure mixed with an abrasive to cut through materials. The tour guide showed us a piece of 4 inch-thick steel that had been cut with the water jet in just one pass. 

Overall, this tour showed us how easy is is to take an conceptual idea and turn it into a physical object with the resources provided by maker spaces, which are becoming more and more common as time goes on.

– Chris Poole, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted November 15, 2014

A handful of techies took on the challenge of assembling their own LED cube kit (put together by Brandon Bernier and Mark Tentindo). The kit included a nifty shield for an Arduino UNO, all necessary resistors, transistors, and the all-important LEDs – all that had to be done was assemble all of the parts. The task of soldering a perfect 3D array of LEDs was no easy feat even for the most experienced solderers, but everyone left the workshop with a working cube. This wrapped up Part Uno of the workshop.

The next week, Part Due was held. Mark and Brandon enlightened us with the theory behind the LED Cube’s circuitry as well as some of the program that was powering the cube’s graphics. We then had the opportunity to program our own patterns for the cube to display. Part Due of the LED Cube workshop was also a great success!

– Chris Poole, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on October 28, 2014

GW Tech Collective recently held two Techies on the Town events this Fall Semester. The first event was divided into two parts. First the techies would eat at Sushi Para, which offers $20 unlimited sushi, then they would go to a dorm and watch Her. The techies met at Tompkins Hall at 6:00 and rode the metro to Sushi Para. Unfortunately they had to wait 45 minutes to get seated. Fortunately, as people interested in technology, they would be able to learn more the technology around them while they waited. Some people explored Walgreens while others explored Starbucks. They learned about machines and their uses in society. After waiting for their table the techies were finally able to eat unlimited sushi. Little did they know that they would have to wait one hour every time they wanted sushi but conversations were had and people were entertained.

An artist’s depiction of the group enjoying all you can eat sushi at Sushi Para

After having their fill of sushi the techies rode the metro again to settle down and watch Her. There were snacks, coffee, and cushions making it easy to appreciate the cinematography, story, and symbolism. What would it be like if technology was this advanced? How would I turn my computer on? The movie was played in parts, which meant every 20 minutes we had about one minute to discuss the movie and make jokes. As the movie ended, tears were shed and stomachs were full. The event was a success and the techies were inspired.

Later in the semester, the techies decided to head to Nando’s Peri-Peri. Most members ordered half a chicken, at varying spice levels, with two sides along with a soda. After their meal some members went to study in their dorm and others went to Starbucks for Pumpkin Spice lattes with whipped cream.

– Jeff Schulthies, GWTC Member

Originally posted on October 28, 2014

On October 12th, 2014, GW Tech Collective hosted an Intro to Lockpicking workshop, presented by Mike Sequino and Brannon McGraw. This was a unique event, covering the basics of lock structure, lock picking theory, techniques, and execution. Attendees were given practice locks of varying difficulty, ranging from (relatively) easy 3-pin door locks, to 4-5 pin Master padlocks, all of which were also of different difficulties. Lockpicking is one of those skills that our sense of sight is completely useless for. It relies on being able to simultaneously feel and hear the click of the pins and their resistance to the picks. Because of that, the latter half of the workshop was spent in relative quiet, with occasional questions and small talk while we struggled. There were easy, hard, and a super-hard challenges, a bike lock, which only the most experienced even thought about touching. The normal MasterLocks were enough of a challenge for most of us! Some of us succeeded with our locks, while some didn’t, which is not unusual. The “art” of lockpicking is a delicate and difficult skill to learn, not to mention to master. For me, I was happy with being able to pick up the basics of such an interesting and challenging subject and learn a little about the internal mechanics of how a basic unit of security worked. (I did manage to pick the most challenging MasterLock, but that was probably a fluke.)

Originally posted on October 28, 2014

In a continuing tradition, GWTC has once again attended the World Maker Faire in New York. Exciting projects from 3D printed cars to HAM radios in a tuna can were all represented. Below are several accounts from students who made the trip.

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“Maker Faire” first entered my vocabulary a few weeks ago. I went in without really knowing to expect, and as an unoriginal graduate student, I vaguely imagined I’d be walking into a hyped up science fair. It turned out to be so much more than that. Having attended and loved amateur radio conventions a lot as a kid, I was blown away by the Faire’s electric atmosphere (literally, there was music created with Tesla coils and electricity in the air). If one could imagine something, someone could 3D print it. Everyone knows the Mentos in Coke trick, but how many people actually measure the Coke’s fizziness when controlling experimental variables of the soda’s temperature or sugar content? I found myself surrounded by a group of insanely creative people who were explaining the finer points of transducers’ acoustic properties or microprocessor programming to everyone who would listen, whether they were 4, 14, or 40. The opportunity to learn from someone who loves what he or she does presented itself many times over, and in the end, that’s what being an engineering student is all about.

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Going to World Maker Faire 2014 in New York City was one of the most refreshing experiences I have had this year. To you reading this blog, the Maker Faire was more than just a huge expression of America’s technological creativity and grand celebration of science, technology, and engineering education in its youth. It is also a celebration of people. I saw people who dedicated parts of their lives to see children today grow up to become innovators and inventors and engineers and scientists; championing open source electronics and the re-invention of hardware, creative Arduino products, Raspberry Pi programing, 3-D printing and the dawn of a “Third Industrial Revolution”, and simply science for the sake of sheer fun and discovery. I loved everything about Maker Faire and loved meeting new people and hearing their work and being there with my friends where we saw sparks fly where, in these moments, I felt happy to be alive. I want to make something of myself for the people I care about, and I’m proud to say that the World Maker Faire helped to cement this goal.

All I wish to say now is thank you very much Dean Dolling for shaping this event for SEAS, thank you to GW’s Tech Collective for getting me there and for the memories, and you, the reader, for reading this blog.

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While attending the World Maker Faire is an experience in and of itself, it may be just as fun to be a presenter. Hopefully, in the future, members of GWTC can attend the World Maker Faire to not only to engage with innovators around the world, but also to share their own creations and work.

 

Originally posted on September 15, 2014

GW Tech Collective kicked off the Fall semester in style with an Intro to Circuits Workshop hosted by current Tech Collective Board Members and ECE grad students Mark Tentindo and Brandon Bernier. Both Mark and Brandon were active GWTC members in their undergraduate careers at GW and their passion for tech rages on. Over fifteen people, many of whom were freshman, showed up ready to learn about the fundamentals of circuitry including Ohm’s Law, resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, and transistors. The concepts were presented using the classic water and pipes analogy, relating water to current, to try to keep the material accessible to everyone no matter their background. The goal for the afternoon was to introduce the basic knowledge and skills that will be used throughout the semester and year in additional Tech Collective workshops and events. To that end, Mark and Brandon went beyond simple circuits and explained some of the basics of building circuits on breadboards, what an Arduino is and why Tech Collective loves to use them, and even the operation of Christmas lights. This week we Educated. Now, it is time to Innovate and Create.

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Board Member

 

Originally posted on September 15, 2014

The semester is off to a killer start with a large turnout for our first meeting of the semester!

Originally posted on April 6, 2014

Today we celebrate the birthday of our co-founder, friend and Former Head Board Member Emma Fletcher! GW Class of 2013, she was a double major in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. We honor her birthday in the best way we know how, with a super cool WORKSHOP!

Today, we are doing a workshop on Web Development teaching people the basics and fundamentals of Web Development. Come to Tompkins 303 at 2pm and bring your laptop!!

Here is the Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/getting-started-series-web-development-with-adam-mccormack-and-brannon-mcgraw-registration-11132039229

If you want to connect with Emma and see what she has been up to, check out her new Venture Rocket Dept.! http://rocketdept.com
Also,
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/efletch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/emmafletcher

Sincerely,
Adam McCormack, Brannon McGraw
and the rest of the GW Tech Collective Board

Originally posted on November 22, 2013

This week, the ever-growing GWTC decided that one event was simply not enough excitement to appease its voracious appetite. A two for one special of sorts (no actual monetary discount) ensued, with the techies once again deciding to hit the constant favorite Hot n Juicy Crawfish (Crawdads) for dinner and IHOP for a delicious 1am night cap. While the majority of the GWTC opted for the mildest of spice on their crawdads, there was nothing mild about the fun everyone had getting to know each other better during the much needed respite from engineering. There is no better way to relax than sitting back in Crawdads’ glorious plastic bibs and chowing down on copious amounts of crawdads, shrimp, sausage, potatoes, and corn.

But, the night did not end there. Some of the group reconvened around 1am for a late night run to IHOP, because we all know that pancakes get better the later you eat them. A surprising amount of engineering actually went into this leg of the trip as we were forced to calculate our every move in hopes of getting back on the Metro before it closed. The pancakes were delicious, the conversations hilarious, and the memories priceless.

– Brandon Bernier, GWTC Member

Originally posted on November 25, 2013

On October 13, 2013 Mark Tentindo instructed a workshop and lesson on the functions of Ardiunos. An Arduino is a micro-controller that can be used for various electronic devices and is programmed with a software specific to itself. This software is very intuitive and it was apparent what commands you would use for one’s desired outcome. This was assisted by the software having example/sample code already provided as well. In terms of hardware, there are a certain number of pins on the Arduino board that can be connected by wires to the different components of what you want to control on a bread board. In the workshop we connected the Arduinos to a bread board with a series of LED components set up and manipulated one of the sample codes, specific to turning off and on lights, to control the lights at different frequencies and patterns. Programatically, the pins were designated for control simply by the number in which they were physically oriented.

There are many different types of Arduinos that have more advanced functions and abilities than the one we worked with, which was the Arduino Uno, but it was a very good and informative introduction to them. Arduinos are definitely growing in popularity in the tech world and it seems like everyone knows how to do cool stuff with them or at least knows what they are, so I believe everyone in attendance really appreciated this initiation of information on the topic.

Some basic notes from the event may be found on Hackpad.

Originally posted on April 24, 2013

Learn how build a circuit that turns on and off your light bulb to the sound of your favorite music! Great for parties!

Originally posted on April 23, 2013

Although it required splitting the Techies from their beloved phones and other microchip-enabled gear for few hours while on-site, the GW Tech Collective hosted a road trip to tour a ‘fab’ (semiconductor fabrication plant) for Boise-based Micron Technology, Inc near Manassas, VA. As one of the world’s leading semiconductor companies, Micron’s DRAM, NAND, and NOR Flash memory products are used in everything from computing, networking, and server applications, to mobile, embedded, consumer, automotive, and industrial designs. With over forty students and a few esteemed professors present, Techies rotated between the product testing labs and an actual manufacturing wing, where engineers and technicians in the proverbial white anti-contamination suits (‘bunny suits’ was the prefered term that day) roamed vast halls, supervising different points of the highly automated fabrication process or testing phase, all just beyond an inch of door and glass. A brief orientation before the tour provided national and global context for the scale of Micron’s operations, which surely also interested those with majors in business or operations management. Thankfully, no one fainted from minor pressure differentials between the ‘fab’ and office building (or decided to sneak into the manufacturing floor), allowing Techies to return to campus with a clearer understanding of careers in high-tech industry.

Students and faculty gather for a final photo before entering the plant

All in all, touring Micron – a company that seems to deliver on its promise for “constantly driving our designs to better efficiency and performance; helping lay a foundation that lets clients deliver products that weren’t possible just a few years ago” – was a righteous opportunity for our community of students fascinated by innovation in technology to experience engineering beyond the classroom. Major THANKS to all those who made this trip possible, including the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, which assisted with transportation costs, as well as graduating Senior Adam McCormack who spearheaded the initiative in the first place.

– Francisco Á.

Originally posted on April 23, 2013

GWTC hosted another one of its famous Techies on the Town events. Techies on the Town is our social event where all of us techies meet up and go to dinner or a movie to bond and geek out. This week we went to the famous Nandos in Dupont Circle. Home of the best Portuguese Chicken us Techies have ever eaten! All the dishes are great, but I personally recommend the butterfly chicken breast. We laughed, we cried, and we had a great time getting to know each other better outside of the conventional workshop setting. This will not be the last of Techies on the Town!

– Adam McCormack, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on April 23, 2013

For Tech 'n Tell a few weeks ago, I presented my Senior Design Project. The project consists of small robotic car that can be controlled by an Android phone via Bluetooth. The car can drive around an unknown location and transmit its own location as well as the location of any obstacle it finds back to the phone. The Android application created by one of my partners can then plot the locations on a map grid for the user’s reference.

My part of this project was to design, build, and program the actual car. The final system uses an Arduino Mega 2560, 100:1 mini gearmotors, wheel encoders, a BlueSmirf Gold Bluetooth module, a servo motor, an ultrasonic sensor, and some awesome chassis platforms from Pololu (which is a great site!). The car runs on 6 AA batteries.

If anyone has any questions about my project, feel free to send me an email: shelly at gwtechcollective.org

– Shelly Bagchi, GWTC Member

Originally posted on April 23, 2013

On Tuesday April 9th, nine members from GW Tech Collective ventured down to the E-Street Landmark Theater to watch a showing of the new film Disconnect. The movie was superb and thought-provoking, following three separate timelines of people struggling with the disastrous consequences of a technologically interconnected world. An introverted teenager is the butt of a vicious cyber prank by two classmates, a couple struggles with identity theft and its effect on their marriage, while an ambitious news reporter uncovers an online, underground sex business and attempts to provide shelter to a young man trapped in the middle. Following the screening, the group stayed for photos with the event’s hosts, and discussions about the film.

– Christoph von Braun, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on April 17, 2013

This semester Adam McCormack and I decided to create an interest group that explores classic geek television shows. Each meeting we watch the first episode of a show to help ease the transition into fandom. So far, by popular vote, we have watched the beginning of Battlestar Galactica and The X-Files.

We choose to watch the 2004 version of BSG, however, there is also the original 1978 version for the truly dedicated fans. In the distant future humans have perfected space travel and live on different planets, known as the 12 colonies. In the past humans created robotics helpers know as Cylons, but the Cylons rebelled and their was a great war. The BSG reboot starts at a time when Cylons have not been seen for many years. The Cylons launch a surprise attack on the humans wiping out the 12 Colonies with only the humans who escaped by spacecraft left to continue the species. The first “episode” of BSG is actually a 3-hour mini-series which sets up the story. We only watched Part I of the mini-series but many attendees were so drawn in the went home and began watching the series on their own. This is one of my favorite TV Shows and I was excited to share it with other Techies who loved it just as I much as I do.

 

The second show we watched was The X-Files because who doesn’t love 90s aliens? Ifthe aliens don’t manage to draw you in, there is always Mulders quirky broody personality and Scullys awesome shoulder pads. I actually hadn’t seen The X-Files before (aliens [x-files] freaked me out as a child) but I really wanted to watch it and I was not disappointed. Instead of watching the first episode wewatched the first three episodes because they were so good. After episode 3, in which a terrifying jaundiced man climbs down peoples chimneys and removes their organs we decided to call it a night. But I am really excited to watch more X-Files (during daylight hours) and catch up on all the 90s Sci-Fi my life has been missing.

– Emma Fletcher, GWTC Member

Originally posted on April 6, 2013

Edison remarked that “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Even so, genius is only one-third of innovation; collaboration makes up the rest. For this reason, GWTC presents Techies on the Town, a regular social outing for members to venture into DC to share ideas & mingle in a more casual setting. Yes, food also goes into the mix. Recently, nearly a dozen GW Techies headed out to Chipotle (1837 M St NW) for signature burritos & burrito bowls. Thanks to our well-rounded members, conversation spanned from logical fallacies & women in science today to the push by private investors to explore Mars. Moreover,everyone was engaged in this smorgasbord of burrito-fueled geek-speak. With this event clearly a success, here at GWTC, we look forward to having new members join us for future outings.

– Francisco Á.

Originally posted on April 6, 2013

As the internet expands without bound, websites become more and more of an inextricable part of lives. This begs the question, “if we use these things every day, why don’t we learn how they work?” Well,  this question was answered by Adam McCormack, a senior member of GW Tech Collective.

Adam led the attendees of this workshop through a crash course in the basic elements of web design: HTML and CSS. These building blocks are what make up the bulk of what is seen when you load a webpage in a browser. While these code standards are not designed for processing and storing data, they are wonderfully suited to displaying information.

The workshop started with HTML, which classifies the content of a web page. Using HTML tags, it is easy to specify whether text is part of a header or a bulleted list. Once the content of a website had been defined, CSS is used to apply style sheets and make the information specified in an HTML file aesthetically pleasing.

Other information that was covered including some of the basics of acquiring a domain and hosting so that you have a place to put your website once you have finished coding it.

For more information check out:

http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/web

http://w3schools.com/

– Mark Tentindo, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on February 27, 2013

E-Week is a week where all the student orgs in the School of Engineering celebrate Engineering and all the cool things that come from being an engineer. This year GW Tech Collective really kicked it up a notch with our event: Minty Fresh Beats. Thirty lucky students had the opportunity to build their own mini-speaker in an Altoids tin that could be played with an mp3 player! The workshop gave students an opportunity to solder, read schematic diagrams, and create something they can use in their everyday life. We were all so proud to have created an opportunity for SEAS students to Educate, Innovate, Create!

– Adam McCormack, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on February 27, 2013

This week GWTC started a new presentation series during general meeting. The first 5 – 10 minutes of general meeting is now reserved for members to present their projects and get feedback. Projects can be academic or personal and in just about any stage of design and development.

For the first Tech ‘n Tell Krista Harbold, a senior Computer Engineering student at GW and founding member of Tech Collective, presented her homemade Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine, Primacron. Over the past 18 months Krista has built a CNC from scratch. She has also written a G-Code parser to control the movement of the CNC head which is a re-purposed Black & Decker Dremel. Currently her CNC cuts styrofoam or wood. She also discussed the upgrades necessary to cut metal. The motors are controlled by an Arudino microcontroller with C++ code which Krista wrote. Overall her project cost about $300 which is significantly cheaper than current CNC’s. Generally a store bought CNC goes for a few grand on the low end and up to $50,000+ on the high end.

Read more about Primacron at Krista’s webpage: http://kharbold.com/portfolio/primacron-cnc-software/

Keep on Makin’!

– Emma Fletcher, GWTC Member

Originally posted on February 18, 2013
Event held on February 9, 2013

This weekend GW Tech Collective hosted another amazing workshop for our Techies on how to land your dream job! We all love tech, but how do we apply that passion in our application and stand out in a sea of applicants?

Emma Fletcher has a wealth of experience after pursuing her dream job and landing a co-op at Intel for the fall. She spoke from her own experiences about what she learned along the way.

Some takeaway points from my attendance at the workshop:

1. Networking is key to finding a great job. True networking is about being genuine.
2. When attending career fairs, plan your visit!
3. Have an “elevator speech” ready for when talking to recruiters.
4. Use “no frills” fonts in your Resume and keep it one page.
5. Shoot for the Moon! If you miss, you’ll land among the stars!

You can review Emma’s slideshow at this link: Prezi Slideshow

If you have any questions, you can email Emma at efletch at gwmail.gwu.edu

– Adam McCormack, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on February 16, 2013
Event held on November 18, 2012

Three Tech Collective members ran a joint workshop on Prezi, Photoshop and Gimp. This workshop allowed Tech Collective members to explore their creative side. Prezi is an online presentation software that allows users to create unique and interactive presentations. There are a number of different layouts a user can choose from. Instead of normal boring slide transitions Prezi has the viewer “travel” around the presentation. Francisco Alvarez, a Junior studying Systems Engineering, shared a presentation he recently gave about clean energy. Francisco then led the attendees through creating a Prezi account and making their first Prezi presentation.

Shelly Bagchi and Esther Schenau covered Gimp and Photoshop respectively. Each of them showed how to “Cage” someone. “Caging” someone is when you photoshop Nicolas Cage’s face onto someone else. All the attendees has a great time photoshopping different faces onto their friends and family. One attendee even Caged her mom! This workshop showed the differences and similarities between Gimp and Photoshop. One of the big differences is that Gimp is a free software unlike Photoshop which is often not an option given a students budget. But, as Esther pointed out, a student can use the 4th Floor Computer Labs in Tompkins which have Photoshop installed. This workshop provided a great place to start for those unfamiliar with photo editing.

A photo of “Nicolas Cage” getting his GWTC Membership Certificate

– Emma Fletcher, GWTC Member

Originally posted on February 11, 2013
Event held on October 26, 2012

Today was Hallow-Q! It was a fun filled afternoon of activities and games. But more importantly for us poor college kids, it means free burgers and hot dogs! ASME had its ferro-fluid demonstration at the lawn, which was awesome. ASCE let students build geometric structures out of toothpicks and marshmallows (yum!). However, my favorite activity had to go to GW Tech Collective’s 2nd annual pumpkin smash! This was an idea originally suggested by Mark Tentindo back for 2011’s Hallow-Q and has been popular enough to be brought back for this year.

Pumpkin smash is an event which raises money to donate to FIRST Robotics. Small pumpkins are sold for $8. The guys at the machine shop help Tech Collective secure liquid nitrogen. Participants freeze the pumpkins over in nitrogen and then smash it to bits with a hammer. Students, TAs, professors, and professors’ children participate. It’s amusing to watch these children try to smash their pumpkin bits smaller and smaller. This year, we raised over $104 for FIRST Robotics! As always, this event is a good stress relief from all of the hard work that we get dumped on in engineering. Hopefully, Tech Collective continues this tradition and brings it back next year as well!

– Justin Lee, GW Tech Collective Member

Originally posted on February 9, 2013
Event held on January 19, 2013

3D printing has to be one of the coolest technology trends of the past 5 years. 3D printers do exactly what it sounds like – you give them a 3D model that you designed on a computer, and they print it for you.

Ben Yarmis, our very own 3D printing aficionado, has a 3D printer of his own, called the Solidoodle. Ben brought in a bunch of his own printed designs to show off, including a chess set, doorstops, bottle openers, and a gear heart (it’s a bunch of gears connected in the shape of a heart).

Ben taught us a brief history of 3D printing and then described how 3D printing actually works and the different types of 3D printers. He also talked about building his previous 3D printer, the Thing-o-Matic.

To finish off the workshop, Ben taught everyone about CAD (computer aided design). He gave a brief tutorial of SketchUp, a program often used by 3D printing hobbyists because of its ease of use and price (it’s free). Ben then let everyone work on their own designs, and even invited workshop attendees to send him their models for printing.

The slides from GWTC’s “Rapid Prototyping and 3D Modeling (CAD)” Workshop can be found here.

– Elliot Liskin, GW Tech Collective Head Board Member

Originally posted on February 7, 2013
Event held on October 21, 2012

For the unfamiliar, GNU/Linux is an open source operating system that is free to use and change. It is an alternative to Windows and OSX.GNU/Linux is used by many computer enthusiasts as their primary OS, it powers many servers that host the web pages we use every day. Perhap some of the most prevalent explosions in the GNU/Linux scene is the Android OS.

At the Intro to Linux workshop, attendees were introduced to the basics of trying out a GNU/Linux distribution. One neat feature of linux is the existence of live CDs. Essentially, these are disk images that may be burned to a CD or copied to a USB drive so a user can try out the OS before writing it to their hard drive. The live CD lets users try out software and compatibility without making any changes to their computer so there are no risks of messing anything up.

GNU/Linux comes in many different “flavors” called distributions. These are versions of linux that have been worked on by a group of collaborating developers. The distribution of choice for this workshop was “Linux Mint.” “Ubuntu” is another highly recommended distro. A simple google search will take you the the sites for these distros so you can download and try them out for yourself.

– Mark Tentindo, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on February 6, 2013
Event held on December 8, 2012

During last Fall semester, GWTC hosted an Introduction to iOS development workshop, led by the new Head Board Member, Elliot Liskin. The workshop led the attendees through the basics of creating an application for any Apple mobile device, such as an iPhone or iPad, using a specific program for the mac, called Xcode. Elliot led us through an introduction to the software, followed by the creation of a fully functional test application, complete with buttons, tabs, and text. By the end of two hours, every attendant was happily tinkering with their very own iOS application.

A potential followup iOS workshop would most likely include more advanced features and customization options.

– Christoph von Braun, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on February 5, 2013

Halloween Movie Night, Pt. 1 (Nov. 1, 2012)

On November 1st and 2nd GW Tech Collective celebrated halloween with a movie marathon. The first night we celebrated with stuffing our faces with lots of cheap candy from CVS. T’was a glorious affair. Johnathan Ross, a founding member of the club, provided the movie selection and we chose to watch Coraline. Coraline is a claymation movie about a girl who feels neglected by her parents and unhappy with her circumstances. She finds a portal to an alternate universe where her “new” parents love her and everyone is so nice and fun, or so it seems… Watch it to find out what happens! I had a blast hanging with the tech collective gang and getting high on sugar :-)

– Adam McCormack, GWTC Board Member

 

Halloween Movie Night, Pt. 2 (Nov. 2, 2012)

As the culmination of the Halloween movie series events taking place this month, GWTC members gathered to watch the Joss Whedon hit The Cabin in the Woods and the eerily haunting Pathology. Candy was eaten, popcorn was popped, and tech collective members bonded in one of the year’s best Tech Collective social events. Following the success of this night, GW Tech Collective would like to begin introducing more frequent social events to augment the current schedule of informative and crafty events.

– Brannon McGraw, GWTC Assistant Head Board Member

Originally posted on December 7, 2012

This Fall Semester GWTC hosted two Arduino workshops, an introduction level workshops and a follow up intermediate workshop. The workshops were hosted by myself and Shelly Bagchi, both Senior Computer Engineering students.

The Introduction level workshop covered all the basics of programming an Arudino, serial communication, lighting up LEDs, and using a potentiometer to control the brightness of an LED. The Intermediate workshop covered multiplexing and 7 segment displays.

Shelly (left) helping workshop attendees

 

Buddy (left) a senior and Elliot (right) a freshman partnered up to work on small Arduino exercises during the workshop

GWTC was please to new and old faces at the workshops. We are planning on hosting a final “Advanced Arduino Workshop” during the Spring 2013 semester covering topics such as sensors and motors.

– Emma Fletcher, Assistant Head Board Member

Originally posted on October 29, 2012

Following last year’s small trip to Maker Faire, GW Tech Collective journeyed up north September 29th and 30th to New York’s World Maker Faire. Last year, three members of GWTC made the trip, but this time around it was offered to the whole club with eleven members ultimately going.

Maker Faire, organized by MAKE Magazine, is held yearly in various locations around the U.S., and according to MAKE is meant to “celebrate the arts, crafts, engineering, science projects, and the Do-It-Yourself mindset.” This year was the third time it was held in New York.

The event often hosts big name speakers and very exciting exhibits, with some GWTC members listening to Steven Wolfram, founder of Wolfram|Alpha, while others saw Eben Upton from Raspberry Pi, Bre Pettis of MakerBot industries, and Chris Anderson, a prominent writer for Wired Magazine. Some interesting exhibits people visited were a human sized mousetrap, a demonstration in which 640 Mentos were dropped into 108 Coke bottles, 3D printer village (a tent showcasing the latest and greatest in 3D printing technology), and the Arduino Pavilion (a tent featuring exciting new Arduino developments).

By the end of the weekend, most of the members were exhausted from seeing all the new technology (and doing a lot of walking), but they can all agree that it was a time well spent together.

– Elliot Liskin, GWTC Member

Originally posted on October 9, 2012

Starting this Fall, GW Tech Collective kicked off a new series of events where members gather to watch (or re-watch) some of the greatest science fiction television series. As the name implies, the first of these series isFirefly, the Joss Whedon masterpiece that premiered circa 2002. Easily the most widely praised series in the genre amongst the group, Firefly was only one season which only aired 14 episodes before its sudden and inevitable betrayal cancellation (The canon of the resulting movie is heavily debated amongst members).

After we have reached the end of the series, Fireflydays will be replaced by Battlestar Galactica (The showings will be known as Fracking Fridays), and as the Tech Collective grows in size even more members can enjoy quality, nerdy television.

– Brannon McGraw, GWTC Member

Originally posted on September 4, 2012

GW Tech Collective is excited for the beginning of the new semester. To all new students: Welcome to the George Washington University! To kick things off, GW Tech Collective attended the Org Fair, an annual exposition of all the organizations on campus. Armed with a 3D printer, info flyers, and a video of Epic Rap Battles of History featuring “Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates“, GW Tech Collective sought to spread the word about their hands-on workshops and fun-loving atmosphere.

Arianna (right), GW Sophomore, talks with other students about GWTC at the annual Student Org Fair

 

In addition to the Org Fair, GW Tech Collective hosted an Open House on August 31st 2012. Attendees could select to hear about the workshops, the movie nights or the series of field-trips and lectures hosted by GW Tech Collective. The reading selection “Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet” by Katie Hafner was also on display.

To sum it all up, opening week for GW Tech Collective was a success with a wonderful turnout for the first general body meeting and high enthusiasm from the current members. GW Tech Collective hopes to expand membership this year but most importantly, maintains the objective to join together technophiles in a supportive and genuinely friendly environment.

Freshmen check out a 3D printer at GWTC's Open House

– Esther Schenau, GWTC Board Member

Originally posted on August 28, 2012

GWTC will be hosting an Open House in the Thurston Piano Lounge this Friday between 4:30pm and 6:30pm. This is a great chance to see what Tech Collective actually does! There will be a number of GWTC Members present to answer questions, show off projects from last year and talk about upcoming events.

If you have any questions feel free to contact info at gwtechcollective.org

Originally posted on June 28, 2012

For our last event of the semester, GW Tech Collective had the pleasure of hosting an event with NextGame called “Starting Your Own Startup.”

NextGame is a tech startup right in the heart of DC. Their product brings people together for pickup sports and recreational activities. It’s like meetup.com for outdoor sports. If I wanted to start a quick soccer game on the fly, I can organize people on the national mall with a few clicks of the button!

Attendees had the pleasure of asking about what it is like to run a start up and what sort of strategies worked and didn’t work for NextGame.

A great question for most startups is will you have your development team in house, a freelance team in the US or a freelance team overseas. NextGame gave us some great insight from their own experience. They talked about their initial designs of the site and mobile app. With their first site design, they chose to work with an overseas company to save on money. This sounded great, but the communication did not come across well and they ended up having to find someone in the States to redo it.

Other great questions came up during the talk like how they planned to make money and what will the future of the product be as they continue to grow. It was an eye opening experience for people interested in starting their own company and for people interested in working for a startup. I couldn’t think of a better way to end such a successful year for GW Tech Collective.

– Adam McCormack, GWTC Head Board Member

Originally posted on June 27, 2012

On March 24th, GW Tech Collective had the pleasure of having a Q & A with Professor Jason Zara. It was a great opportunity to students to talk about their career interests and ask advice about deciding between engineering in academia and the corporate world.

Zara shared his own experiences in undergraduate and graduate school and gave some perspective on how we would know if graduate school is something we want to pursue. We also learned about the biomedical engineering major program that he helped put together for the GW engineering school. Now Biomedical engineering is the largest major in SEAS!

It was a great experience and all the GW Tech Collective attendees enjoyed meeting with one of their professors in an informal setting. We hope professor Zara will join us again sometime in the near future.

– Adam McCormack, GWTC Head Board Member

Originally posted on June 26, 2012

Back in March, GW Tech Collective had a surprise guest appearance by the great NY Tech Startup BOXEE!

BOXEE is a multimedia entertainment company with a focus on an affordable alternative to the current cable subscription model. They sell a set top box called BOXEE designed to help you “cut the cord.”

Most video content today is available for free on the internet. 80 out of the top 100 TV shows are readily accessible through a TV networks site. BOXEEis designed to take all that content and put it all in one place for easy viewing on your TV screen. There are also apps and other features available to make it a richer content experience than other media boxes on the market.

We had the pleasure of meeting one of the founders Avner Ronen and three other people from his team. It was an informal Q & A session where members of GW Tech Collective could ask any question they had about BOXEE or the startup world.

I learned some interesting things. Startups are best when the founders are young (in their 20s and early 30s). They have less things to hold them back from investing all their time into the company. Avner’s first company was started when he was young. BOXEE was started when he was older and had a family to support. He and the other founders of the team had to take a more conservative approach because they had to be responsible for supporting themselves and their families.

BOXEE had a lot of no’s before they got their yeses. This is pretty normal. They raised 6 million for their first round of venture capital funding, another 6 million for their second round of funding and then 16.5 million in round three of raising venture capital funds. That totals to 28.5 million dollars!

There are no rules for startups. They can come from anywhere and take any form. All you need is an idea and confidence in your product.

It was a pleasure having BOXEE come visit and I hope they come back to visit GW Tech Collective soon!

– Adam McCormack, GWTC Head Board Member

Originally posted on June 26, 2012

For our Avengers Movie Week we screened all five movies that prequel the avengers. We had a great turnout at Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America.

We finished the marathon by attending the premiere of The Avengers in theaters. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s definitely worth checking out. Be on the look out for more movie marathons from GWTC and rest assured that come Spring ’13 we’ll be going to see Iron Man 3.

– John Ross, GWTC Member

Originally posted on April 28, 2012

We have completed hosting a 5 day movie marathon featuring all the movies leading up to the release of The Avengers on May 4th! We also attended the midnight showing of The Avengers at Georgetown Movie Theater.

Originally posted on April 25, 2012

Earlier this month Shelly Bagchi and Emma Fletcher hosted a Workshop covering the basics of programming an Arduino microcontroller.

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. [www.arduino.cc] 

Shelly and Emma presented a short slideshow about the Arduino IDE, hardware basics, and microcontrollers. Then they covered three of the tutorials found on Arduino’s website.

Shelly (left) and Emma (right), two Computer Engineering students, taught the basics of programming an Arduino microcontroller

Tutorial 1: Blink an LED
Tutorial 2: Fade an LED
Tutorial 3: Read values from a Potentiometer

After this workshop, participants had installed the Arduino IDE on their own computers, successfully programmed an Arduino, and completed the three tutorials above. This workshop will be held again in Fall 2012 along with an Advanced Arduino Workshop for those interested in learning more.

Originally posted on April 24, 2012

This year to celebrate National Engineers Week (Feb. 19 – 25) GWTC hosted a workshop for students to build their very own Altoid Bot. The workshop was a huge success, engineering students of all levels and majors came to learn about mini robot construction.

Inspiration for this workshop was taken from this tutorial on uCHobby.com

Adam, Head Board Member, teaches someone how to solder

 

Carly, a junior Electrical Engineering student, constructs her Altoid Bot

Originally posted on February 27, 2012

The objective of John Ross’ iPhone app development workshop was to code for a tip calculator. I was pleased as punch that I had a working simulation of an app by the time I left due to the help and patience of other attendees and J. Ross.

J. Ross prepared a well-organized presentation that highlighted the device that was the focus of the programming session. In addition, he provided brief information on the MVC model (model-view-control), pointers, and XCode that were utilized in the session. XCode was the program that was used to write, build and simulate the written code. It comes prepackaged as developer tools on the Mac, but should it be missing from one’s computer, Apple provides a download on their website.

Besides the information in his presentation, J. Ross mentioned different sources, such as iTunes U, that would deliver more material on the intricacies of Objective C language should the session stimulate further questions.

The tip calculator is displayed in the photograph. The project is customizable because of Xcode’s integration of drag and drop of generic features such as sliders, buttons, fields, and colors. I would recommend the app development to any aficionado of coding for iPhone products. Overall, the workshop completed the goal of getting a working simulation of app and exposing the attendees to the rapidly growing market of app development on the iOS system.

– Esther Schenau

Originally posted on October 31, 2011

Earlier in the year, I attended a presentation on Web Development by Adam McCormack (the current Vice President of GW Tech Collective). The session was really informative and  Adam presented some really good tips to those who are looking to get started with web design. If you are looking to design websites, a great tool in Firefox is FireBug. Firebug is an Add-On that allows you to not only look at the source of any HTML page you may be viewing, but also hover your mouse over portions of the code to highlight what it actually creates on the visible page. Google Chrome has a similar functionality if you right click on the page and select “inspect element.”

The above tools can be used by anyone wondering how a particular drop down menu or style is achieved. Any basic text editor can be used for HTML and CSS, though there are some programs that greatly facilitate the process. For Mac users Adam recommended “CSSEdit” for creating style sheets for your HTML since it greatly simplifies basic formatting and makes it much easier to make fantastic looking web pages. Personally, I recommend Notepad++ as an all round editor, even though it is not specialized for web development, since it supports text highlighting for an overwhelming number of languages.

Most attendees agreed that w3schools.com is the best place to get started when learning basic CSS and HTML syntax. From there there you can examine popular websites to get ideas for how to create more complex sites with intricate menus and content.

– Mark Tentindo

Originally posted on October 26, 2011

At the beginning of October, I went to see the Solar Decathlon, near the National Mall.  The Solar Decathlon is a collegiate competition, run by the Dept of Energy every two years, in which teams from various universities build small houses that are solar powered as well as energy independent overall.  The houses have to satisfy many criteria, such as livability, cost-effectiveness, and energy efficiency.  They are judged on these and also on some challenges they have to undergo – like hosting a dinner party in the house they build.  The University of Maryland team won this year’s competition, and at the next one, GW will actually have some students working on a team with Catholic University for their Senior Design Project!

There were a lot of cool house designs at this year’s competition, and you can see the pictures below!  (It was kind of gray and rainy, so they didn’t turn out so well…)

http://www.slideroll.com/player.php?s=pj96fhhb

– Shelly Bagchi

Originally posted on April 23, 2011

I had an amazing time visiting HacDC in Columbia Heights.

We were greeted by one of the board members, Will Gibb, and he started by explaining the history of hackers to us. I never knew until visiting HacDC that the term “Hacker” is not meant to be negative, contrary to what the media describes it as. I copied this definition from webopedia.com of hacker for those who aren’t familiar with the term:

A slang term for a computer enthusiast, i.e., a person who enjoys learning programming languages and computer systems and can often be considered an expert on the subject(s). Among professional programmers, depending on how it used, the term can be either complimentary or derogatory, although it is developing an increasingly derogatory connotation.

The pejorative sense of hacker is becoming more prominent largely because the popular press has coopted the term to refer to individuals who gain unauthorized access to computer systems for the purpose of stealing and corrupting data. Hackers, themselves, maintain that the proper term for such individuals is cracker.

HacDC is a Hacker Space. This is a place where people can come and pursue their interests in technology. The Hacker Space provides the tools, people and equipment you may need to for any sort of hobby or work related project. It’s also a community space, so you don’t have to be a member to use the facilities!

By far my favorite part of HacDC was seeing the 3D printer. Will was kind enough to give us a demonstration by making “the world’s smallest violin” for Emma. It was a blast and we are hoping to do another trip up to HacDC in the fall. Pictures and Video are posted below:

– Adam McCormack

Originally posted on April 23, 2011

So I went to the first movie night yesterday, and I must admit it was actually a great time watching both movies. I did show up a little bit late, but I was able to catch most of the NOVA movie, the next big thing. It was incredibly interesting to see how projects such as the synthetic designer microbes and pint-size robocars came to be, especially the stories about the engineers who designed them. The second movie, Primer, which I suspect most of the people at the event had already seen, was simply phenomenal despite its complex storyline. I had not seen the movie nor did I know what the movie was about, so it can to me as big surprise halfway through the movie when I realized, “Oh, it’s actually a science fiction movie.” Sorry if even that is a spoiler, but yeah it was slightly disappointing that the movie was not real because I thought the movie was one of those movies that depicts the story of two struggling engineers trying to come up with a real new device or machine and the how tough it is taking that invention to be sold to professional companies. Overall, I found the event fun and thoughtful, and it simply reiterates the need that there should be more events like this one within the engineering school. Program Board is always showing new release movies every week, but I would like to see more of these movies, especially the ones that can be related to engineering.  However, it may end up being that GW Tech Collective is the one to take on this role for filling in the gap as it could offer weekly or bi-weekly movie nights to be both social and educational to prospective members and anyone interested in applying their engineering knowledge productively. It was a great time, 13 people showed up, and hopefully we can serve some food next if permitted.

“You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? -They take ’em out back and shoot ’em.”

– Felipe Zambrano