Following the Columbia MBA student visit on September 17, the NYC Raspberry Jam met at the Zahn Center that same afternoon to share ideas on building projects using microcontrollers by bringing together hobbyists and aspiring entrepreneurs.
The following post is by Max Austen, organizer of the event:
NYC Raspberry Jam is a meetup for people building projects with microcontrollers, small programmable chips such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Beaglebone.
I organize NYC Raspberry Jam meetups because I think that it’s hard to be creative in a vacuum, and sometimes we need a structure and audience to build our creations. So we meet, share knowledge, show off our projects, and talk about things we want to build.
The meetup members are very diverse. Some are beginners, just trying to learn the basics of microcontrollers. Others are experienced engineers who come with specific questions or wanting to show of their finished projects. For the latest event, we had about 20 people in attendance. I invited many college students, which I think worked out great. Even computer engineers, such as myself, benefit from hands-on tinkering with technology.
I was very happy when Zahn Center agreed to host us. There are some parallels between mission of Zahn Center, and what NYC Raspberry Jam is trying to accomplish – we want our members to succeed with technology projects. My commitment was to advertise the event among CCNY students. And many students did come, asked questions, and I think had a good time. I
Microcontrollers are not a new technology; however, recently, they became a lot more accessible – both cheaper and readily available. They allow you to build all sorts of simple and complex solutions, yet the learning curve is pretty manageable for those just starting to work with them.The increase in interest is part of the Maker phenomenon, which is sweeping the world. People far removed from the engineering world are putting together complex solutions which solve their problems. Some solutions are freely shared online on websites such as instructables.com, others grow into profitable businesses.
To learn more, visit:
NYC Raspberry Jam
http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Raspberry-Jam/
About Maker Culture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture