May 26, 2018 – R part 2

10:00am
Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

Two views of Statistical Programming. The second in the series. R is a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics that is supported by the R Foundation

May 12, 2018 – Node-red and MicroPython esp8266 sensing

10:00am
Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

A Double-header:

Node-RED is a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways.

It provides a browser-based editor that makes it easy to wire together flows using the wide range of nodes in the palette that can be deployed to its runtime in a single-click.

Deid will connect his ESP8266 to nodeRed and show us how easy it is to put sensors online.

See the document here.

AND Mike will present MicroPython on the ESP8266. The presentation will share the Micropython breakthru that allows a $4 WiFi-enabled microprocessor to run a good portion of the Python standard library. It’s really quite amazing to have the Python REPL and filesystem built right into a microcontroller.

See this document here.

March 24, 2018 – Jupyter & Python

10:00am
Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

The Jupyter Notebook is an open-source web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and narrative text.

With the success of data science and big data analytics in the last decade, Python has emerged as a major language for data analytics. In 2014, Project Jupyter started as interactive, browser-based platform for data analysis and visualization in Python. Today, Jupyter is a widely adopted framework in industry and academia and has spawned many further applications. I will introduce the Jupyter Universe and discuss Jupyter’s advantages and its shortcomings. Together we will walk through a few of its various capabilities and extensions with Jupyter notebooks available at https://github.com/chritter/Talks/tree/master/VicPiMakers.

Finally I will discuss and demonstrate the rising star of the Jupyter project, Jupyter Lab.

Also, see notes here: http://vicpimakers.ca/tutorials/python-tutorial/the-jupyter-notebook/

Intro to Pi and Others – March 20, 2018

6:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

Intro to Pi & Others is a short monthly session to help get you up and running with your Pi or Other (embedded device). It is an unstructured hour-long session where you can ask questions, bring in your Pi or Other (and power supply), and get help with your project.

This month, learn the basics of GPIO and how to turn on/off a LED. We have extra green projects boards and LEDs to use. See you on March 20th!

LED Presentation

March 10, 2018 – Intro 1 to Statistical Computing using R & Python

10:00am
Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

Two views of Statistical Programming.  Python using Panda & PyNum libraries for statistical computing. And a following meeting,  (28 April) with R  a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics that is supported by the R FoundationTwo views of Statistical Programming.

See presentation pdf s here.

Intro to Pi and Others – 20 Feb 2018

Intro to Pi & Others is a short monthly session to help get you up and running with your Pi or Other (embedded device). It is an unstructured hour-long session where you can ask questions, bring in your Pi or Other (and power supply), and get help with your project.

This month, learn the basics of GPIO and how to turn on/off a LED. We have extra green projects boards and LEDs to use. See you on Tuesday.

LED Presentation

Feb 10, 2018 – Power Over Ethernet

9:30am
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

Discover the advantages of Power of Ethernet (PoE)! PoE is a technology that allows one to only run one cable to a distant device, just an ethernet cable. The distant device not only receives network connectivity, but also power from the single cable. This is good for small low power devices such as ESP8266 (embedded controller) boards.  Hosted by Mark G.  RSVP on Meetup here.

Here is a link to the presentation pdf.

What are two things that an Internet of Things (IoT) device
must have?

1. An avenue for communication.
2. Power.

There are a number of ways to satisfy both of these requirements
simultaneously.  Item one can be fulfilled with:

– Wireless ethernet;
– Wired ethernet;
– Another radio based data exchange (nRF24L01 transceivers, Bluetooth)
to a network attached controller;
– 2G/3G (and friends) cellular connections;

I’m sure there are others.

Power can be handled variously by:

– A device specific transformer using a wall plug;
– A battery or set of batteries;
– A solar power panel w/battery;
– A power over ethernet cable;

I’ll discuss the ins, outs, pros and cons of these needs
and their combinations.

 

 

Jan 13, 2018 – Python Webserver

10:30am

Personal IPv6/IPv4 Python Webserver

Why have a personal webserver? Easy distribution of files.

Why support IPv6 and IPv4? Not only is it cool, but it is very easy to do. IPv6 is the future of the internet, setting up a little personal webserver that supports both protocols will help you learn about the future.

 

Q-College
Suite 303, 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

View Presentation

Dec 9, 2017 – Esp8266 Over The Air Programming

9:30 AM

ESP8266 OTA (Over the Air) Updates with Arduino IDE.  OTA update is the process of loading a new firmware to ESP8266 module using WiFi connection rather than a serial communication. This type of functionality is extremely useful in case of no physical access to the ESP module.

This presentation, by Greg Lawrance, will include a hands on session for those who want to learn more. Please bring your PI, and preload the software referred to in the meetup announcement.

Presentation Notes

http://vicpimakers.ca/projects/esp8266-over-the-air-programming/

Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

Intro to Pi & Others #2 – Tues Nov 21

Tuesday, November 21, 2017
6:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC

Intro to Pi & Others is a short monthly session to help get you up and running with your Pi or Other (embedded device). It is an unstructured hour-long session where you can ask questions, bring in your Pi or Other (and power supply), and get help with your project.

We plan on holding these sessions once a month on a Tuesday night. If you are looking for a bit of help, this session is for you.

Oct 28, 2017 – Open Source Routers with OpenWrt/LEDE

9:30 AM

Q-College, Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC (map)

routerYou have seen Craig carrying around routers, but he has never shown you what is inside. In this session, Craig will show you the Open Source alternative to Router Software, which supports over 1000 router models. There is a good chance your router is supported by OpenWrt/LEDE.

https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start

https://lede-project.org/toh/start

OpenWrt/LEDE also have excellent IPv6 support. What could be better to prepare you for the future of the internet.

View Presentation

Oct 14, 2017 – Django – The ‘D’ is silent

14 October, Saturday, 9:30am

Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC (map)

djangoA high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design, Django takes care of much of the hassle of Web development so you can focus on writing Web apps without needing to reinvent the wheel.

Free, full-featured, and open source, Django is well documented, offering an attractive avenue for Python newbies and experienced Web developers to improve and apply Python programming skills.

This introductory presentation will show you how to set up a Django development environment as we explore the many ways you can set about learning Django.

Python Virtual Environment Presentation (part 1)

Sep 23, 2017 – ODROID

Saturday, 9:30am

Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC (map)

Introductiion to the ODROID, a ARM 64bit 1.5Ghz quad core single board computer!

The most advanced architecture for mobile devices and embedded 64-bit computing. Featuring 1.5Ghz cortex-A53 cores, high-performance 2Gbyte DDR3 SDRAM, Gigabit Ethernet and eMMC5.0 HS400

Also, Kali Linux, the Security Distro will be reviewed, and will demo some of the tools.