First to establish my current and planned efforts in community growth:
- Established a meetup
- Established a Facebook presence and working on growing it through "organic" social methods and even modestly-funded campaigns
- Planning to reach out to area colleges, but need to figure out which members of the faculty to approach, and how (suspect guidance is out there for this)
- Planning to reach out to relevant municipal organizations: Technology Park, Economic Development, community recreation system, etc.
I'm comfortable with basic circuits, and I'm a professional programmer. I have built a handful of personal projects in the past with EL wire, sound, and I'm currently having a blast with NeoPixels. To elaborate on my electronics comfort level I'd say that I'm open to anything that requires soldering, but would prefer to avoid SMT and small tricky bits, but I do understand that several components that use tricky packages often have breakouts I could use. I wouldn't be comfortable right now building a voltage rectifier or an OpAmp, and I wouldn't know that I should use one unless a sketch called for it, in which case, no problem. I have several books on electronics that I'm reading when I'm not hacking or working on the community. I have lot's of components and materials including: a slew of sensors, resistors/caps/diodes, a few IC's (with sockets), switches, PCB's/headers/heat-shrink-tubing/etc. I'm also open to purchase what I don't already have, especially more LED's =)
So to summarize: Do you think this approach of using actual projects would be a wise use of the time that could be spent elsewhere to build up the make.br community? If so, I'd love to hear any ideas you have about projects, rest assured that beyond follow-ups to clarify the nature of your suggestions, you are not unwittingly offering yourself up as tech support for its implementation.
Cheers,
Rhett