Hello to all you atoms out there!

Are you ready to get this laser going?!

You call that a response? It sounds like you’re in a ground state out there, and I’m going to need you at least two or three levels above that! That’s right, I’m going to need you to get excited tonight! Come, on let’s get this population inverted!

Hey, that’s better! It looks like some atoms in the back have a nice wavelength going – let’s all join in for a cascading effect!

If you’re digging this gain medium, let me see you get amplified!

Yeah, now you’re getting your photons in step!

Now, without further ado, please welcome to the stage, the reason you atoms are so excited to be here, the one, the only – Stimulated Emission!

Details

What: The Midsouth Makers are hosting a laser class and demonstration! The goal is to demystify lasers and how they operate. For the demonstration, we will be etching some aluminum business cards with your designs, which you will then be able to take home with you!

When: November 19^th at Noon

Where: The Space

Cost: $10 for Midsouth Makers Members, $20 for Non-Members. (The price covers both the business cards and the cost to run the laser)

What to Bring: Please bring a laptop on which you can design your business card. The cards themselves are 3.5” by 2”, and we ask that you try to come with your design ready to go, but open to changes if necessary.

Please sign-up on our events page if you wish to participate: http://www.midsouthmakers.org/events/

This Friday February 18th at Republic Coffee we’ll have members showing off their Arduino projects and answering questions about the Arduino platform. We’ve had a lot of interest in getting started with various Arduino boards so come learn more about the great things you can do with an open source platform.

What is an Arduino? Arduino is a physical computing platform and a software development environment for controlling various things like motors, sensors and even entire devices. The hardware and development environment are open source and there is a very large community of developers and hardware hackers out there working on projects. The hardware is also quite inexpensive. There are also “Getting Started” kits that are a package of items to help you hit the ground running with your Arduino.

Freemont Space - Shop (Image by Daniel Hess)

We’ve leased a space at 2203 Freemont Rd! We’ll be handing out keys to all paid members at the 12/17 Friday meeting at Republic Coffee. Google Maps: 2203 Freemont Rd. Memphis, TN 38114. If you are not yet a full member you can become one by paying dues for December. We’ll be discussing our initial move in plans at the meeting on Friday, we look forward to seeing you there.

The LAN party last Saturday was a great success, thanks to everyone that was involved in setup / clean up and a special thanks to our host, Jeff Leath and our very own Kevin Dunn for some really tasty chilli. Thanks to everyone that showed up even if you didn’t play, was great to see everyone.

The HAM Radio Technician License is the entry level licensing for Ham Radio operators to get their call sign and the ability to talk over the air. On August 13th (after an abbreviated regular meeting) we’re going to hold our very own study group to prepare to take the Technician’s License test. We won’t be administering a test, but we will be covering where and when you can take the test and we’ll be covering topics covered on the test. If you’re interested in learning about HAM radio please join us at 7pm in the Nolan Building at Christian Brothers University. There is no cost involved. (Donations are welcome)

Again I’m not sure exactly how many people have heard, but along with our invitation to Nashville, we’ve also been invited to check out Makers Local 256 in Huntsville, AL. Our current agenda is for us to leave at 7:30 AM on June 26th so that we can meetup with the guys in Huntsville around lunchtime on that Saturday. From there we’ll checkout the shop, stay the night, and come back again on Sunday morning. Since we will be making use of discounted hotel rooms, we will need a head count no less than two weeks in advance to know how many rooms to get. If we do not do it at least two weeks before hand, we may not be able to get the discount. So bottom line, if you haven’t said anything by the meeting on the 11th of June, then you’re not going to be able to join us. That being said, everyone is welcome to come that wants to. You just have to let us know in time. Feel free to send in an e-mail to the mailing list, or send in one to info@midsouthmakers.org and let us know.