March 2008 Minutes (Project Arcade)

We had a good turnout for the March technical meeting. Pi day was celebrated with pie and cookies (thanks Brian H!). PCIG elections were as highly contested as ours, they almost couldn't twist arms hard enough to get one nominee per office.

Then it on to the main event, Tim and Jon presenting on Project Arcade. Slides are available here, and the book review is here. There was also a hands-on component, as Tim had brought in his completed coffee table style arcade and Jon had brought in his mockup box.

Items discussed after the presentation:

-The new games email list was advertised to the PCIGers present.

-Upcoming events
-March lunch is next week. Also, if anyone downtown can help keep an eye on restaurant openings and seating possibilities, that would be appreciated.
-April technical meeting - Tuesday April 8th - One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) by Jose de Leon
-April social - requests are solicited
-May technical meeting - Thursday May 8th - Studio Academy's robotics league, jointly with PCIG; field trip to their location. Very cool video URL will be sent out at some point in the future to whet your appetite. Also, the current plan to use some K-LUG and PCIG funds to purchase pizza and pop, so RSVPs will be requested.
-May social - hopefully by this point we'll be able to play outside on a regular basis. If you have ideas for easily organized outside activities besides frisbee golf, hable! (hable=speak up)
-We do not have any speakers scheduled for June or later months. Volunteers are requested. Willing to present but need topic ideas? See this page for topics people have requested.

-Brian H is interested in doing a server project as a group, using hardware he plans to obtain from NORLUG. More from him as he gets things going.

-The discussed idea of giving speakers some sort of incentive was finally put to a vote, and it passed. We will now try to do ~$30 gift certificates to a place such as Amazon, NewEgg, etc for our presenters. Exactly how the incentive will work when doing a joint meeting with PCIG will get worked out. When we need to raise additional funds, I nominate Brian H. to be in charge of the bake sale subcommittee. Passing the hat will probably need to start occurring at some point.

-Steve F is interested in doing more hardware projects (Make-type, etc). Interest levels, project ideas, and project leading volunteers would be appreciated.

Tina