Can I still call things monthnotes if they run mid-month to mid-month? It should be less of a problem now, but we'll get to that. It's been a pretty full month, but each week there hasn't been a stand-out bit of work or progress that has felt like something to hang the weeknotes off.
Looking back through the issue lists now (I have a very similar approach to work as Simon Willison, and he's written up the process nicely), I see that's not the case. Note to self: trust in the process and just write the weeknotes.
The lecture to the Connected Evnironments MSc students at the UCL Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis seemed to go well. The questions during the talk took us onto a whole range of side topics, and it was nice to be able to include co-operatives and communities in addition to the usual accelerators and VCs on the business-model side.
Other work this month has seen lots of poring over datasheets and trawling online electronics retailers for possible chips.
I've been investigating potential NB-IoT and LTE-M communication modules for one customer. That's resulted in a short-list of possible options, so we're getting some dev boards to try out. Then we can see how easy they are to get up and running, and find out if they'll talk to the NB-IoT and LTE-M networks both here and in the US.
And for another customer project I've been looking into battery charger options. It's for some work I'm doing for artist Laura Pullig, and we want the option for either solar or wind power for some small circuits. It's building on some of her earlier work. We've got a likely candidate charger chip identified, so next step is to deisgn a circuit for it and get a couple of PCBs made to see how it performs.
The new production batch at Museum in a Box is going well. That meant I needed to get to grips with the newest laser-cutter at DoES Liverpool and spend a morning cutting out the custom cardboard inserts to go into the packing boxes.
Finally, there's been some good progress on the making-MCQN-more-than-just-me-again front.
The search for someone to handle the sales/marketing/storytelling/admin side of the business is ongoing. We haven't hired anyone yet, but there's now a job spec for the role and we're starting to arrange interviews. If you know of anyone who fits the bill, send them our way!
One of the important tasks that Arthur and I had identified before he left was the need to get more of the under-development products finished and on sale. To help with that I've enlisted the help of STEAM Engineers. They'll be helping out a couple-of-days-a-week around their work delivering techie, makery workshops.
It's nice to have someone working alongside me again, and not just because it means I'll have someone else to help write the weeknotes...