TTN Community meeting Monday 3rd September 2018
Venue: Ove Arup & Partners
Attendees:
- Tim Rivell
- Ben Atha
- Ant Turner
- Steve Jubb
- Roy Woodhead
- Stuart Grimshaw
Update on Numbers
9 Gateways.
29 People on the Mailing List.
25 Registered as contributors on the TTN Sheffield Community Page.
41 members of the #internetofthings channel on Sheffield Digital's Slack.
Updates on Gateways
Steve Jubb: the Hicks Building gateway should go up within a month.
Suggestion to invite the Wandisco guys to talk about the practical issues of setting up their gateway.
Sheffield Hallam went with Things Connected, which is now merging with the Things Network - how is this happening in practice? Can SHU's Things Connected gateway just be be reconfigured?
(Note: Deepayan has left - gone to Stirling. Dr Mark MarshallMark is now running IoT Shefffield out of / for the AWRC.)
Steve willing to host the SigFox gateway on the Hicks building as well.
Roy wants to be able to create applications, but the infrastructure isn’t in place yet - Hicks, Wandisco up and Hallam’s converted gateway will definitely help, but we need more.
Need to find out what the capabilities of the IDAQ/Ruckus access points are (Sheffield's Public WiFi), and whether they are TTN compatible. And if it provides low latency as well as one-way (TTN), which would be great.
Coverage
If we know where the coverage black spots are can we identify where the next ones need to go?
Steve J is putting RF survey equipment on and will be able to measure propagation across the city. End of October.
Someone asked whether George Taylor from Caudata had already done some propagation tests?
Update on the City Hack series
Last one is planned for mid-September.
They hacks would benefit from more structure - everyone does their own thing, but it’s not building the infrastructure first and then applications.
There are a couple of regulars (including an 11 year old lad who’s ‘red hot’, according to Roy).
By and large they are very well supported. Most people have no background, in tech or coding at all, and some don't even bring laptops.
Here are some lessons learned:
- There needs to be a better way for peopl to pass on tickets if they back out - there are only 10 places, so every place counts.
- We need more people who can sit down with the newbies - there are lots of people at square one.
- Could we perhaps get some sponsorship with Pimoroni? We need some way to get people some kit.
- The event held at Wandisco wasn’t as good, as there was no access to all the tools in the hackspace, e.g. soldering irons, etc.
If the series continues, Roy would like to do something slightly different - themed.
It should be ‘go in on Sunday morning, leave in the evening with a project’. Otherwise, it’s a good hobby - good fun - but it doesn’t achieve anything.
Could we perhaps partner with Kollider?
Connecting Manchester and Sheffield Networks.
Jon Cassidy contacted Roy to ask: Do we want to get a clear gateway chain over the Pennines from Manchester to Sheffield? Could we meet at the Dog & Partridge.
There are 2 aspects to this:
- Getting gateway infrastructure in place.
- Using public WiFi?
Is there interest from Transport for the North? Could the infrastructure be used to improve travel between Sheffield, Leeds & Manchester?
Getting more help with organising.
Roy needs to step away for a while as his wife has health issues, and Chris also has less spare time that previously. Are there any volunteers who could take on someorganising?
The following people have offered some time:
- Ian Ibbotson
- Simon Cookson
- Hamish Cunningham
- Ben Atha
- Steve Jubb
The tasks that need doing are:
- Monitor Slack channel.
- Monitor Community page.
- Monitor Twitter.
- Manage mailing list.
- Organise meetings.
- Draw up agendas.
- Write up Notes.
- Keep people informed.
AOB
Note that the UK TTN Conference takes place in Norwich on the 15th & 16th October.
