From Alpha One Labs

Contents 1 Agenda 1.1 Attendance 1.2 New Member Initiation 1.3 Special Event 1.4 Lightning talks 1.5 Minutes

[edit] Agenda

[edit] Attendance

mikecap, psytek, Will (visitor), bitless, matt. mikecap ran the meeting.

[edit] New Member Initiation

No new members this week

[edit] Special Event

Hackathon happening this weekend

[edit] Lightning talks

There were no lightning talks today. If you'd like to give a lightning talk, add yourself here: http://alphaonelabs.com/wiki/index.php/Lightning_talks

[edit] Minutes

Achieving nonprofit status is a really high priority.

Right now, we are collecting membership dues of $560 / month. What other sources of income can we pursue for the space?

Selling kits

• RepRap parts give a $50 commission; Look into renting time on an injection molding machine, or coming up with a method for molding parts quickly. Does the demand for RepRap parts represent a sustainable market? Will we saturate it if we sell too much?
• Arduino: $30 / kit. Do we want to make a new type of kit? Is there a market need for a different kind of kit/board?

We considered using Kickstarter as a single point of coordination for all sources of income/fundraising.

Selling Merchandise

• Stickers (high profit margin; can we come up with funny/interesting ones that people will buy that also have our brand on them?)
• Lab coats with embroided A1 logo

Membership drive

• We feel that the space can contain 110 members maximum ($4400 / month dues), if we consider expansion into all areas (there is much more space to expand into)
• Referral commission possibility; easiest to build networks via friends and family. What is a reasonable commission? One free month?

Increase Awareness of the space

• Promote the space as a venue (Vermont's email for more details)
• Make pamphlets for events and specific audiences, target March Chiptune Madness Battle in two weeks, that should happen first
• Install a geocache at space? (haha)
• Sponsoring a conference at QuahogCon (when is QCon?)
• Huge presence at H.O.P.E. in June
• Maker Faire in Queens in September
• A1 throwies: logo on it - a glowing A1 with LED?

Create Tumblr/Blogger blog stream for random posting of junk -> DONE, http://alphaonelabs.tumblr.com/

Get a marketing intern to aid in guiding and promoting the space?

Contact Blipfest & The Tank - March Chiptune Fest - March 5th

Start Free RepRap class - sell the built parts -> DONE

Put up big calendars (Staples desk calendars) in the space that we can write in/view at a glance

Spring (quarterly) cleaning week: come up with a list of tasks, make it mandatory for members to take ownership of some tasks of their choice to work on improving the space.

• Putting tasks in pivotal tracker, start using it

Ideas for helping Haiti:

• Build and send solar powered mesh network devices? OLPC is already shipping XO laptops there?
• Build a cell network?
• Creating "spinning wheel" power generators: foot pedal with flywheel and coil that generates electricity
• wmacfarl@gmail.com (Will Macfarl) will help us contact Haiti lab at MIT that has existing relationships with Haiti