Dave Shinsel will provide an overview of available depth sensors, and a deep-dive on Intel’s RealSense depth sensors, including a new sensor that adds visual SLAM capability. He will discuss how these sensors work in conjunction with Computer Vision technologies for various robotics applications, including object avoidance, person interaction, object recognition and localization, and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). Further the talk will cover how to access these capabilities via their ROS wrappers.

Dave Shinsel is the Lead Robotics Architect in Intel’s Perceptual Computing Group. He has an extensive background in all levels of robotics, with particular focus on vision and sensing technologies. Prior to this role, Dave was the Director of the Intel® RealSense SDK, created and led the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers, and led development of the graphics drivers for the Apple MacBook* Air. In his “spare time,” Dave has been building robots for fifteen years. He has received a "Backyard Genius Award" from Popular Mechanics magazine, won a number of robot competitions, and competed on TV in the Syfy Channel’s Robot Combat League, where he and his daughter (also an engineer at Intel) won the $100,000 grand prize with their 7 foot, 9 inches tall, fighting robot, "Crash." Dave is well known in the Maker community for his sophisticated 4 foot tall humanoid robot, Loki.

Topic

While Amazon introduced the serverless concept with Lambda, there are an ever growing number of solutions for running serverless-style apps on your own infrastructure.

This talk will define the fundamental properties of serverless architecture and cover a number of the DIY solutions available.

Presenter

Michael Schurter is a developer on the Nomad scheduler team at HashiCorp.

**Please RSVP on Eventbrite HERE**

Are you a woman with 25 or more years of experience working in technology? Do you want to build relationships with other women in tech who are still in there swinging? PDXWIT wants to foster a community for women like you.

Join us at the Ruby Receptionists office in Portland. The agenda is to help us further ground this new group in our third hosted meeting, organized by Jean Richardson.

PDXWIT is a community-based non-profit organization. Our purpose is to strengthen the Portland women in tech community by offering educational programs, partnerships, mentorships, resources, and opportunities. We are unifying a supportive environment for current and potential women in tech, all of whom are committed to helping each other. Our goal is to bring together and empower women in tech and to encourage others to pursue tech careers. This is our step towards reducing the gender imbalance in the industry and addressing the current negative effects of that imbalance on women.

Trans and non-binary people are always welcome at our events.

** Please RSVP on Eventbrite HERE **

Join us for happy hour at Urban Studio, sponsored by Lyft and in partnership with Tech Ladies!

As a woman-focused community, we’ve decided it is no longer enough for our support of other underrepresented groups to be implied. This month, we’ve decided it is time to focus on the interconnectedness of the various social categorizations and dedicate the theme of this event to “Intersectionality,” with a conversation starter of “What’s a recent book, writer or film that has changed your perspective?”

While the event is primarily intended for networking, we will have a short segment at 5:30 to share important announcements and showcase two women from Lyft!

Introduction to Lyft, including what they do and what job opportunities are available!

Lita Cho, Senior Software Engineer at Lyft, will talk to us about how intersectionality has been woven into the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts.

Janani Sundarrajan, Software Engineer at Lyft, will talk about Lyft’s progressive Gender Inclusion and Affirmation policy which was recently released.

During the event, we’ll have an Activity Table where people can get creative. This is a fantastic way to meet others if large groups are not your thing. If you have trouble finding it, look forMeg Aul, our Event Activities Director.

PDXWIT is a community-based non-profit organization. Our purpose is to strengthen the Portland women in tech community by offering educational programs, partnerships, mentorships, resources and opportunities. We are unifying a supportive environment for current and potential women in tech, all of whom are committed to helping each other. Our goal is to bring together and empower women in tech and to encourage others to pursue tech careers. This is our step towards reducing the gender imbalance in the industry and addressing the current negative effects of that imbalance on women.

Trans and non-binary people are always welcome at our events.

Raking Leaves in a Hurricane (Day in the LIfe of a Community Manager)

What does a technical community manager for a global tech company do?

If you've wondered what it's like, (and whether it's really as glamorous as it sounds), here's your chance to get the straight scoop from a community-building boss!

Bring your lunch and meet your fellow Portland community managers as we learn from Allison Krug, Technical Community Manager at AppNexus (https://www.appnexus.com/en), Headquartered in New York, AppNexus has 23 offices in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Speaker: Allison Krug

Hosted By: Clarissa Cooper, Lead Organizer

I'm a Pacific Northwest native and entrepreneur. I recently launched a community-based company to help women find clothes that fit and have more fun doing it (WeFitMe). I'm honored to get the CMX Series going in Portland and can't wait to meet professional community builders here!.

Twitter: @ryzhy (http://twitter.com/ryzhy) Susan Silver, Co-Lead Organizer @Susan_Silver (https://twitter.com/Susan_Silver)

Partner: NedSpace

15,000 square feet of great office space in the heart of downtown Portland for co-working, startups, entrepreneurs, freelancers, designers, and remote workers

What is CMX?

Advancing the community industry and helping community professionals thrive.

Amplified, an experience design and technology innovation studio in Portland focused on imagining the communities of the future, is launching a new series called “Placemaking in the Digital Age” to galvanize a community around this emerging design discipline. In this series, we will discuss how we can build meaningful places where digital and physical experiences complement each other, examine design processes and methodologies, and examine the nature of design teams that create these experiences.

Join us on Thursday, August 23 as we kick off this series. Gregg Sloan, Founder and Chief Creative Officer and Janani Vasudev, Director of Experience Design at Amplified will introduce the series with a talk about what placemaking is, as well as discuss their work in the area. The 45-minute talk will be followed by a Q&A, with plenty of time in the beginning and at the end to network. Complimentary refreshments will be provided.

This event has a seating limit of 30 people. Please don’t forget to RSVP to save a spot!

Every year, ChickTech gives 150 local girls the opportunity to attend a weekend long inspiring technology camp. Girls are nominated by their teachers, then surprised with acceptance packets that illuminate their potential. Join a group of ChickTech volunteers in stuffing acceptance packets! We will gather at the ChickTech office, eat light snacks, and chat while we work together to inspire the next generation of technologists. First-time volunteers and people of all genders are welcome!

Please meet at the building's enterance on SW 10th and Washington. A ChickTech representative will be there to greet you from 5:30-5:45. If you arrive late please call (949)[masked] to be let into the building.

In this talk, Tom Sommerville will discuss various materials available across a selection of 3D Printing technologies, their properties, and some of the considerations when selecting the materials for a task. He will also discuss the various printer technologies that are readily accessible (either consumer level printers, or through services such as Quickparts, ProtoLabs, and Shapeways, to name a few), suggesting pros and cons for each technology when applied to a typical project.

This isn't so bad right? This week we will be clarifying all material pertaining to sections 1.3 and 2.1. Bring your laptops and any questions you may have. This will be a debrief on debugging. We will use the white board and some code to review this process.

In addition we will begin to think about is how to style your code. PEP 8 is a style guide which you can read about in the link below. I will do a simple walk through on how to set up your computer to automatically detect if some code you write aligns with these guidelines so you can begin writing proper code from the very beginning.

A lot of times there is parking right in front of the building. If this is not the case I recommend trying 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Ave. There are usually spots down that way. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! There is also a lot right next door if you don't want to mess with street parking.

I look forward to seeing you all for our second review session!

PEP 8 Style Guide: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

This week the rubber hits the road! We will be reviewing the our first big problem set. Bring your laptops for this one folks. We will be doing white boarding as well as live coding to make sure everyone is feeling good about moving onto week 4. Time permitting I will also demonstrate how to create your own modules that you can import and use locally and/or share online for all to enjoy!

We will be meeting downtown at WeWork in Pioneer Place Mall. Let me know how you like this location and we can consider making this our permanent residence. Bring a photo ID and check in as my guest via the guest registration tablet at the front desk when you arrive.

I suggest looking for parking on 1st, 2nd, or 3rd or up near 4th and Main. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! If you wanna skip all that I would say park at the Smart Park on 4th.

As always feel free to message me on Slack or Meetup.com with any questions you may have. Until then happy coding!

Second to the last week folks! This week we will be reviewing Section 2.3: Logical Operators. As always bring your laptops to follow along with some live coding as we run through examples and problem sets.

It is the 1st Tuesday of the month which means we will be at Hillsdale Library to accommodate all of you west side folks. This one will start 15 minutes earlier than normal due to the fact that they kick us out promptly at 7:45pm.

Also I posted a poll so you guys can vote on whether you want to combine week 5 and the final or keep them separate. I will reveal the results at the Meetup!

As always feel free to message me on Slack or Meetup.com with any questions you may have. Until then happy coding!

Last week we voted to combine week 5 and the final into one week and therefore this will be an extended 2 hour session. We will be reviewing section 2.4: Mathematical Operators as well as tackling questions on the final. As usual you will need a laptop as we will be doing quite a bit of live coding and white boarding.

I am unsure whether the verified final and the free final are the same. I would think they would make them different so if you are verified and have particular questions please be sure to make a note of them as I am on the free track and may not have access to those.

The final is basically the same format as the problem sets: about half multiple choice and half coding problems. I encourage you all to complete it as if it were a real test even if you are not verified. You will pass either way and this can give you a great indication of what you need to work on.

A lot of times there is parking right in front of the building. If this is not the case I recommend trying 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Ave. There are usually spots down that way. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! There is also a lot right next door if you don't want to mess with street parking.

Please feel free to message me on Slack or Meetup with any questions you may have. I wish you all the best on the final and I will see you Tuesday. Until then happy coding!

* New to our group? Need to join our Slack channel? Looking for free resources? Check out our website @ www.pdxpythonpirates.org for all of that and more!

Join us for the final Meetup of 2018!

This week we will review the Exam to the Computing in Python I: Fundamentals and Procedural Programming course since there wasn't adequate time in the previous Meetup.

We will conclude the year with general discussion about Python, tools, and practical applications. In that spirit there will be a demo of Pandas, and, time permitting, Flask as well.

A lot of times there is parking right in front of the building. If this is not the case I recommend trying 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Ave. There are usually spots down that way. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! There is also a lot right next door if you don't want to mess with street parking.

Please feel free to message the group on Slack or Meetup with any questions you may have. We'll see you Tuesday. Until then happy coding!

* New to our group? Need to join our Slack channel? Looking for free resources? Check out our website: https://www.pdxpythonpirates.org for all of that and more!

Welcome in the new year with a look at designing marketing for education. Our speaker is Nick Smith, Sr. Manager of Marketing Strategy at Wacom. Previously at the Director of Marketing and Product Marketing at Learning.com, Nick has over ten years of experience working with education markets. His talk with tackle questions like:

•What are the different niche markets in education I should be aware of?
•How can I tailor my message and product to the education market?
•What do I do when my message isn’t reaching the right people in education?

Our host Wacom will also provide access to test out their interactive pen displays, pen tablets, and styluses so be prepared for some hands on exploration. As always, we love to meet new members so there will be networking and light refreshments courtesy of Wacom before the program begins at 6:30.

This week we dove head first into conditionals. This should feel like a natural progression from the logical operators we had been using before. We are going to try a new format this week where we will do a short recap followed by group collaboration where we will be doing select problems from the problem set. We will use these to drive our discussion of the weeks topics.

This means you do not have to kill yourself to complete the problem sets prior although I encourage you to do so. If you get stumped please feel free to suggest it as one of the problems you would like to go over during our session.

A lot of times there is parking right in front of the building. If this is not the case I recommend trying 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Ave. There are usually spots down that way. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! There is also a lot right next door if you don't want to mess with street parking.

As always feel free to message me or post on Slack if you have any questions. Hope to see you Tuesday!

* New to our group? Need to join our Slack channel? Looking for free resources? Check out our website @ www.pdxpythonpirates.org for all of that and more!

Join us for the first time ever in Bumped’s new office—it's so new in fact, that it’s still under construction—for drinks, snacks, and conversation about the startups that are building exciting momentum in PDX! No hard hat required.

Our panel of companies who are either new to the scene or fresh off a big round of funding include:

Sce Pike, CEO & Founder, IOTAS — $6.5M raised
Lance Charlish, CEO & Co-Founder, Circle Media Labs — $20M Series B
James McDermott, CEO & Co-Founder, Lytics — $35M Series C
David Nelsen, CEO & Co-Founder, Bumped — Launched in 2018, $19M Series A

Moderator TBD

Don’t miss the chance to hear directly from the folks that are poised to impact the local tech scene in a big way!

When: Tuesday April 2nd, 5:30-7:30pm
Where: Bumped HQ: 111 SW 5th Ave Suite 300
What:
5:30: Event opens
6:00-6:30pm: Panel
6:30-6:45pm: Q&A
6:45-7:30pm: Mix, mingle, and toast to PDX tech!

Have you wanted to try web development but are unsure about where to start or lacking motivation? Enter the Python Pirates! We are all about working through free classes together to help each other learn and grow into top notch programmers! This week kicks off an introduction to our next free class series. If you have thought about joining the Pyrates now is the time!

This session will be purely informational. There will be a discussion about what you can expect to learn from this series. All skill levels are welcome to join. Prior programming experience in Python will be helpful but any prior programming experience will do.

A lot of times there is parking right in front of the building. If this is not the case I recommend trying 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Ave. There are usually spots down that way. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! There is also a lot right next door if you don't want to mess with street parking.

As always feel free to message me or post on Slack if you have any questions. Hope to see you Tuesday!

* New to our group? Need to join our Slack channel? Looking for free resources? Check out our website @ www.pythonpirates.org for all of that and more!

Thanks to all who were able to make it out last Tuesday! It was great getting to chat with some of you about your backgrounds and what you are hoping to get from this course. We will do our best to make this as valuable as possible for all of you. No worries if you weren't here on the first day. This next session we will be continuing to get people setup with all of the materials needed to be successful in this course. Bring any technical questions you have and we will make sure that you are good to go.

We will also be beginning our dive into the wonderful world of Git. I know this can be a topic that is difficult for people to ramp up on so if you are struggling know that you are not alone. Ask questions on Slack. Bring your questions to the group. We are are here to help.

A lot of times there is parking right in front of the building. If this is not the case I recommend trying 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Ave. There are usually spots down that way. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! There is also a lot right next door if you don't want to mess with street parking.

As always feel free to message me or post on Slack if you have any questions. Hope to see you Tuesday!

* New to our group? Need to join our Slack channel? Looking for free resources? Check out our website @ www.pythonpirates.org for all of that and more!

Join us as we learn to use Python and Flask to add functionality and transform our websites into full web applications.

Until now we have focused on the web technologies required to build a static website. This week we take things up a notch and start applying that hard earned Python knowledge to build interactive and data-driven features.

A lot of times there is parking right in front of the building. If this is not the case I recommend trying 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Ave. There are usually spots down that way. Parking isn't free until after 7pm so don't forget to pay! There is also a lot right next door if you don't want to mess with street parking.

As always feel free to message me or post on Slack if you have any questions. Hope to see you Tuesday!

* New to our group? Need to join our Slack channel? Looking for free resources? Check out our website @ www.pythonpirates.org for all of that and more!