IEEE is pleased to announce its second General Meeting of the semester, to be held on Wednesday October 28, from 6-8PM. Everyone is encouraged to come out and see what IEEE has been busy with, and what we still have left to offer this semester! Food and drinks will be provided.

After the General Meeting, everyone over the age of 19 is invited to join us for the bi-annual IEEE/HKN Barcrawl (however, you still need to be 21 years or older to drink). Sign-ups are open NOW. Either stop by the IEEE office and put your name on our form, or fill out our online sign-up form over on the right by October 21 to secure a shirt in your size. The barcrawl schedule will be:

• 9PM – 10PM: Legends
• 10PM – 11PM: Murphys
• 11PM – midnight: Clybourne
• midnight – 2AM: Brothers

Come on out for a night of fun with your fellow engineers.



IEEE also has two workshops to announce. To wrap up this semester, IEEE will be building snap-o-lanterns, as well as bringing back an old favorite, the speaker-building workshop.

The snap-o-lantern will be held on Halloween (October 31 for those who didn’t know). It is a very simple workshop, and you get to make a cool Halloween decoration, as well as polish your soldering skills and learn how servos work with microcontrollers. It is also a short workshop, and I do not expect people to need more than an hour to go from start to finish.

• Where: 241 Everitt Lab
• When: October 31, 11AM – 1PM
• Price: $10 for IEEE members, $15 for non-members, $1 for batteries
• Why: Show off your new Halloween decoration to all your friends.

And now, the return of an old favorite, the speaker-building workshop. We will be building the Dayton BR-1 speaker kit, provided by Parts-Express.com. This is an amazing set of bookshelf speakers, and a welcome addition to anyone’s home theater setup. Though their price is a mere $130 for IEEE members (and $160 for non-members), these speakers are readily compared against speakers that sell for over double the price of these Dayton BR-1’s, and this set still comes out on top. If you notice, this workshop will also recoup the entire cost of a 2009 IEEE membership in its member discount.
The workshop will be held November 14, from noon until 5PM. Some soldering skills are required. Amplifier not included. Sign-ups are online NOW, and will close on November 4, to allow for shipping times.

• Where: 241 Everitt Lab
• When: November 14, noon – 5PM
• Price: $130 for IEEE members, $160 for non-members
• Why: You get to build a great sounding set of speakers, and learn about speaker-building theory along the way.

written by Donald

The workshop is officially full, however, you should contact Don Ziems at dziems@ieee.org if you are still interested in this workshop.

IEEE Workshop’s third event has been chosen, an LED Cube workshop!

Everyone is invited to come and build a 3×3x3 LED Cube. What is an LED cube you ask? It is a set of 27 LEDs, arranged in a 3D mesh to form a cube shape. The cubes we will be making will be based off of this internet project: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/09/make_a_pocket_led_cube_we.html. Available colors will be blue and orange.

This event will be located in 241 Everitt on October 17 from 12:05PM until 3PM. Cost will be $10 for IEEE members, and $15 for non-IEEE members. Good soldering skills are highly recommended.

We will have a cool blinking pattern installed into the cube by default, but if you decide to change it, you will need a computer (operating system does not matter) with a serial port, or a USB to serial converter, as well as some C programming knowledge.

written by Donald

Hello everyone. Its now time for IEEE to host its second workshop of the semester. This time, we will be focusing on teaching attendees soldering skills. Anyone who attends will have their choice of two introductory soldering projects.

The first is an easy to construct european-style siren and LED flasher circuit. This one makes for a great introductory project, and comes complete with a soldering iron and solder for you to take home. We only have 10 of the siren kits, so I ask that you sign up on the side if you are interested.

The second project is a DIY logic probe. Where the siren is a fun circuit to build, the logic probe is extremely practical, being highly useful for debugging circuits in classes such as ECE 110 and ECE 385. The logic probe allows you to analyze in a very plain and obvious way what is currently happening in your circuit, without having to drag a full-sized multimeter or oscilloscope around with you. Soldering set not included, but can be bought separately. We have a surplus of logic probe kits, so no sign-up needed.

The workshop will be held in 241 Everitt on Saturday, October 3 from 12 noon until 3PM, though most attendees, even first time solderers, typically finish in under an hour and a half.

Costs for the workshop are:

• Siren Kit
• $10 for IEEE members
• $15 for non-members
• Logic Probe Kit
• $5 for IEEE members
• $10 for non-members
• $5 for soldering set
note: If you choose to, you may purchase both kits, but in the interest of keeping the workshop at a reasonable length, we ask that you only construct one during the workshop time, and save the other for practice at home.

written by Donald

When:9 PM Thursday September 24th
Where: 242 Everitt Lab
Interested in joining the team to design the robot for this year’s Jerry Sanders Design Competition? Come to the JSDC Informational Meeting this Thursday at 9 PM in the IEEE lab to know the details of the competition.

written by Greg

The second annual SPAC (Student Professional Awareness Conference) will be held this Saturday beginning at noon! Hear presentations from two professors as well as an IEEE-USA speaker. Prof. Lynford Goddard will be talking about his research in Optoelectronics, Prof. John Rogers will be talking about his research in Stretchable Electronics, and Daniel Biank (of IEEE-USA) will be talking about how to mix passions with work in his speech entitled “Balancing Work with Life.”

SPAC will be held in the Plym Auditorium of Temple Hoyne Buell Hall (room 0134), located near the Education Building.

Visit our website for more information and to register! http://ieee.ec.illinois.edu/spac09

written by Mike