CodeChix @ShesGeeky & Home-Built Telescope Auction !

My first ShesGeeky unconference was in 2009 and I met some great engineers there and it was one of my inspirations for starting CodeChix.  Initially, a few contacts from attending that unconference attended the first few monthly CodeChix get-togethers at my house in 2009.

This year, Kelley Nielsen (@salticidsoft) pinged me about having CodeChix as a community sponsor for ShesGeeky.

So, I was happy to be able to contribute back to ShesGeeky this year and suggested that we have a CodeChix Speaker Track on Saturday.   I pinged a bunch of CodeChix and some of them were available and happy to sign up.

So, we had Akkana Peck, Melody Bliss, Kelley Nielsen, myself and Kimberly Spillman on the roster.  Topics ranged from 3d Printing using OpenSCAD, Building your own Reflector/Refractor Telescope, A brief overview of Software Security, The Gnome Outreach for Women and How to code Google Glass.

Each and every talk was well-attended and incited great discussions and Q&A.

And at the end of the day, Akkana donated two of her telescopes to CodeChix and we auctioned them off !!

Below is the Reflector on a Dobson mount that Akkana built from scratch.  I'm holding the Refractor which goes on the Equatorial mount (the tripod).   Both are awesome scopes !

 And a huge thanks to Kas Neteler for being our awesome auctioneer - we raised $200 towards funds to use for buying hardware as well as travel expenses to attend PyCon in April in Montreal.  Our proposal for a tutorial on PiDoorbell got accepted and six CodeChix members will be flying there to teach and be TA's for our tutorial !!