Central Georgia IEEE Section 2009 Meeting History

Another November Meeting Our last meeting of the year was a preliminary design review of the Mercer IEEE Student Chapter Southeast Con 2010 Hardware (robot) Competition. The design review was on Thursday, November 12, 2009, in Mercer's Science and Engineering Building, SEB 110. The robot will be entered in the student competition at the IEEE Southeastern conference in North Carolina. Competition details are here.
Thanks go to Adam Wofford for providing guidance to the Mercer robot team and to Dr Donald Ekong, the faculty advisor.

November Meeting The Central Georgia Section toured the Channel 41 studios in downtown Macon on Thursday, November 5, 2009. Barry Stubbs, the chief engineer, showed the control system for Channel 41. The syndicated and local programming comes through this system which includes programs like Judge Judy, MyTV, local news, etc. The local time and national system time are synchronized so that local content (commercials) can be shown during national shows. Also located on the premises is a Direct TV receiver system that relays all the local broadcast channels via satellite to Colorado, where local programming is rebroadcast to Direct TV customers. Seven attended this station tour.
Dinner afterwards was at Acapulco, a Mexican restaurant, in downtown Macon.
Thanks go to Adam Wofford for setting up this meeting.

October MeetingOur October meeting was a visit to the Robins AFB Museum of Aviation. The Central Georgia Section hosted a meeting of the Georgia IEEE. The Central Georgia Section was joined by members from the Atlanta and the Savannah Sections for this mid-day Saturday lunch. We met at the museum on Saturday, the 17th of October. A Bar-B-Que lunch was provided and we asked for attendance repsonses by the 9th of October. Lunch was served at 11:30 AM. Touring the museum was free.
Thanks go to Curtis Lee for organizing this meeting. We are thinking of making it an annual event.



June Meeting The IEEE June meeting was at Acuity Brands (formerly Lithonia Lighting) in Cochran GA. Acuity is located on the Hawkinsville side of Cochran at 322 W. Dykes Street. Chief Engineer Greg Brown gave a presentation about the plant, a tour of this manufacturing facility, and joined us for dinner at the Steak House in Hawkinsville.. We met at the Cochran plant at 6:30 PM on Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Because of nature of this operation, Mr Brown asked that members who are employed by competitors not attend. Thanks go to Scott Barfield-McGinnis for setting up this meeting. We wish Scott success in his move to Atlanta.

April MeetingThe Executive Committee meeting was on Tuesday, April 21, 2009, in Macon. We discussed the organization and future meetings. We will have a meeting on robotic painting and a new data bus.


Another March Meeting The second March meeting was a presentation of the Mercer University Student Hardware Competition Team’s recycling robot for SouthEastCon 2009. The meeting was in Room 203 of the Mercer Engineering Building on Tuesday, March 31, 2009, at 6:30 PM. This was be a “dry run” of their CDR (constructive feedback welcomed), with a demonstration of the robot. Dinner was at a Locos. Here is the Channel 13 story.
Thanks to the Mercer Engineering students and Dr. Donald Ekong presenting their robot.
Thanks go to Adam Wofford for arranging the meeting.
March Meeting Our first March meeting was on Tuesday, March 24, 2009. This was our annual joint meeting with the local chapter of the Electronic Warfare society (known as the Old Crows, the local chapter is the Dixie Crows). IEEE members emailed or faxed their registration form toTracy Tillman, (478) 953-6800, Fax (478) 953-6808, or ttillman@merc-mercer.org
There was no charge for the IEEE to attend the vendor exhibits at the Robins Museum of Aviation. The Dixie Crows asked that we pre-register. The website is: https://www.dixiecrow.org/mcartfree/moreinfo.asp Go to the symposium Registration and Security Form for the registration form. Registration costs (including late fees) were zero.

IEEE Southeast Con The IEEE Southeastern conference was in Atlanta, March 6-8, 2009. Clif Menchew, Curtis Lee, Adam Wofford, Rick Noel, and Dan Bishop from the Central Georgia Section attended. IEEE SoutheastCon was a good event and we are fortunate to have it so close to our area. The Atlanta chapter and chairs Dr Bill Marshall, Mary Lynn Smith, and Amy Wilson put on an excellent conference. Forty-four schools participated in the robot hardware/software competition.

February 2009 Meeting
We started off the year with a briefing on Linux. John Mathieson spoke to our section next Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 6:30 PM at the Ball Aerospace conference room (on Osigian Drive in Warner Robins GA). Mr Mathieson spoke to our group about a year back on the topic of computer security.
Mr Mathieson's agenda was:
History of Linux (Where did it come from)
What Linux is, and isn't
Open Source Software concept, GPL and other license schemes
Distributions (Redhat/Fedora, Ubuntu, Live CD Versions "Puppy, Recovery Is Possible (RIP), KNOPPIX")
Applications: Samba, Apache, LAMP, Network connectivity/tools, rsync
Other Open Source programs (GIMP, Open Office, Firefox)
Who uses it, maintains, and contributes to it?
Here is John's presentation.
Thanks to Suraj Padmanbhan for setting up this meeting. And thanks to John for speaking to us a second time.

Future Meetings
Marco Reyes is working on a US Technology C-5 Depaint tour (most likely in the summer of 2009). The facility is located in south Macon. We have been delayed in the depaint tour due to the high volume of work the facility has taken on (good economic news for the company and middle Georgia area).
Suraj Padmanabhan is working on a Blue Bird bus factory tour.


Home