[Bf-education] Weekly BF-Education News

[Groo (Jason van Gumster)]

Hi,

> Fweeb, If you'd like to give an Introduction of yourself, Please Do.

Hello!  I'm Fweeb, otherwise known as Groo.  I'm part of a small
animation and print design studio in Richmond, Virginia.  I recently
taught Blender at Red Hat High in Raleigh, North Carolina with two other
Blenderheads from the community (there's a BlenderNation article on
this if you haven't heard about it yet).  I was also the guy that did
the fluid simulation presentations on the exhibition floor at Siggraph
this year.  I'm also, as Jasonlan has pointed out, maintaining the
feature request list on the Wiki.  If you have a feature that you think
would benefit educators who teach Blender, please let me know.

So, um... yeah, that's me.

> How's your projects going?, 
> Any changes in Status?

I'm currently working on setting up two different kinds of Blender
training in my area.  The first is for professionals.  In my area,
there are a fairly large number of television production facilities.
Most of them are pretty small and only occasionally have a need for
3D.  The problem is that when they need it, it's often for something
small, but many of the local shops that do animation have prices that
are out of their production budget.  And since they don't have a
frequent need for it, they cannot justify the amount of money it would
cost for some of the commercial animation suites.  This is where
Blender can shine.  I aim to expose these professionals to Blender and
assist them in integrating it into their workflow.  We plan for a
series of workshops, but are starting with a simple day-long
introductory workshop.  As for status, we plan on having this workshop
in late September or early October.  We're in the process of nailing
down a venue.

The second project is training educators in Blender.  I've been
approached by some Art Education graduate students who are interested
in integrating Blender into their art and technology coursework.
Details on this are still hazy, but it looks to be quite promising.

> P.S. Remember to Update the Wiki.

It would be nice to have a section on the Wiki where active members
could post a few paragraphs on their current projects and update the
status on them.  I believe Hhec said he'd work on adding that during
the BFE meeting last week.  Any progress on this?

Take care.

  Fweeb