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From Dublin to Chemnitz: A Maker Exchange Through Vulca

In May, Jason Pettiaux and I had the chance to travel to Chemnitz in Germany as invited guests for Open European Lab Day at FabLab Chemnitz. Jason is a long-standing European maker and open source advocate, and was the other invited guest for the visit. The trip came about through the Vulca Network, which helps connect makers, hackerspaces, FabLabs and community workshops across Europe. It turned into much more than a single workshop, with visits to makerspaces, museums, research institutes, a radio club, and even a bit of hiking and amateur radio along the way.

It was a lovely reminder of how strong and varied the maker community is across Europe, and how much we can learn from visiting each other’s spaces.

Friday: Arriving in Chemnitz

I travelled over on Friday and met up with Jason and the local FabLab Chemnitz team. Maik Jähne and Babette Sperling were our main hosts for the trip and gave us a brilliant welcome. It was great to finally meet people in person after the usual run of emails, planning messages and travel arrangements. There is always something nice about arriving into a new city through a maker connection, as you immediately get a sense of the local community and the people who make things happen.

Chemnitz itself has a strong technical and industrial history, which made it a very fitting place for a weekend of making, workshops and community activity.

Saturday: Open European Lab Day at FabLab Chemnitz

Saturday was Open European Lab Day at FabLab Chemnitz, with lots of people coming through the space to see what was happening, meet the team and take part in hands-on activities.

I ran a workshop called Hidden Colors, where we built polarisation viewers and explored the colours hiding in everyday materials. Using layers of clear tape, plastics and polarising filters, participants could see patterns and colours appear that are normally invisible to the eye. It is a simple but very satisfying mix of science, making and “let’s try it and see what happens”.

The workshop started with a bit of the science behind polarisation, then moved into building the viewers from laser-cut parts. Once everything was glued together, we experimented with layers of tape to create different colours and patterns. The results were really beautiful, with some pieces looking almost like stained glass.

A big thank you to FabLab Chemnitz for hosting the workshop, to Maik and Babette for the warm welcome, and to the Stadtfabrikanten team for making the day happen.

Event details:
https://stadtfabrikanten.org/en/article/open-european-lab-day-fablab-chemnitz-09052026

Photos from FabLab Chemnitz:
https://www.tog.ie/gallery/nggallery/album/fablab-chemnitz

Saturday Evening: Museumsnacht and Chemnitz

After the FabLab day, we also got to explore a bit more of Chemnitz as part of the city’s Museumsnacht. We visited the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz, including a look at the natural history exhibits and some very impressive fossils.

It was a great way to round off the day: a makerspace full of hands-on activity, followed by a city-wide museum evening celebrating culture, history and science.

Photos from Chemnitz, Europatag and Museumsnacht:
https://www.tog.ie/gallery/nggallery/album/chemnitz-europatag-und-museumsnacht

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Craft Night is back

Starting Sunday, 31st May, Craft Night will return to Tog. From 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm every second Sunday, drop by and join in, whether you make the yarn itself (we love spinners!) or noodle about with e-textiles and blinky quilts.

If you haven’t been to Craft Night before, it’s mainly people working on portable crafts like yarn-based and textile projects, but feel free to bring your current WIP (Work In Progress). We’ll take over the common area with crafting and conversation.

We might even try to bring a group Craft Night project to Dublin Maker (it’s been a while!).

You’ll find the nights on our calendar, so you don’t need to remember which every other Sunday it is. Newcomers to Tog are more than welcome to join us.

See you there!

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Tog at Bord Bia Bloom: Talking Repair, Reuse and Circular Communities

This June Bank Holiday weekend, Tog Hackerspace will be heading to Bord Bia Bloom in the Phoenix Park.

Bloom is always a lovely mix of gardens, food, flowers, sustainability, and community ideas. This year, we are delighted to be taking part in the conversation around circular communities in Ireland.

Our own Jeffrey Roe will be joining Eibhlin Fitzpatrick of Circular.ie and other familiar faces from Ireland’s circular economy and community space for a panel discussion on the Sustainable Living Stage.

The panel takes place at:

12:45pm
Monday 1st June
Sustainable Living Stage
Bord Bia Bloom, Phoenix Park, Dublin

At Tog, we spend a lot of time thinking about how people can learn practical skills, share tools, repair broken things, and keep useful items in circulation for longer. From our regular Repair Cafés to electronics nights, workshops, and community projects, we see first-hand how much can happen when people have access to a friendly space, a bit of knowledge, and someone willing to say, “Let’s have a look inside.”

Circular communities are not just about recycling at the end of an item’s life. They are about building local confidence, sharing skills, reducing waste, and helping people feel that they can understand, maintain, and repair the things around them.

We are looking forward to bringing a little bit of the hackerspace spirit to Bloom, among the gardens, flowers, and sustainability conversations.

If you are visiting Bloom on the June Bank Holiday Monday, do drop by the Sustainable Living Stage and say hello. We will probably be talking about fixing things, hackerspaces, and why we all seem to own far too many mystery cables.

You can find out more about sustainability at Bloom here:
https://www.bordbiabloom.com/sustainability-at-bloom/

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Heading to Belfast: Tog Visits Farset Labs and Reuse & Repair Week

We’re packing up and heading north on May 30th for the next part of our All Island Maker Mobility project.

This time, a big group from Tog will be travelling to Farset Labs in Belfast for a full day of making, sharing, and community connection. We’re really looking forward to the visit and to spending more time with our friends in Farset as this project gets underway.

Our hosts will be giving us a tour of the space, along with an overview of how they run Farset Labs and how their community works day to day. It will be a great chance to learn from each other, swap ideas, and see how another makerspace tackles the joys and challenges of running a shared creative space. We’ll also be sitting down together for a community dinner, which should be a lovely way to keep the conversations going.

To round out the visit, there’ll also be a Clay Printing Workshop, adding a hands-on creative element to the day. Between the tour, the chat, the workshop, and the food, it promises to be a packed and enjoyable visit.

To make the most of our trip to Belfast, we’ll also be taking part in Reuse & Repair Week. As part of that, some of us will be rolling up our sleeves and helping out at a Pop Up Repair Cafe in Belfast Grand Central Station. The event is a chance for people to bring along broken items and get help fixing them, while also meeting local repairers and learning a bit more about repair culture in action.

We’re really looking forward to meeting the Belfast repair community, lending a hand, and being part of such a positive public event. Repair Cafés are always a great way to connect with people, share practical skills, and keep useful items in use for longer, so it feels like a very natural fit for Tog.

If you’re curious about the Repair Café side of the trip, you can find out more about the Pop Up Repair Cafe Belfast Grand Central Station here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pop-up-repair-cafe-belfast-grand-central-station-tickets-1988476991209?aff=oddtdtcreator

You can also read more about Reuse & Repair Week here:
https://crni.ie/news/reuse-and-repair-week-saturday-30-may-to-saturday-6-june-2026/

This visit is part of our All Island Maker Mobility project, which is helping build stronger links between maker communities across the island through shared visits, workshops, and public activities.

This project is made possible with support from the Shared Island Civic Society Fund through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We’re very grateful for that support, which is helping Tog Hackerspace and Farset Labs build stronger links through making, shared learning, repair, and community collaboration across the island.

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Tog Hackerspace at Security BSides Dublin 2026

We’re delighted to say that Tog Hackerspace is once again a Community Sponsor of Security BSides Dublin, taking place on Saturday, 23rd May 2026, in Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin.

Security BSides Dublin is a community-driven information security conference, bringing together security professionals, researchers, students, hobbyists, and the generally curious for a day of talks, demos, workshops, and great conversations.

It is very much our kind of event: people sharing knowledge, learning by doing, and occasionally asking, “I wonder how that works?”

As part of this year’s event, TOG will be bringing along a lockpicking challenge and a selection of projects from the hackerspace. Drop by our table, have a go, and chat with TOG members about what we get up to.

Lockpicking is a fun hands-on way to explore physical security. It gives a better understanding of how locks work, why good security needs layers, and why curiosity is often the best starting point for learning something new.

We’ll also be showing off some projects from Tog Hackerspace and chatting about the many things that happen in the space, from electronics, radio, 3D printing and laser cutting, to repair cafés, coding, workshops, and all sorts of hardware hacking.

A big thank you to the BSides Dublin team for inviting us back and for putting together another great community event.

Come say hello on the day. We’d love to meet you.

For more information, visit:
https://www.bsidesdub.ie/

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Amateur Radio & Connected Tech at Dublin Tech Week 2026

South Dublin Radio Club, in collaboration with TOG Hackerspace, will be taking part in Dublin Tech Week 2026 with a free, family-friendly drop-in event at Ballyroan Library.

Amateur Radio & Connected Tech: Making the Invisible Visible will explore how radio and wireless technology connect people, devices and even space.

The event takes place on Saturday, 23rd May 2026, from 12:00 to 16:00.

Visitors will be able to explore a range of short, hands-on demos throughout the day, including live radio spectrum displays, Morse code, digital radio modes, satellite signals, simple IoT workflows and more.

There will also be a beginner-friendly radio “fox hunt”, a fun direction-finding game where participants use radio signals to track down a hidden transmitter. It is a great way to learn how radio waves move through the world around us.

We will also be showing how modern amateur radio can be operated remotely, with a station in Dublin controlling radio equipment elsewhere over the internet. If conditions allow, we hope to make a live HF radio contact and speak with operators further afield.

No radio knowledge is needed, just curiosity. Drop in, ask questions, try a few demos and discover the invisible signals all around us.

You can find the event listed on the official Dublin Tech Week website here:
Making the Invisible Visible: Amateur Radio & Connected Tech

Event Details

What: Amateur Radio & Connected Tech: Making the Invisible Visible
When: Saturday, 23rd May 2026, 12:00 – 16:00
Where: Ballyroan Library, Orchardstown Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin, D14 VY33
Cost: Free
Booking: Drop-in event, all welcome

This event is hosted by South Dublin Radio Club EI2SDR in collaboration with TOG Hackerspace as part of Dublin Tech Week 2026, which runs from 22nd to 29th May.

Come along and see how amateur radio, connected devices and a bit of curiosity can make the invisible visible.