Electric Picnic 2016

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Electric Picnic marks the end of the Irish summer. Some say its too late and summer is already over by the time it happens due to the amount of rain that typically lands on the festival. We were invited by the Science Gallery to run two different workshops over the course of the festival.  We ran a locking picking session and a field test of the conductivity of liquids.

Over the two days festival goers were entertain by being handcuffed to each other and left to pick their way out  and with the kids being amazed to find out distilled water does not conduct electricity. Check out our gallery for the full photo set.

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Pew! Pew! 5 things you need to know to start laser cutting

Our own Jeffrey Roe talked to Silicon Republic all about laser cutters. Read an extract of the story below.

 

Ever dreamed of running your very own laser cutter? Here are five tips to get you started cutting shapes into everyday items like wood or paper.

Laser cutting – sometimes called etching or engraving – is not only one of the coolest ways of bringing a design to life but also, by far, the most accurate.

While it might be easy to design and cut out a small sign by hand, a laser cutter can do so much more, such as the kind of multi-layered lettering and design that even a skilled artist would struggle to execute.

 

With so many possibilities, you might be wondering: how does the average person get involved in laser cutting and, more importantly, is it prohibitively expensive?

After all, when it comes to laser cutting, my first thoughts usually veer towards the famous scene in the James Bond film, Goldfinger, in which a giant laser gradually edges towards the groin of the British spy.

In reality, laser cutters are far less powerful – and a lot more realistic. Yet they still have enough power to burn through most thin wood, paper or plastic to create a design you need.

To get a look at one in action, Siliconrepublic.com popped down to the impressive Tog hackerspace in Dublin where its CEO, Jeffrey Roe, was on hand to take us through what you need to get started.

Read the full story on their website -> https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/laser-cutting-starter-guide

Continue reading “Pew! Pew! 5 things you need to know to start laser cutting”

Workshops at Electric Picnic

 

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It has been three years since we have taken our creations to Electric Picnic and showed festival goers what a hackerspace is. This year we are being hosted by our friends Science Gallery Dublin in the Mindfield area.

Over Saturday & Sunday will we be giving locking picking workshops and getting visitors to test the conductivity of liquids in a home made field test. There are a host of other hands on activities for the makers at heart. They all run from 12:00 – 14:40. For a full timetable visit the Science Gallery website.

Featured on Hackaday : Bone Conduction Skull Radio

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 from HackADay met up with some of our members at emf camp and did a nice write up on the Skull Radio.

BONE CONDUCTION SKULL RADIO

There are many ways to take an electrical audio signal and turn it into something you can hear. Moving coil speakers, plasma domes, electrostatic speakers, piezo horns, the list goes on. Last week at the Electromagnetic Field festival in the UK, we encountered another we hadn’t experienced directly before. Bite on a brass rod (sheathed in a drinking straw for hygiene), hear music.


The TOG Skull Radio demo box

This was Skull Radio, a bone conduction speaker courtesy of [Tdr], one of our friends fromTOG hackerspace in Dublin, and its simplicity hid a rather surprising performance. A small DC motor has its shaft connected to a piece of rod, and a small audio power amplifier drives the motor. Nothing is audible until you bite on the rod, and then you can hear the music. The bones of your skull are conducting it directly to your inner ear, without an airborne sound wave in sight.

Read the full story over on their website. https://hackaday.com/2016/08/17/bone-conduction-skull-radio/#comment-3139160

EMF Camp 2016

A bunch of us headed to an event last weekend called Electromagnetic Field in the UK. EMF is a 3 day camping festival held every two years with over a thousand people attending. The weekend is filled with talks, workshops and lots of crazy art installations.  We teamed up with other hackers from Ireland to form our own little village to have a place to call home for the weekend.  Our members kept themselves busy over the weekend by adding to the lineup with their own talks and workshops check out below.

 

Receiving live video from the Space station – Daniel Cussen

 

 

Bridge Building Competition – Jeffrey Roe & Christian Kortenhorst 

EMF had a full program of events to keep all the kids entertained. We ran our bridge building competition with the young hackers of EMF. Congratulations to the hope bridge on their win.

 

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Skull Radio Workshop – Jeffrey Roe

In the hack center, Jeffrey ran his popular bone conduction kit soldering workshop.

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Check out the rest of the things we got up to in our photo gallery or what we did with the cool EMF badge.