Author: tdr

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Trip West to 091labs

Last weekend members headed west to visit the new 091labs hackerspace in Galway. They moved into their space only four weeks ago. They’re making great progress growing their members and setting up their new space. They have a community night on Tuesdays and a projector night on Sundays. They have loads of ways to contact them, on their website 091labs.com, on boards.ie and there twitter feed. While in 091labs the TOG members helped out running two soldering workshops for the people of Galway in the space. The workshops were well received with all involved learning to solder to a reasonable  level. If your in Galway check them out, they’re a great group of people.

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TOG v2.0 – We are Moving

After nearly 6 months of searching for a new home we finally have found one. Our new space is located on Chancery Lane, Dublin 8. It’s a large Industrial unit. With a number of large rooms. At 196sq meters it is over 4 times the size of our current space with a much wider scope of possible activities.

The new space has a shared courtyard with one other tenant. We will have 3 private parking spaces and on street parking near by. There is also a Dublin bikes station close by and many bus routes. Some photos of the outside and the inside.

We are currently in the process of renovating the new space. When it’s finished we hope to have a full size kitchen, class room, library, server room, common room, science lab, arts and craft room, and workshop.

Over the next two weeks we will be cleaning it up and moving all our equipment from Arran Quay over to our new space. We hope to be open to the public again for the next hackathon. Until then all groups nights will be cancelled until we have finished the move.

Some photos of the work being done here.

In the near future, we will be making a call for equipment and furniture. So if you have any thing keep us in mind. As always if you would like to get involved don’t hesitate to contact us.

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3Dcamp

3Dcamp is a 3D themed barcamp which takes place this Saturday 29th of May in the Institute of Technology, Tallaght. 3Dcamp looks at all things 3D, from 3D modelling and mapping mashups to virtual worlds and augmented reality. Now in it’s 3rd year, 3Dcamp has grown to be a big event in the 3D design world.

The camp will kick off at 9am and will run to around 4pm. Entry is free , but all attendees are asked to register to keep track of numbers.

TOG's makerbot

There is a great line up of speakers for 3Dcamp. they will be giving talks on OpenStreetMap,3D iPhone Apps, VLAB , 3D printing and more. Also remember its a barcamp, so there are bound to be great ad-hoc talks and good discussions throughout the day.

TOG will be giving a talk on 3D printing and showcasing our Makerbot. If you would like to find out more about 3d printing come up to us on the day and we will be more than happy to talk about it.

Also MakeNight#4 is on tomorrow the 25th of May in Science Gallery. Its a great event not to be missed.

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Robot Challenge

Last weekend members of TOG headed off to Vienna, Austria for the Robot Challenge competition. This is the world’s biggest competition for self-made, autonomous, and mobile robots. There where over  600 robots from all over the world are registered for the competition.

A group of  eight left Ireland for the event, three from TOG and the rest from the Irish Robotics Club. With us we had 2 mini sumo and 3 line followers.

TOG enter a robot in the Linefollower category , named TOG BOT. There was stiff competition on the day. It turns out that the TOG BOT was very under powered. It was just too slow moving, coming in at 53rd out of 139. It was a great experience building the robot for all involved. We learned a great deal about robots. Hopeful we will be back next year with a better robot.

It was not all bad on the Irish front, robots from the Irish Robotics Club, did very well wining three rounds of the Mini Sumo competition and came 18th out of 139 in the Line follower. Congratulations to all involved.

For more photos check out our new gallery.http://gallery.tog.ie/v/2010_robotchallenge/

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Hackerspaces Talks

Over the past two weeks member’s of TOG have been giving talks on creating Hackerspaces around Ireland .

On the Saturday February 27th , members from TOG gave a talk to Skynet in University of Limerick.The talk was part of  day of talks orgained by Skynet and Ubuntu-ie.

On Wednesday 10th of March , a member gave a talk on Hackerspaces in general and TOG in Dublin City University. This talk was part of a week long series of events called techweek.

The notes from the UL talk are available  here.

The sides from the DCU talk are available here.

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St. Patrick’s day Hackathon

There is no better day for being Irish than the 17th of March ,  St. Patrick’s day. We at TOG in Dublin , Ireland , think the best way for us to celebrate the day is to host a special edition of the hackathon.

For this one day hackathon we looking for people to do any projects relating to Ireland, being Irish , have the colour green in them or a bit of Guinness.

Some of the stuff we will be up to. Designing/building a big LED shamrock. Painting everything green. Trying to catch some leprecons. And anything else we think of after a few Guinness.

So all other hackerspaces, join us and be Irish for a day.