Category: Coding

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Introduction to programming, with Python

We are running a new class on learning how to program using Python, for complete beginners with no previous programming knowledge. The course will cover basic programming skills, which will also give you a better understanding of how computers work. At the end of the course you will know how to write simple programs, and you should have enough understanding of the basics to move on to either more complex programming tasks in Python or learn another language if you wish to. Python is the perfect first language because it is simple yet powerful, and extremely readable.

The course will begin on August 23rd and will run for 5 weeks every Monday from 7.00pm to 9.30pm. The cost will be €30 for non-members, and free for members.

Please note that this is a course for complete beginners. We are thinking of doing a Python crash course later on, for people already familiar with another programming language.

If you are interested in attending, or if you have any question about the course, feel free to post a comment or use the contact form — we’re happy to answer any query! You must sign up if you want to attend, as the space is limited to 7 people.

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TOG @ Epicenter 09

Barry at IrishDev.com has been kind enough to offer TOG a chance to show ourselves at the Irish Software Show Epicenter by offering us a stand so we can make people more informed about hackerspaces in Ireland. So between the 24th – 28th of August we will have a stand in the Hamilton Building in Trinity College (location), run by TOG members answering any question people may have about hackerspaces.

To coincide with this Rob have started on the first big project in the hackerspace and we are welcoming others to help. Given that we have a nice group of people within TOG interested in software and playing with LED’s he are starting to build a 8x8x32 LED cube (thats 2048 LED’s!!!!) that can programmed to display an interesting array of patterns and images. Software to make this structure do wonderful things will also be created in the future as a future show-case for the kind of things that can be done in hackerspaces.

We will also have Mousebots and a demo of the SpokePOV in action on the day. If you have any projects that you have completed, that show the type of thing us hackers like to do, get in contact as it would be great to show people the great things  that can be done in a hackerspace when we can put our minds to something.

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Group nights proving very popular.

At TOG we have been running group nights for a few weeks now.  Micro-controllers on Monday’s and Coding on Wednesday’s. We  have had up to 13 people at these nights this week.  It has been a great mix of members and non-members, creating a great  environment. These nights will continue and we hope to see new and old faces again.

As always non-members are allowed to come along , just contact us before hand using the contact form.

At this point I would like to ask, does any one have any ideas for other group nights ? What would you like to see? Please post a comment.

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Canonical Visit

Yesterday was Microcontroller Monday and we had some visitors from Canonical pay our space a visit last night. Canonical are having their development meeting in Dublin this week and after a busy day of work, they popped in to have a look around and a chat. We also may have given a few of our visitors the hackerspace bug and we may have a new hackerspace in China some time soon. 🙂

Busy at TOG
Busy at TOG

Among our visitors we had Steve Conklin (sconklin to those of you in the interweb) who is a member of the Antitronics Hackerspace in Huntsville, Alabama and Hugh Blemings who, lucky for us, likes too play with arduinos and is in the process of co-authoring a book Practical Arduino: Cool Projects for Open Source Hardware. I can’t wait to read it when its finished.

Steve was good enough to post his pictures on his flickr which can be found here.

Antitronics

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Coding Wednesdays 7pm

Calling all web-monkeys and code-monkeys.

On Wednesdays I will be inviting anyone that wishes to be in an environment that is friendly to a coder to come along and make some progress or a start on a project of your choice.

We all have ideas and great intentions to work on some code whether its PHP, JAVA, C or one of the many programing languages that are known within TOG, but at home there can be alot of distractions. I want to provide a time where fellow programmers can come to the space and get some work done. With the added bonus of having other programmers around, you have the option to bounce ideas off a fellow coder.

Or maybe you’d like to learn a programming language and have been wondering how to go about it. We have a tonne of books in our library, so grab your laptop, grab a book and get going. I’d be happy to help you get started, as I’m sure others there on the night will also. Any questions, contact me directly.

So put it in your diaries, and see you Wednesday at 7pm

*EDIT* If you are not a member you are welcome to come to the night, I just ask you email me to let me know so I can keep track of numbers (contact form in full post)

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