Category: News

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Beefhack Success

Last weekend saw Ireland’s first food focused hackathon, Beefhack. The event sponsored by ABP Food Group, was about coming up will solutions for the Irish beef industry. The a prize fund was over €22,500,  it drew people from all over the county to participate. Over 100 people on Friday evening came together to form 13 diverse teams to build all sorts of different projects.  At the end of the weekend, 11 projects were completed and demoed to the public.

IMG_20150322_160355.jpgOur own Jeffrey Roe was on a team called “Track n Trace”. Their project was developing a smart tracker that monitors and collects data of beef produce while in transit. The tracker provides real time data and shipment info ensuring that there is full traceability of the product from field to fork. For more information about the project you can view this slides or photos.

We are delighted to see team “Track n Trace” came second in the competition winning €5,000.  This TOG’s second success in a hackathon this month after the Smart City’s event. For more coverage of the event and to find out about the other winners you can read the Intel round up or Silicon Republic.

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Spectral Forms

tumblr_inline_nleqv0IQzN1r1ofietumblr_inline_nleshmU6T21r1ofieOver the past few months, we have been working with brain waves. What started at Artek Circle hackathon last year has grown to be Spectral Forms. We have taken consumer-grade EEG wearables, and tried to see what is the potential and limits of these devices are. Available online and for only $50, it has opened up a whole new area to play with. These small devices claim to accurately detect and interpret the tiny electrical impulses our brains output. These impulses can be broadly categorised into four bands, representing four different ‘levels’ of thought.

We have created software programmes that takes in the brain data, then displays it in a number of different patterns. We also play back an audio representation back to the wearer via a bone conduction unit. You can hear a sample below.

 

Lab in the Gallery

We are now taking the project to the public to try out. From the 24th till the 29 March we will be in the Science Gallery as the Lab in the Gallery . We are hopping that people will drop into us and listen to their own thoughts for a while. During our time there, we hope to work more on the 3D printing of brain wave data and testing the accuracy of the sensors.

 Skull Radio Workshop

We are running our Skull Radio Workshop during our time in the Science Gallery where you get to make your very own bone conduction kit. For more information on the workshop and tickets visit here.

Spectral Forms forms was created by Sinead McDonald, Jeffrey Roe and Krzysztof Foltman with lots of help from TOG members.

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Global Urban Datafest – Smart Bins for Dublin!

Over the 7-8th March 2015, several members of Tog participated in and mentored at the Global Urban Datafest.

This was a globally synchronised hackathon with dozens of cities around the world hosting teams to solve urban problems with open-source hardware, software and data solutions.

Dublin saw many great teams participating — you can check out some of the projects here:

http://global.datafest.net/projects

The winning team was Bintel – retrofitting Dublin city’s street bins with sensors and wifi to help make our city smarter and safer.

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One of the members of the team was from Tog, and the others are now big hackerspace fans – they are using our space to build more prototypes for their products.

See the project page here for more info.

Overall it was a great weekend, and the kind of environment Tog thrives at.

We are looking forward to host and participate at many more events like this in 2015!

 

 

 

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Celebrate TOG’s sixth birthday (and last one at Chancery Lane)

party_bgTOG is six years old! We’ll be having cake to celebrate this Saturday 24th of January. It’ll also be our last birthday in Chancery Lane as the lease is up and we need to move. So, the details:

The Birthday Party
There’ll be cake! There’ll be friendly neighbourhood hackers! There’ll be good times! Did we mention cake? TOG will be open from 7.30pm till late on Saturday 24th of January. Just drop down and enjoy yourself. You don’t have to be a member and there’s no cost to attend, though we’d welcome donations for the move (see next section). If you want to bring any nibbles to share, that’d be great but not obligatory. Likewise, if you want beer, bring your own (you don’t have to share that). If you’ve not visited us yet, this is the perfect time to scope us out!

We Have to Move
TOG need to leave Chancery Lane by the end of April. We are currently looking for a new place to lease, so if you know of anything that we can’t find ourselves (we’re keeping a close eye on daft), suggest it to one of our members or send a note on the contact page. We want to stay in the city centre so it’s easy for everyone to get to the space, and we’d like to be able to have a few sub rooms so we can keep workshop gear separate from the sewing machines and nights of talks (similar to our current set up).
Once we find a place, we’re going to have some extra costs (deposits need to be paid upfront, vans and skips need to be rented), so if you’d have a few bob to spare, consider donating some €€’s to help us out through the paypal link below or by dropping in to the space. If you want to help us in the longer term, consider becoming a member and sharing the month to month running costs. We’ll have a laser-cut collection box at the birthday party, so if you want to donate lovely anonymous cash, we’re prepared for that too.
We’ll keep everyone posted on how things are going with finding a place and moving. Group nights will continue as normal in Chancery Lane until we’ve settled elsewhere.