Engineer’s Week: Bridge Building Competition

 

EngineersWeekLogo2014-medium

We bring our annual bridge building competition back to the Science Gallery for Engineers Week.

This is a family-friendly competition that puts teams against one another to build the strongest bridge. Engineering theory and building materials will be provided to help you during construction.  Last year’s winning  team from Canada, created a bridge that held over 20kg’s.  Some photos of the event can be found in our gallery

A secret prize will be up for grabs for the winners. The competition will have a half an hour of short talks, an hour and a half building and half an hour of judging.

Date: Saturday 8th February

Time: 14.00 – 16.30

Location: Science Gallery

Cost: Free

Sign Up: send an email to events2014@tog.ie

 

We are now booked out. Please keep an eye out for our night of engineering talks or check out  other Engineer’s Week events.

Continue reading “Engineer’s Week: Bridge Building Competition”

Workshop: Intro to LilyPad (aka twinkly LEDs edition)

Protosnap LilyPad Arduino Board
Protosnap LilyPad Arduino Board

Once more into the workshops dear friends! This first workshop will focus on getting used to the LilyPad microcontroller, and getting started programming some LEDs.
(The second workshop will focus on reading data in from sensors. A third workshop will be added if requested. Book your place on them as the posts go up.)

Content;
The first workshop is for complete beginners; an introduction to the LilyPad system, from what the different parts of the board do, to some basic coding, and turning on/off some lights. The only thing you’ll need to bring with you is a laptop with USB port, everything else is provided. (If you want to bring your own LilyPad components that’s great, just let us know when you’re booking and we’ll make sure you have everything you’ll need.)

Important: please bring your own laptop with USB port. Closer to the event you will receive instructions on how to install the programming environment.

Optional materials; Any LilyPad board (preferably the Protosnap), with a handful LEDs, including an RGB LED, and a switch or two.
If you want to play with the LilyPad before buying, Protosnap boards can be provided for the duration of the workshop, but you’ll probably have to work in groups of at least two people.

When: Thursday, January 30th. From 7pm until 10pm.

Where: TOG.

Cost: €10 for non-members, €5 for members. (All proceeds go to support TOG.)

Please register for this workshop through the contact form below the cut.
Fully booked. Please check back for a rerun of the course in a few weeks.

5th Birthday Party!

It’s been five years since a group of people came together to form Ireland’s first hackerspace in Dublin. It’s been a roller coaster ride for all of us, but here we are.

It would not be a birthday without a good party. So, we are having our Birthday Party in TOG on Saturday 25th from 8pm onwards. All (members, non-members, general public, ducks) of you are welcome to join us.

Are you a long term member? Come along and remininsce!
Are you a new member? Come along see a TOG Birthday Bash!
Been to TOG a few times? Come along and party with us!
Never been to TOG, but interested? Come along, find out about us, and have a good time!

The TOG AGM will be held that evening 6pm to 8pm, which is only open to TOG members. BYOB. No charge. ROAR.

February Book Club

The next meeting of the TOG Book Club is Friday 28th February 2014, and we’ll be reading Rainbows End by Vernon Vinge.

Rainbows End is a 2006 science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge. It was awarded the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The book is set in San Diego, California, in 2025, in a variation of the fictional world Vinge explored in his 2002 Hugo-winning novella “Fast Times at Fairmont High” and 2004’s “Synthetic Serendipity”. Vinge has tentative plans for a sequel, picking up some of the loose threads left at the end of the novel.

The many technological advances depicted in the novel suggest that the world is undergoing ever-increasing change, perhaps destined for a technological singularity, a recurring subject in Vinge’s writing (both fiction and non-fiction).

Big thanks to everyone who came to our January Book Club and read Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.

All are welcome to come and chat about the book (members & non-members).

Big Data applied to Intermedia Art

Big Data applied to Intermedia Art : Pierre Jolivet / Pacific 231

P231 @ Blackbox

 

TOG Hackerspace and Exchange Dublin are proud to host a talk by French artist / composer Pierre Jolivet on Big Data and Intermedia Art. The event forms part of a week long series of events and a gallery show celebrating our 5th birthday.

“Big Data and complex visualisations are now ever present as a means of representation and semiotic simplification. Artists, with the development of specific languages like Processing, are starting to generate a new revolution where creativity transcends data. This short presentation is an attempt to expose the potential of tapping in our environment and / or our inner self – revealing a new form of Intermedia Art*.”

Russia

Date: Friday 24th January – 8pm

Where: Exchange Dublin

Tickets: No booking required, free entry.

* Intermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting and theatre could be described as intermedia. [Wikipedia]

Oдeca2

 

Bio: Pacific 231 is the moniker of French artist Pierre Jolivet, who is now living in Ireland. He has been composing music for a long time, which is proved by the huge number of releases and also by the wide, ever-changing and evolving range of sub-
genres that are the results of his work. He found the roots of his early works in noise and industrial bases. One could say that Pacific 231 has never left a certain inspiration in noise structures. A few years ago, he began to make more and more experiments with sound samples of various kinds. Discovering the magic of abstract arrangements and sound collages led him also to co-operate with other artists. His discography has got more than eight split or collaboration albums with such artists as Lieutenant Caramel, Vox Populi! and Rapoon.