Tog Hackerspace – Page 89 – The Dublin Hackerspace

31/07/201502/11/2015

Vintage Electronics 2

Following the build of our 1978 Metal Detector, next up in our Vintage Electronics series will be a Digital Bicycle Speedometer. In the March 1977 issue of Popular Electronics, they published an article for a digital speedometer complete with red LED displays. This will be a build from the original magazine which we have in TOG.

You can get an LCD digital bike speedometer nowadays for as little as 5 euro. These multi function devices can do much more than speed. Back in 1977 however, this thing must have been space age….. red LED displays and all!

We think it will look suitably retro on a modern carbon fibre road bike 🙂 We will be building the speedometer over the next few weeks. Come in and join in the build, or keep in touch with the build online.

20/07/201520/07/2015

Dublin Maker Wind-down BBQ & en-Pizza-ing

Can’t you feel the excitement in the air?! Dublin Maker is on this Saturday! From bitter experience we know that all the Makers will be at Panic Stations this entire week. And as we here at TOG are a caring bunch, we’ll be holding our traditional post-Dublin-Maker BBQ (now with added pizza!) on Sunday, 26th July, from 2pm-5pm.

It will be a chance for the Makers to unwind in an understanding and supportive environment. But it’s not just an event for official Dublin Makers! Now is a great opportunity to finally take a look around TOG, or to get to know our members better. It’s a chance for anyone, and everyone, to chill out with some interesting people, who do interesting things, while filling their bellies. So come one, come all, satisfy your curiosity, and your appetites!

15/07/201512/07/2015

July Open Social

It’s the middle of the month, it’s Saturday and its 7PM. That can only mean one thing. It’s TOG Open Social again. This Open Social will see us just one week away from Dublin Maker. You’ll get to see a sneak preview of some of the things that we’ll be bringing to our stand.

Apart from that, it will be the usual relaxed hang out. It’s a great way to see the space and to meet other members & visitors. If you’ve never been to the social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town.

Hopefully there’ll be pizza, music and much more. The space stays open until the last member is left……usually the small hours of Sunday morning. The open social is free to attend for members and visitors alike. Our doors will be open from 7pm.

12/07/201513/07/2015

It’s Alive!

More progress with our vintage metal detector today. Fired up the oscillator section of the PCB and its working away at 126kHz…. very close to design frequency.

We’re going to continue to work on it, with the intention of having it ready for Dublin Maker in less than 2 weeks time. Pics of the ongoing build here.

06/07/201513/07/2015

Lasersaur, Android Netrunner & laser cut tokens…

In recent weeks, a few of our board game fanatics have met on Friday evenings in Tog. We have played some games, we laughed & decided to utilize laser cutter to make extra sturdy Acrylic tokens for a game called Androind: Netrunner. A good bit of graphical artwork was already online (thx for a great design) and after some manipulation it was ready to be cut. Other designs had to be done from scratch. So far we have designed & prototype cut all the regular size tokens. There is a plan to cut large size Credits Sets as well.

Android: Netrunner is an asymmetrical Living Card Game for two players. Set in the cyberpunk future of Android and Infiltration, the game pits a megacorporation and its massive resources against the subversive talents of lone runners.

Corporations seek to score agendas by advancing them. Doing so takes time and credits. To buy the time and earn the credits they need, they must secure their servers and data forts with “ice”. These security programs come in different varieties, from simple barriers, to code gates and aggressive sentries. They serve as the corporation’s virtual eyes, ears, and machine guns on the sprawling information superhighways of the network.

In turn, runners need to spend their time and credits acquiring a sufficient wealth of resources, purchasing the necessary hardware, and developing suitably powerful ice-breaker programs to hack past corporate security measures. Their jobs are always a little desperate, driven by tight timelines, and shrouded in mystery. When a runner jacks-in and starts a run at a corporate server, he risks having his best programs trashed or being caught by a trace program and left vulnerable to corporate countermeasures. It’s not uncommon for an unprepared runner to fail to bypass a nasty sentry and suffer massive brain damage as a result. Even if a runner gets through a data fort’s defenses, there’s no telling what it holds. Sometimes, the runner finds something of value. Sometimes, the best he can do is work to trash whatever the corporation was developing.

The first player to seven points wins the game, but likely not before he suffers some brain damage or bad publicity!

More about the game: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/android-netrunner-the-card-game/

Would you like to try to laser cut your own designs? Come along to our ongoing (every second Monday) CAD workshop in Tog. Looking forward to see you here – 6th of July 2015.

04/07/201506/07/2015

Dublin Maker 25th July

Dublin Maker is a one-day, hands-on, family-friendly, free, outdoor celebration of making on the Physics Lawn at Trinity College Dublin from 10am to 6pm on 25th of July. We are very proud to be a supporting group again this year . Dublin Maker takes the form of a ‘show and tell’ experience where makers demonstrate what they are making, and share what they are learning.

Makers range from tech enthusiasts to crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, artists, science clubs, students, authors, and commercial exhibitors. They are of all ages and backgrounds, coming from all over Ireland and beyond. Dublin Maker will feature over forty groups of makers from across the country. Check out the full list of makers.

Our Members will be showcasing some old and new projects;

Skull Radio – A bone conduction project that allows the user to listen to sounds without using their ears.
Duck shooting gallery – lasertag for ducks.
Ring The Bell – aka High Striker carnival style game were people can hit a pad with a big hammer and see their strength.
Tachyonic Antitelephone – receive mysterious printed messages from your future self Spectral forms: Watch and listen to your brain waves in real time, using an eeg device and some custom software.
TOG Lockpickers – Come and give lockpicking a try. Demonstrations of different locks throughout the day as well as hands on lockpicking tutorials from TOG’s very own lockpickers. Have your own lockpicks? Come and test your skills against TOG’s ever growing collection of Love Locks from Dublin’s own Ha’penny Bridge