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Pizza Oven 1.1

oven2Our pizza oven was built as a bit of a hack over Christmas and New Year. After 5 months of operation, a bit of maintenance and a few minor mods were in order. A better flue, some re-jigging of insulation and foil and some re-pointing of bricks were done.

On Saturday 20th June, we fired it up for our regular open social event. It all worked as good as usual and everyone got fed! We had plenty of first time visitors to TOG too, who got the grand tour of the space. They’ve been keeping in touch with us on meetup and twitter. Pics of the maintenance here.

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Open Social Saturday

balloonsHey all, just a quick post to let you know about our regular Open Social tomorrow June 20th. The open social is a great way to see the space, hang out, and meet other members & visitors. If you’ve never been to the social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town. If you have some project or idea in mind, its a great opportunity to talk to other makers, hackers and do’ers. Or you can simply just hang out and chat 🙂

Hopefully, there’ll be all the usual madness of an open social. Weather permitting, there’ll be pizza. There may also be beer samples, courtesy of Capital Brewers at TOG. You might even get to pick some locks if our friendly lock pickers will show you some tricks. The space stays open until the last member is left…. usually the small hours of Sunday morning. The open social is free to attend. Our doors will be open from 7pm.

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Vintage Electronics 1

pcbETI Electronics, February 1978, IB Metal detector Mk2. This is the first in a series of ‘vintage’ electronics projects that we hope to build at TOG. We have the original magazine, so why not get building. There are some amazing projects in the electronics magazines from the 70’s and 80’s.

Update…. The build is in progress. Pics here.

We hope to be doing the PCB assembly for this project on 6th July, as this date is the 6th anniversary of TOG’s first electronics night. In the run up to 6th July, we’ll be preparing and gathering all the parts. As well as everything we need to do the electronics build, we have our workshop to do all the mechanical assembly and search head too.

We’re talking pure analog electronics here….. there won’t be an Arduino or line of code in sight 🙂 Although this project was first published in 1978, all of the components are still readily available. Come in if you’d like to see the build. Visitors are welcome and there’s no charge to attend. Even if you don’t know much about these kind of projects, you can still learn a lot by keeping in touch with the build. Should be great fun.

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Coolest Projects

YoungCoolestProjectAwardsworkshop1Coolest Projects is showcase of all the creative and wonderful things the Coder Dojo community makes. It takes place on the 13th of June in the RDS from 10:30 to 17:30. This year the event have ballooned in size to a massive 500 projects on display. It really goes to show much Coder Dojo movement is still growing. Tickets are free and available to anyone via their website here.

 

 

TOG will be at Coolest Projects running our famous ‘Learn to Solder’ workshop. We will be teaching kids of all ages some basics electronics and soldering skills. As always we will be using partfusion‘s ( Irish Maker) fabulous I can solder badge.

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Fixing TOG’s drill batteries

batteriesTOG’s drill batteries were on their last legs. We were barely getting a few minutes of use after a charge. Time for some new batteries. Two new batteries were almost the price of a new drill, so we looked at buying a brand new drill. There was nothing wrong with the old drill …. just that the batteries were bad.

After a bit of searching on the ‘net, a set of 12 new cells was on its way to TOG for just €15. The battery pack was opened up and the old cells removed. The new cells were fitted with the same layout. Lots of pics here. After reassembly, the battery charged fine and the drill is back in action. Just need to do the second battery now.

 

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Inspirefest 2015 – Family Fringe

Inspirefest is a two day technology conference taking place on 18th-19th of June in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. The conference has a strong focus on STEM and diversity. To go along with the conference, there is a host of fringe events taking place in Merrion Square. We are proud to be taking part in the Family Fringe event on 20th of June.

We have joined forces with Intel and Girls Hack Ireland to create Stop the Lights workshop. The workshop will give insights into the basics of using the Intel Galileo, an Arduino-compatible designed right here in Ireland. Participant’s will get their hands on LED’s, buttons and buzzers, to create a traffic light animation.

The workshop is open to all aged between 15 and 17 and is most suitable for participants who have some prior coding experience. Participants are not required to bring their own laptop or materials

  • Date: Saturday June 20th
  • Time: 10am
  • Location: Merrion Square, Dublin 2
  • Duration: 3 hours
  • Places available: 20.
  • Tickets: Free, but prebook.

Apart from our workshop we are also teaming up with Dublin Maker to give people a little taster session ahead of their July event. Dublin Maker is a family friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the maker movement. The taster session will also feature the Year of Light makers. 

We will be showing off projects created by our members. They will include the Egg Bot – draw your own images onto eggs, Skull Radio – listen to music without using your ears, Buzzer Game – classic game of keeping a steady hand and Constellation Quilt – stars, electronics both met on a quilt. 

The UN has declared 2015 the International Year of Light to highlight the central role of light has in the modern world from science and technology to nature and culture. The Year of Light makers will demonstrate how light is used in our everyday lives though lots of hands on experiments from making UV bracelets, lenses out of Jelly and LED badges. There will also be some optical illusions to show the different ways in which light works.