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!

 

 

 

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.




Galileo Girls

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We are teaming up with Intel, Coder Dojo Girls and Coder Dojo DCU to bring about a special event for the International Day of the Girl on October 11. A day long hackathon style to give an introduction to the Galileo board. The participants will learn basics of coding an embedded environment and get hand an experience with hardware. The second half of the day will focus on creating electronic fashion  wearable technology and funky robots.

For more information and booking visit the event page.

TOG Duck goes to EMFCamp

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TOG Duck is on migration this month to EMF Camp, a 3 day camping for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers. TOG Duck transport costs are being supported by the event shiny fund. Check out some of the other shiny projects too.  We are making a host of changes to our duck from its last outing at Dublin Maker. We are adding lights , quacks, position logging  and remote control. If you can’t find us roaming the campsite we can be found at our village.  Check out some photos of the build in the gallery.

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