Category: Open evening

Posted on

Ealaín Solas: Build & Explore Polarised Light

Cancelled due to Jeffrey getting his arm in a cast. It will be back soon again.

Ever wondered what hidden colours and patterns are waiting inside ordinary transparent materials?

Join us at TOG Hackerspace on Sunday 12 July for Ealaín Solas: Build & Explore Polarised Light, a hands-on workshop where art, science and making come together.

Using simple materials, you will make your own polarised-light viewer and use it to explore tape, plastics, screens and other everyday objects in a completely new way. With the right combination of light and polarising film, these familiar materials can reveal bright colours, stress patterns and unexpected geometric designs.

During the workshop, you will:

  • Make a polarised-light viewer to take home
  • Explore colourful effects in transparent materials
  • Experiment with tape, plastics and other everyday objects
  • Learn a little about how polarised light works
  • Create your own light-based patterns and images

No previous experience is needed, and all tools and materials are provided. It is a relaxed, beginner-friendly workshop for anyone interested in light, colour, science, art or making.

Date: Sunday 12 July 2026
Time: 3:30 pm–6:00 pm
Cost: €20
Location: TOG Hackerspace, Unit 1B Motor City, Kylemore Road, Dublin 12

Places are limited, so booking is essential.

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/ealain-solas-build-explore-polarised-light-tickets-1992782032704?aff=oddtdtcreator

Stay for Craft Night

It is also Sunday Craft Night at TOG. The workshop will finish in plenty of time before Craft Night starts at 6:30 pm, so bring along a project or stay on afterwards for all sorts of crafting fun.

Posted on

Repair Club: Buttons & Patches Edition

Our new Repair Club series is back, and this time we are turning our attention to clothes.

After taking a look at lamp repair in our first session, the next Repair Club will focus on buttons, patches, and simple textile repairs. It is a practical evening for anyone who would like to make their clothes last a little longer, learn a useful skill, or finally tackle that missing button that has been sitting in a drawer for months.

Repair Club is a little different from a Repair Café. Rather than bringing along a whole range of broken things to be fixed, we take a deeper dive into one type of repair and learn about it together.

For this session, we will be getting hands-on with simple repairs for woven fabrics. We will practise sewing buttons back on by hand, adding patches by hand, and looking at when a machine-sewn patch might make more sense. We will also talk about visible versus invisible mending, and how a small repair can help keep a favourite item in use for years to come.

The focus will be on items such as shirts, trousers, jackets, cushions, toys, bags, and similar things. Stretchy fabrics such as socks and T-shirts are a different challenge, so they will have to wait for another day.

Please bring along one or two clean items that need a button replaced or a small hole patched. This will be a friendly, beginner-focused session, so no sewing experience is needed. If you are not sure whether your item is suitable, get in touch with us before the event.

The session will be led by TOG member Tríona.

Event Details

Date: Wednesday, 22 July 2026
Time: 7:30 pm–9:00 pm
Location: TOG Hackerspace
Cost: €7.50, with ticket income going as a donation to TOG

Book your place on Eventbrite

Come along, learn a few useful skills, and give a favourite item a better chance of staying out of the bin.

Posted on

Back to the Pixels: Retro Computing & Gaming Day 2026

Dust off your joystick skills, prepare for the glow of a proper CRT, and join us for an afternoon of old computers, consoles and games at TOG Hackerspace.

Our Retro Computing & Gaming Day is back on Saturday 11 July, bringing together a collection of machines that have survived several decades in exhibitors’ houses, attics, sheds and increasingly full spare rooms.

Expect a mix of computers and consoles from the 1970s through to the 2000s. There will be classic home computers, old consoles, games, controllers, demos, and plenty of odd bits of technology that have been kept alive long after their manufacturers expected.

We are hoping to have everything from ZX Spectrums and early home computers to consoles, Windows XP-era machines and, most importantly, plenty of CRTs.

What to expect

  • Retro computers and consoles from the 1970s to the 2000s
  • Games, demos and hands-on play
  • A chance to chat with fellow retro computing and gaming fans
  • Proper CRT screens, complete with their unmistakable glow and occasional hum
  • A relaxed random game tournament on the day

Many of the machines will be available to try out. Please ask the exhibitor before touching anything, as some of these machines are older than many of the people attending and can be a little temperamental.

Want to exhibit?

We would love to have more people showing off their retro computers, consoles, games, peripherals and strange old technology.

If you have something you would like to bring along, get in touch through our contact form. Let us know what you would like to show, roughly how much table space you need, and whether you have any particular power or display requirements.

Event details

Date: Saturday 11 July 2026
Time: 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Location: TOG Hackerspace
Cost: Free, with optional donations welcome

Book your free place on Eventbrite

Pizza, chats and LAN gaming afterwards

Once Retro Computing & Gaming Day wraps up, we will head straight into our TOG open social night.

We will fire up the wood-fired pizza oven, have a chat, and set up a Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament ’99 LAN party. Bring your own laptop if you would like to join in, as we do not have enough machines to lend out.

Come along for old hardware, strange peripherals, games from another era, pizza and some late-1990s multiplayer chaos.

Posted on

Monthly Makerfur Meet

Tog hackerspace is kicking off with a new monthly event that welcomes all furries into the space.

The event will kick off on the 4th of July and run on the first Saturday of every month from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

Are you a beginner fursuit maker who wants to learn the craft? Are you into electronics and want to figure out how to make your LED strips emit custom patterns? Or maybe you want to talk on the radio with your fluffy friends? No matter how big or small, fluffy or simple the project is, bring it in to us for a social, fluffy event for all cats, dogs, wolves, foxes, and even protogens or any other species known.

All you need to take part is an idea that you want to bring to life.

The furry maker night will run every first week of the month.

This is not a taught class, more like an informal working group of self-directed makers.

While you can bring your fursuit in, either to work on it as a project or for repairs, it is heavily discouraged to wear them inside the space. Accessories such as tails are also discouraged for safety reasons.

We are looking forward to seeing every fur in our space.

Posted on

Craft Night is back

Starting Sunday, 31st May, Craft Night will return to Tog. From 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm every second Sunday, drop by and join in, whether you make the yarn itself (we love spinners!) or noodle about with e-textiles and blinky quilts.

If you haven’t been to Craft Night before, it’s mainly people working on portable crafts like yarn-based and textile projects, but feel free to bring your current WIP (Work In Progress). We’ll take over the common area with crafting and conversation.

We might even try to bring a group Craft Night project to Dublin Maker (it’s been a while!).

You’ll find the nights on our calendar, so you don’t need to remember which every other Sunday it is. Newcomers to Tog are more than welcome to join us.

See you there!

Posted on

TouchDesigner Meetup Dublin @ TOG HACKERSPACE

We are hosting an open TouchDesigner meetup with demos, hands-on learning, and space to share work with others using the software. This is part of a series of monthly events in collaboration with @noid_lab typically on the last Wednesday each month in the space, so this month it’s 29th April, 7-10pm.

Tickets are free – but registration via Eventbrite is required to secure your place.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/touchdesigner-meetup-dublin-tickets-1987679859968

Workshops:

In this session we will be hosting two workshops. The first will be run by Pauric Freeman, the class will offer a deep dive into instancing in TouchDesigner, breaking down the core principles behind this technique and demonstrating how it can be used to create complex visuals. The session will also explore the integration of MediaPipe, showing how real-time gesture tracking can be used to control instanced systems.

Following this, Cailean will be working with.. nodes! but not in the traditional TouchDesigner sense. This small workshop will explore how the behaviour of nodes can be controlled through the Network Editor using Python scripts.

Format:

The session will run for around three hours in a relaxed, hands-on setting. With multiple rooms available at TOG Hackerspace, we can host beginner and advanced activities simultaneously, ensuring everyone gets the most out of the evening. The event will focus on learning, with a combination of scheduled short and long presentations/demonstrations. The last hour will take a more flattened and open approach, allowing the space for people to chat, share, learn, and explore TouchDesigner. Expect an informal, community-driven environment where the format adapts to participants. So if you would like to bring your laptop and learn the basics, share your projects, or connect with other using the software, this meetup offers a welcoming and supportive space to do so.

The event is also a great opportunity to meet other creative technologists and artists, and to continue building the growing TouchDesigner community in Ireland.

Contact us at noidlab.collective@gmail.com to share ideas for future sessions or to express interest in presenting your work.

A special thanks to TOG for allowing us to use the space for these events, and Derivative for supporting the project. The meetups are hosted each month by a group of artists and creative technologists:

https://www.tog.ie