MiLK: Made in Limerick, get new website

MiLK labs
The number of thriving hackerspaces in Ireland continues to grow, and we couldn’t be happier! The most recent development on this front comes from our friends in MiLK (an awesome name derived from Made in LimericK), who have a new shiny website, and are now meeting twice a month (every 2nd and 4th Tuesday). They currently meet in the Absolute Hotel while they find a suitable physical space to call their own. We wish you all the best of luck and look forward to hearing great things from you in the near future!

Science and Innovation, coming to a TOG near you!

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys, hackers of all genders, ages, and maturity levels. It’s nearly time for Science and Innovation!

Science Week runs from the 7th to the 14th of November.
Logo for Science Week

Innovation Dublin ‘Week’ runs from the 10th to the 21st of November.
Banner for Innovation Dublin

To celebrate, and participate in some of the fun, TOG will be running over ten events ranging from electronic crafts to making your own biofuel. We kick things off on Saturday, 6th Novemeber, with a Social Night, and keep going until Sunday, 21st November. But… we’re not going to tell you everything just yet. More details will follow, so stay tuned!

*EDIT* We give you, faithful blog reader, some more details: http://www.tog.ie/events/
A post with full complete listing to follow. The whole event kicks off with: Open Source Talk & Open Social Night.

All the events on one page!

Saturday 6th November

Sunday 7th November

Tuesday 9th November

Wednesday 10th November

Thursday 11th November

Friday 12th November

Saturday 13th November

Sunday 14th November

Tuesday 16th November

  • 7pm to 10pm – Craft Night

Wednesday 17th November

Thursday 18th November

Friday 19th November

Saturday 20th November

Sunday 21th November

Selfficiency, at tog

The engine of the car that Adam is converting to electric
The Fiat Punto Engine, in the Beginning

Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of the great things your fellow space-members are up to. One of our members, Adam Sheridan, solved that problem by getting interviewed on Midlands radio last week (listen here).

His site, Selfficiency, is a mixture of brief articles on eco-technology and self-sufficiency, and some great in-depth projects. He makes paper logs, has a recipe for bio-diesel, and is working on converting two cars; a Fiat Punto and a Nissan Serena, to electric. He provides very detailed videos that show you all the steps, even the important ones that normally get cut out in “here’s one I made earlier” style. The whole site is living and breathing, and updated regularly, but if that’s not enough you can also get your Twitter fix.

The fuel tank removed from the car, laying on the ground
The Fuel Tank after Adam removed it

As part of two very interesting weeks coming up soon, Science and Innovation Weeks, Adam will be giving a talk at TOG on producing your own bio-diesel. For more details on that, and the many other events, stay tuned!

Speaking of TOG, Adam managed to bring up Irish hackerspaces, in his interview, talking about the advantages of having a diverse community around you who can often help whenever you get stuck. Overall a glowing endorsement, thanks Adam! We look forward to seeing how your projects grow!

Synchronous Hackathon 12: Hallowe’en

Hey all, just a few pieces of information first.
– Our esteemed Membership Secretary Jeffrey will be very busy over the next while, so he’s divided up some responsibilities among other members. This does unfortunately mean that you’re stuck with me as acting Blog Queen (… no-one ever gets that joke *sigh*).
– To that end, I thought it’d be nice to have a page here on the website that gathered together feeds from blogs with connections/similarities to tog. If you’d like to take part please send us a link to your blog for consideration (I say consideration, because if your blog is about economics and politics, while I’m sure it’s very insightful, it won’t be of much interest to most of the tog-sphere).
– Next, we now have a boards.ie forum! Go visit it, it’s kinda quiet at the moment. (Also, boards.ie made it onto the XKCD online communities map, which is just all kinds of awesome. Bottom-left of the Forums close-up: http://xkcd.com/802/.) You’ll find a running thread there with details of events on each week.

Which brings me to the real reason for this post! It’s October, Hallowe’en is fast approaching, and we’ve a Synchronous Hackathon this weekend! Of course, you don’t have to do Hallowe’en themed projects, but I encourage you to have a little fun and try out animatronic ghosts and Arduino pumpkins! Need EL wire for a costume idea? We’re just the people to see about that. Also, it’s the 12th event, next month is the 1-year anniversary! Time to start thinking up something big! So come, hack, create, have fun in the company of fellow hackers!