Waterford City HackerSpace

Swinng

Hi

I looking to see if anyone is interested in helping to create a hackerspace for Waterford

A hackerspace (also referred to as a hacklab, makerspace, or hackspace) is a community-operated physical space where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science, digital art or electronic art, can meet, socialise and/or collaborate.

Here is link to the one in Dublin so you can get an idea of what happens on these meet ups.

http://www.tog.ie/

Here is also a link to all the hacker spaces in Ireland and clearly the South East is missing out

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Ireland

If you are interested please post below or PM me

Heathen

Interesting, i was only chatting to a mate about this last night!! we were wondering would there be enough of us in Waterford to get a successful place together to work on your own separate projects as well and people collaborating.. I was telling him about hackspaces and coder dojo's... I'll be following this thread! hopefully there will be some interest!

H

Not The Real Scarecrow

Heathen wrote: »

Interesting, i was only chatting to a mate about this last night!! we were wondering would there be enough of us in Waterford to get a successful place together to work on your own separate projects as well and people collaborating.. I was telling him about hackspaces and coder dojo's... I'll be following this thread! hopefully there will be some interest!

H

Think there's a coders dojo in Waterford.If I'm not mistaken there's a thread about it on the forum.

Swinng

Yeah Heathen,
I agree completely there may not be enough of interest in Waterford City
but we do have the County, South Kilkenny, South Tipp and Wexford. So if we could get enough together it is achievable.

Just lookin at spaces around (which there sadly are plenty of) about 600 a month would cover for the cost something like this
http://www.property.ie/commercial-property/Unit-19a-Six-Cross-Roads-Business-Park-Six-Cross-Roads-Waterford-City-Co-Waterford/111366/

But to have it work there would need to be 15 to 20 people involved willing to pay about 40 a month.

number66

I'd be interested, $40 a month might be a bit of a stretch unfortunately , Should check out the mens shed organization as they can help with insurance an stuff like that.
As a suggestion, would setting up a simple website to try organize potential members be worth a try? we could create a virtual development environment on a VPS. This could be done much cheaper($150 a year) than renting a space as a first step. I even have a suggestion for a waterford community project we could work on.
Any comments?

Regards

Swinng

Hey Number 66,

That is a good idea, lets try and get a presence out there first and see what numbers we can get before looking at spaces and costs

Can you give more details of the project your where thinking of. We currently have about 5 interested people who have contacted me so we could kick off something small

Swinng

jennygirl

there are load of space above shops in city centre, off main st shops etc that could be cheap enough, or a big house.

Swinng

A city centre location would be great but I would like to keep down the cost for when we decide to get a space so people do not feel the pinch to attend

number66

Swinng, sent you a PM.

Ballyv24

Hey, I would also be interested in something like this.

MsStroggatrix

Good to see this !

Was thinking of trying to convince friends to try and start a small one at home in New Ross as there are loads of cheap properties for rent there.

Come visit us at 091labs in Galway if you'd like to see a successful hacker space in a smaller city ! I'd say you'd be able to gather enough interest from Waterford's satellite towns too. You've got New Ross, Carrick and Tramore nearby which are reasonably large populations.

Some of the German hacker spaces are quite small.

Swinng

Thanks for the invite MsStroggatrix,

Would love to pop up and see how ye guys run things up there in Galway

Swinng

jad2007

Just a suggestion but I wouldnt rush into renting a space, IMHO the first step would be to get together as a group and make sure everyone is on the same wavelenght and agree some basic house rules for your association. Any pub would give the use of a room for a initial meeting.

Once you have your list of names I would approach the enterprise board and see if they could do a deal with a space. This is what Coder Dojo did in Dungarvan. Once you can show your serious WCC would probably do a deal on a unused city centre building.

MsStroggatrix

Don't rent a building right away. Get some members and form a committee first .

capt fantastic

Hey also form 091 Labs. great to see this initiative.
If you need any advice you can contact us.

http://091labs.com

TheCosmicFrog

Swinng wrote: »

Thanks for the invite MsStroggatrix,

Would love to pop up and see how ye guys run things up there in Galway

Swinng

By all means, you're welcome to visit us in 091 Labs. We've gone through just about everything ye should expect to encounter.

Squeeonline

Also chiming in from 091 Labs, wishing you the best of luck in setting up!

marathont

The Limerick hackerspace uses a lab in UL. They get this for free as far as I know, with the added bonus of the use of some lab equipment as well as internet access etc.

If you got properly organised, maybe you could arrange something with WIT.

Ms A

It's great to see such a great interest. I too was thinking about a hacker space in waterford so would love to meet up. I'm currently a member of Recyclism Hacklab in Dublin. Its interesting to see limerick are in UL as recyclism recently acquired a space in trinity college.

Swinng

All the encouragment on here and on twitter over the last day makes me realy want to get this up and running.
Especially from the guys from Galway and Dublin hakerspaces.

So what I would like to do is start with getting some sort of online presence (Twitter, Facebook and Web).
To get this started I think we need to get a name. So any suggestions?
Next I will need to get names and emails address of interested people to create a mailing list so everyone can be contacted about any possible projects.
Creating a virtual hackerspace to start with. We can organise an official meet up in April so everyone can chat and get a commintee together to organise the next steps.

My direct email address is swinngfinn@gmail.com and twitter @swinng if anyone would like to help out

wellboytoo

To the totally ignorant, what is a hackerspace?

Sully

wellboytoo wrote: »

To the totally ignorant, what is a hackerspace?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hackerspace

:pac:

Swinng

wellboytoo wrote: »

To the totally ignorant, what is a hackerspace?

A hackerspace (also referred to as a hacklab, makerspace, or hackspace) is a community-operated physical space where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science, digital art or electronic art, can meet, socialise and/or collaborate.

wellboytoo

Sully wrote: »

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hackerspace

:pac:

Touche I doff my hat to you Sir.

hellfireie

add me to the list too please

Deise_Davy

Can I be included too. i would love to get involved in something like this

Swinng

hellfireie and Deise_dave

Thank you for you interest we would be happy for ye to join us

So the plan is to organise a first meet up on Sat April 13 at 2pm

Location I was going to suggest the The Granery Cafe on the quay

Date, time and place can be moved to suit if we need to

Swinng

I have created a google group so everyone can contact each other

https://groups.google.com/d/forum/south-east-hackerspace

If you are interested please request to join the group

Luckycharms_74

What's the criteria to be able to join ?

Swinng

Luckycharms_74 wrote: »

What's the criteria to be able to join ?

There is no real criteria other then been interested and willing to get involved. The first meet up will really set out our plan.

Luckycharms_74

Swinng wrote: »

There is no real criteria other then been interested and willing to get involved. The first meet up will really set out our plan.

But I assume you have to be able to hack, etc

I can't