Since it will be the first meeting I’ll talk a little bit about setting up the club and what sort of activities the club run (talks, workshops, competitions, etc). Then I’ll open it up to discussion to see what people are interested in getting from a robotics club. All suggestions will be very welcome.

Also, they have snapped up Peter Redmond (he who built RuBot II, a Rubik’s cube solving robot which holds the Guinness World Record for a robot solving the cube in the least amount of time).

He also built two battle robots (Dioitoir and Nemesis) for Robot Wars and another robot for a BBC show called Techno Games, this time an internal combustion powered sprinting robot that set a new world land speed record for petrol powered walking machines. He also built and bravely drove an all-terrain stock car for a Channel 4 TV show called Full Metal Challenge. With a project list including such wonders as a robotic bicycle, micromouse, trebuchet, and an orange cannon his talk is sure to entertain and is not to be missed.

Peter will talk about the world of hobby robotics and happily answer your questions afterwards.

Glad to see things like this getting off the ground.

Despite the weather forecast, this afternoon and evening was gorgeous and I took the opportunity to walk on the western pier of Dun Laoghaire Harbour. The first photo is actually of the Commissioners of Irish Lights – the people that look after the lighthouses. There is quite a nice map of the harbour and its walks. It provides the details of the length of each pier, the duration to walk them, the year that each pier, breakwater and building was built and a few more details.

I figured that the commuter train would stop at the stations marked with a white dot on the blue (commuter) line. So I suggested that my fellow passenger would be fine. We stopped at Pearse but then we sailed past Grand Canal Dock, Lansdown Rd and Sandymount and the next stop turned out to be Sydney Parade! Why? I’ve no idea because it doesn’t even look like a commuter train stop on the map above.

There was another woman in the same carriage who was in the same position (wanted to get to Lansdowne Rd) and both of them and whoever else was caught out faced the prospect of walking back, buying another ticket or pleading their case with Irish Rail during one of the busiest times on a Friday.

It turns out that commuter trains have quite a unique timetable. Instead of looking at a map, you must instead consult a timetable like this:

Couldn’t be simpler, could it? Note that each station has it’s own unique timetable due to the trains stopping at random destinations and leaving at irregular intervals so to know how to get anywhere, you need to be prepared! You could print/pick up a copy of each timetable for each station that you might use (online list of timetables here) but who carries around 4 or 5 timetables that fold out like those giant maps?

I will say that the text service is good for information.

Customers from any mobile phone on any network can just text DART followed by their station name (e.g. DART PEARSE) to the DARTXT number – 53700 – and DARTXT will reply with the times of the next DARTs in both directions

This is a service that doesn’t seem to exist if you were to look at the Irish Rail/Dart website and it costs 30c every time you use it. It’s up to you to know if the DART will stop where you want to go!

I’ve recently moved to Dublin so I’ll be networking a lot more in capital. First off was the Microsoft BizSpark Launch @ Digital Island Meetup. Held in the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel, Microsoft launched a practical offering to startup companies consisting of free/cheap software and support. See – Microsoft BizSpark

The evening then turned more topical and there was a panel discussion on how the country could support startups. One of the key issues the need for more awareness of the supports available and support for people to know when/how to get them. Enterprise Ireland, county enterprise boards, SFI, Forfas etc all provide support and multiple programmes but is it clear how each one differs and have you even heard of the M50 programme?

A reoccurring theme is the provision of broadband access and high-speed broadband. Amongst the technophiles, there is consensus that it’s needed and the speeds available need to improve, if we are to have even a chance of competing for modern industries. It not only our ability to attract new industry and foster innovation, but it also helps us retain industries already here. The head of eBay was very brave and unusually outspoken when he highlighted the shortcomings of the broadband infrastructure in Ireland but the recent survey that showed almost 50% of companies wouldn’t locate in Ireland again is also very worrying and part of the reason was the poor infrastructure.

Demos of locle and JustRoutes followed and while I had seen JustRoutes before, I was surprised to find that they didn’t even appear on the first page for a google search of “dart maps dublin” so some SEO and redesign of the website is needed. In fact, I ended up on a site offering a similar service – mk map

After that, there was much networking and I was very pleased to meet Iarfhlaith Kelly, David Doran (who is way ahead of his classmates and many lecturers, I’d say), Ronan Skehill (don’t forget to put your company website on your card next time) and several others. Thanks to Anton Mannering for organising the event and coordinating it with Microsoft. I know for sure that there were new business contacts and potential deals made…it still amazes me what some Irish people are doing here and abroad.

Following on from that, I made it to my first Dublin OpenCoffee Club in New York Grind on Saturday morning. There, the discussion was a lot more technical that other OpenCoffees that I’ve been to, including a bit about one of the lesser-discussed languages – Erlang. There was also very good suggestion about using those €5,000 Enterprise Ireland Innovation vouchers. You could easily work with the NCI to analyse user behaviour and screen interactions using their specialist lab equipment – see National e-Learning Laboratory (NELL) where there are specific contact details at the end of the page.

Conor Lynch from connector was there to bring us back to commercial and marketing-orientated stuff too and he has some very interesting projects on the go. There is also a mugshot of us all on the blog

Next up, Jason Roe is organising a Blogger / Webby / Twitter (whatever) meet-up for people in Dublin.

The plan is to meet up at the Porter House central from 6pm on Thursday 27th. (PH central located at the bottom of grafton street, across from the molly malone statue). We will get food, drinks and have our chats. After this (maybe 8:30/9pm ish) we might move on to Soundcheck, South William Street. It seems that Rick O’Shea is doing a DJ thing, we shall be acting as a rent a mob! – the rent

PS: I have approched a sponsor to give us some free drinks and/or food for the night. More info to come laters.

I would also really appreciated if anyone attending could slap up a blog post / and or tweet about this!

If that doesn’t work try this link – MashUp Camp — Dublin or MashUp Camp — Dublin

Here is what happened and some of the sessions have notes describing what was discussed and decided. – MashupU5schedule

Some interesting insights into data-mining – Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists

you know when ticketmaster asks you to prove that you aren’t a computer – how about using this instead hot or not photos as a captcha

Chad Dickerson: How to make a Kegerator with FAQ

Chad also went on to describe the Flickr APIs, YUI, Del.ici.ous, YSlow and 14 rules (specific and practical) for making web-pages load faster

Maryrose announced o2 sponsorship of 20 Irish entries into the Webby Awards and also have a look at www.webbys4ireland.com

The social part of the MashUp Camp was spent partly in the Porterhouse, Templebar

David Berlind sums up his experience on ZDNet: Ireland: Where the soul of the developer can be found

Nullcheck is a media/financial news developer who gives a good commentary on each session in MashUp Camp: mashup camp Dublin: Day 1 and end of mashup camp

The Microsoft perspective: Mashup Camp Europe!

This book comes highly recommended – Programming Collective Intelligence

Also Chad found this page Why Guinness tastes better in Ireland

Via Spiegel: Banks in Germany Wobble and Sachsen LB Europe Statement

The crisis claimed its first Irish casualty last week with the collapse of the Dublin-based firm, Structured Credit Company (SCC), with liabilities of $350 million (€259.5 million). – Irish Times

Speaking at the company’s launch earlier this year, the minister for finance Brian Cowen had described SCC as ‘‘a flagship project’’ that would ‘‘help to underpin Ireland’s standing as a centre of excellence for the location of international financial services’’ – Sunday Business Post: Dublin finance firm falls victim to credit crunch

It’s not Brian’s fault of course

Turns out that there is a crypt worth visiting in Dublin – St Michan’s Church & Crypt via Elly and Maryrose

Also via Elly – Nokia Announces Battery Recall

GSpace – a firefox addon (not from Google) worth trying perhaps

Aaaah – the hippies are threatening our jelly babies! Next it will be chocolate…
UPDATE: Feic – the cost of chocolate is shooting up too;

Correct cheese coverage formation – a tip for the shop in UL?

Transport 21 has gone tits-up already – 2yrs delay for Citywest Luas after 18 months. Would Enda have stood for this? It wasn’t announced either – websites were simply updated…

Many other people have posted this but I was there too – John & Patrick Collison of Auctomatic share their experiences of setting up Auctomatic, ycombinator and Silicon Valley.


People were quite excited to be part of an interactive webcast too – we were getting feedback and questions from the people watching the live stream