Author: john

DoES Epic Trip #5 – Do Excellent Stuff in windy places? Another Epic journey

8th February 2014
  • john
  • Epic Trips
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"DoES Epic Trip #5 – Do Excellent Stuff in windy places? Another Epic journey"

The fifth Epic Trip was to the Scout Moor wind farm and Paul Marrow kindly wrote up a report:

Image from Paul Anderson via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA licensed

Following in the emerging tradition of epic DoES Liverpool journeys yesterday the journey was indeed epic, from Liverpool via Maghull to Scout Moor, in what remains of Lancashire, 0.5 miles from the edge of Greater Manchester (Rochdale) and only 5 miles from West Yorkshire. Scout Moor is apparently the location of the largest (in terms of energy production) wind farm in the UK and it was indeed an impressive site. The trip from Maghull was supported by the wind turbine development company responsible, in order to assist greater understanding and support for a smaller, pending, project in a lower-lying area north of Liverpool (about which more later.) I met people from FoE Liverpool and FoE Southport but I am not sure whether anybody else who identified this from the DoES mailing list attended.

More about Scout Moor: as its name suggests this is exposed moorland which from its plant biodiversity appears to have been used for sheep grazing for a long period. (The nearest human habitation is a sheep farm.) It is open access land so walkers (and sheep) can walk around the turbines without limit (except attempting to gain access to the interior of the turbine tower where the transformer is located.) In order to be an effective wind farm it needs to be windy, and indeed it was, also rather wet. Is this a surprise in Northern British moorland?

While the weather might be bad for humans, the turbines kept turning. The rotation of the blades is converted into electrical power through the gear mechanism at the hub of each turbine, and then transformed through several different voltages before being fed into the national electrical grid presumably some distance away.

Key disadvantages that people have suggested: the disruption of natural viewpoints, the obstruction of traffic in transporting turbine components to the site, the impact on biodiversity on the site. Well, having lived near a nuclear power station I think Scout Moor looks more aesthetically pleasing, but I understand that must be subjective. There are issues in transporting components to the site when building the wind farm: wind turbine towers and blades are very large and do cause congestion on motorways (I have seen them) and it must be worse for the inhabitants of the nearby towns. It was conceded by representatives of the firm that this is a major hindrance in Wales, where planning applications for a number of onshore wind farms have been accepted, but there is not the road network to bring the components in without paralysing some Welsh towns. Constructing an onshore wind farm does involve some construction activity in a typically remote site, but not on the same scale that would be needed for a conventional or nuclear power station – and there is no primary growth biodiversity on this island in any case. Advantages: the technology is well established at other sites, once constructed it’s easy to start up, and easy to shut down.

But there remains the challenge of what do we want in our back yard, it is a bit crowded on this island. Not everybody will have the same viewpoint. I have on paper information about a proposed site at Lower Alt between Maghull and Formby which I shall leave at DoES Liverpool next time I come in.

From a technology point of view, because onshore wind farms are monitored remotely, I can see some interesting potential for linking monitoring and reports on weather conditions with information about power input and distribution into the electric grid (this comes from my background in telecoms.) I don’t know whether there are any lessons to be learned for smaller-scale technology integration and power generation. Wind farm on the roof of the Gostin’s building. Comments anyone?

DoES Epic Trip #4 – Waste Not

8th February 2014
"DoES Epic Trip #4 – Waste Not"

DoES Epic Trips are occasional trips to interesting places arranged by members of the DoES Liverpool community. So far we’ve visited the Stafford Beers Archive at LJMU, the Liverpool Traffic Control Centre, and Toxteth Fire Fit Hub Fire Station & Community Centre. The fourth trip (back in June) was to the Merseyside Waste Recycling Centre. I posted a report on the mailing list and am finally posting it to the blog!

The trip to the Waste Recycling Centre will be repeated soon, so if you’re interested take a look at this post on the mailing list.

Just back from the epic trip and thought I’d send a report before I forgot everything. The trip was to the Merseyside Waste Recycling Centre and showed us all about how the recycling for Liverpool, Halton & Knowsley is handled.

Essentially we were shown a large warehouse building with lots of equipment and conveyors in. The recycling comes in mixed together as Liverpool and the other areas have a single bin into which plastic bottles, cardboard, paper, glass & metal cans all go. Out the other end of the system comes bales of cardboard, paper, plastic bottles, aluminium, steel and piles of broken glass. A mixed collection tends to result in more recycling, assumedly because it’s easier for us lazy people. As well as I remember the process works as follows:

  • Mixed recycling goes up big conveyor.
  • Humans watch conveyors and pick out big obvious things that shouldn’t be in there as it passes through, plastic bags etc.
  • The mix is then jiggled over essentially a large sieve. The holes are quite big so most things fall through but the cardboard is generally quite large and stays up, is then taken and baled.
  • Humans then check again for any problem items.
  • Paper is then separated out by only allowing flat things through, can’t quite remember how that was done, this may have been air blowing through the material blowing the paper up or a simple filter that only allowed a certain thickness through.
  • A secondary check is then done for paper that looks for bottles & cans that have been flattened or plastic bags, etc. that have got this far. They shine infra red light onto the materials and check for the absorbency of the material and then use air jets to push the non-paper items away.
  • Next is a set of magnets that go around on a conveyor above the recycling that picks out the steel and drops it, which is then also baled.
  • Aluminium is filtered by having a magnetic field induced which repels the aluminium, apparently, wasn’t too clear on that one. Again, that’s then baled.
  • We’re now left with plastic and glass. This is all dropped onto metal spikes. The glass shatters, the plastic doesn’t, I guess they then use a size filter to take away the broken glass.
  • They have suction devices that can take labels and other contaminants off the plastic bottles so this is another stage they go through.

(I’m pretty certain I’ve got the order of some bits wrong but you get the gist.)

It’s all very organised and as you can see many of the processes they use are actually quite obvious, once you know them. A big aim of theirs is to reduce the number of “contaminants” that make it through the process. Obviously the best way is to stop them entering the system but they also have lots of ways to reduce them along the way. Most of the time contaminants can be dealt with at a later stage (e.g. glass bottles should have labels removed, but they can deal with it if they’re left on). It was quite interesting as they tried to juggle the message of “please prepare your recycling” and “we recycle as much as possible of whatever you send to us”.

Main takeaways for what they want people to do:

  • Follow the instructions given by the council, don’t infer things.
  • Don’t bag up your recycling, the plastic bags can get stuck in the system and can’t be recycled as part of this process.
  • Plastic cartons & boxes are not bottles. If you’re told that they can recycle bottles, that means they can only recycle bottles (this actually goes for DoES too!)
  • Don’t crush bottles and cans, because this reduces the thickness they may actually end up being considered paper until late in the sorting route.
  • Recycle as much as possible!

Quite a long [post], always worth writing things up when fresh in your mind 🙂 They do these tours regularly because they’re trying to get the message out about how to recycle and why. If it turned out that more people wanted to go then we could probably arrange another tour. I imagine the above will suffice and that you will all now recycle lots.

Press Release: Bringing Internet of Things to Internet World 2013

15th April 2013
"Press Release: Bringing Internet of Things to Internet World 2013"


You might think that “things” have always been connected to the internet. Computers, mobile phones, even printers have been connected for years. A lot of the current talk and investment in Internet of Things is large sensor networks and taking information from our environment. What we at DoES Liverpool like to think of when we talk about the Internet of Things is a whole lot more personal and unexpected. How about a bubble machine that blows bubbles when people mention you or your business on Twitter? Or perhaps a clock or dial that instead of showing time or statistics shows where someone is? These are just two of the ideas that members of the DoES Liverpool community will be bringing to Internet World this month.

But first, what is DoES Liverpool? We are many things. We are an online community of creative and often tech savvy people, of tech startups and “makers”. DoES Liverpool is also a physical space. It provides a co-working office space for members of the community to hot desk from or to take a permanent desk. There’s also a shared workshop with lots of equipment available for use; traditional tools such as soldering irons and band-saws to the more modern digital fabrication equipment like the laser cutter and 3D printers. We also hold regular events on many topics from specific programming languages like Python and Clojure through to more business focussed events like Lean Liverpool and Saturday Startup Club. We have a great community coming up with some wonderful ideas, and we’re looking forward to showing some of these to you at Internet World 2013.

DoES Liverpool logo on our Makerbot

Adrian McEwen has been putting things on the Internet for many years. He led the team who developed the first full web browser for a mobile phone, and his code (he’s slightly ashamed to admit) made it onto the Amstrad Emailer. He was recently described as an IoT pioneer by Kevin Ashton, the person who coined the term “Internet of Things” in the first place! Adrian will be bringing two of his IoT inventions to Internet World. Bubblino, the aforementioned twitter activated bubble blowing machine, was actually one of his first IoT projects but is well loved at conferences around the UK and has now been sold to various people in the UK and Europe. The Acker’s Bell was a more recent commision to provide Liverpool Startup ScraperWiki with a bell that would chime each time they made a sale. The mounting for the bell was designed and laser cut in DoES Liverpool with Adrian developing the software and electronics. Usually living in ScraperWiki’s office in Liverpool the Acker’s Bell will be visiting London for you to see at Internet World 2013

With another DoES Liverpool co-founder, Hakim Cassimally, Adrian has spent the last year writing the definitive IoT book – Designing for the Internet of Things. Both Adrian and Hakim will be available to discuss their book and IoT in general, and of course you can pre-order the book on Amazon!

Inspired by the clock owned by the Weasley family in the Harry Potter books, the WhereDial provides a delightful way to make a personal connection with a family member or friend. The WhereDial is made from laser cut plywood or colourful plastic and features a list of location categories around the dial. Through the cloud based location aggregator – MapMe.At – the WhereDial can retrieve a person’s location from FourSquare, Google Latitude and a variety of other services. It then rotates the dial to show where the person is. It’s a great device for people who are less comfortable using mobile phones and computers but is also a really handy glanceable object that fits nicely on the desk of a technophile too. The WhereDial was designed and is built in Liverpool by John McKerrell, also a co-founder of DoES Liverpool.


Perhaps saving the best for last, the final headline item that we’ll be bringing to Internet World 2013 is the Good Night Lamp. Darling of CES and Gadget Show Live, these lamps have a superstar team behind them. They are the brainchild of Alexandra Deshamps-Sonsino, previously a co-founder of smart product design studio Tinker London and the organiser of the monthly Internet of Things meetups in London. She launched the Good Night Lamp as a startup a year ago by committing to taking a booth at CES; 10 months of development later and with a live Kickstarter campaign garnering much publicity she took CES by storm. Her team includes our own Adrian McEwen as CTO; John Nussey as Head of Products and interior designer & architect Konstantinos Chalaris as Lead Designer.

We really hope you will enjoy our exhibition and go away inspired, potentially with some ideas for an IoT product of your own! DoES Liverpool is all about inspiring people to start interesting businesses and while our focus is in Liverpool, we know that IoT is going to take off around the world!

Week 96 – Pure Gold, Laser Lollies

10th April 2013
  • john
  • Weeknotes
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"Week 96 – Pure Gold, Laser Lollies"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

  • <mcknut> Lolly sticks etched on our laser will be shown on BBC TV (again) tomorrow morning! https://doesliverpool.com/workshop/jolly-lolly-sticks/ #weeknotes
  • defproc: Now I think about it, maybe the upside down print bed on the #3DPrinter was a stealth April Fool’s joke @DoESLiverpool #weeknotes
  • defproc: The calibration of the #3Dprinter @DoESLiverpool for a new filament paid off with good clean prints today #weeknotes
    • amcewen: Excellent #RepRap calibration indeed! I hereby hand my @DoESLiverpool #3Dprinting Expert badge to @DefProc 😉 #weeknotes
    • defproc: @amcewen @DoESLiverpool #RepRap #3Dprinting #weeknotes You keep yours, I’ll print off a new one in the gold filament!

Coming Up in the Next Week

Wednesday 10th April, 6-9pm (TONIGHT!) Maker Night
Thursday 11th April, 7-9pm Lean Liverpool
Saturday 13th April, 10am-5pm Maker Day
Saturday 13th April, 11am-2pm Future Makers

Jolly Lolly Sticks

3rd April 2013
"Jolly Lolly Sticks"

This is a guest post from Jo Leng, a regular visitor to DoES Liverpool who’s has hot desked and used our workshop:

I have always liked jokes, the shorter the better, so when Emily Watkins phoned into DoES needing help how could I resist.

Emily is a chef who lives and works in the Cotswolds. She must be good because when she rang she was competing in the Great British Menu (for Comic Relief) which airs on BBC2 tomorrow morning 9:05 (Thursday 4th April). She needed jokes fast and she needed them to be etched onto lolly sticks. A quick web search had given her DoES – an artist had used the DoES laser cutter to etch lolly sticks last year.

After a quick negotiation, training on using the laser cutter, a web search to find jokes, joke testing and expert consultation from John and Paul on etching and alignment the lolly sticks were delivered.

It’s fantastic to see something produced at DoES Liverpool appearing on BBC, even if it’s just a simple lolly stick!

Week 91

4th March 2013
"Week 91"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Monday 4th March, 6:00-9pm (Tonight!) Liverpool Sewing Club
Tuesday 5th March, 6:30-9pm Clojure Dojo
Saturday 9th March, 10am-5pm Maker Day
Saturday 9th March, 11am-2pm Future Makers

Week 82 & 83

7th January 2013
"Week 82 & 83"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days (or fourteen in this case!). You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

  • < osfameron> ELECTRICITY IS HARD #weeknotes
  • DoESLiverpool: New year, new you, new startup? We’re open for business so come in and hot desk or workshop and get 2013 off to a flying start! #weeknotes
  • WhereDial: Last WhereDial built in 2012 is the first one shipped in 2013, also the first to the US! #weeknotes
  • mcknut: My new year’s resolution may be to always have an iOS app waiting for review. Comedy GPS now, CamViewer tomorrow #weeknotes
  • < DefProc> *has submitted maker faire application* #weeknotes
  • < amcewen> Storing things in /the/ cloud is so last year.  We’ve now got our own cloud at DoES Liverpool #weeknotes
  • < amcewen> Experimenting with Openstack on an old spare server #weeknotes
  • < mcknut> Another version of CamViewer iOS app off for testing and submitted to Apple #weeknotes
  • < mcknut> Another potential New Year’s resolution? finally read The Art of Electronics #weeknotes
  • < amcewen> Top tip: You can greatly increase the speed of your 3D prints by making them hollow when you generate the gcode #weeknotes
  • mcknut: Wow, these people talking about going back to work tomorrow. @DoESLiverpool was unoccupied for *one* day over the “holidays”! #weeknotes
  • mcknut: Goodbye Basic Sat Nav, hello Comedy GPS! Re-branded one of my apps after a few complaints 😉 #weeknotes

Coming Up in the Next Week

Monday 10th January 2013, 6-9pm Liverpool Sewing Club
Wednesday 9th January 2013, 7-9pm Maker Night
Saturday 12th January 2013, 10am-5pm Maker Day

Next Two Weeks at DoES Liverpool

9th October 2012
"Next Two Weeks at DoES Liverpool"

This Friday 12th and Saturday 13th October are BarCamp Liverpool 3! This should be a great and interesting event and all are welcome to sign up. However it will restrict the amount of space we have for workshop and hot desk usage. If you really want to visit then let us know and we’ll try to squeeze you in, but your best option is to take the day off and visit BarCamp 🙂

http://barcampliverpool2012-doesblog.eventbrite.com

Next Friday 19th October we’re having a lot of visitors from a local agency coming to use our workshop. They haven’t requested exclusive use but if you have any urgent need to use our equipment then you might be better to visit another day.

More positive news is that to celebrate Ada Lovelace day, recognising women in STEM, business and entrepreneurship we’ll be having a free day next Tuesday 16th October. The day will be free access for everyone so come down for some hot desking or to use our workshop. You don’t even need to bring cake!

Finally, I just wanted to mention that if you haven’t visited in a while you should really come by and see some of the changes we’ve made. Back in July we expanded into another room and moved the workshop equipment through to there. We’ve also just had a new kitchen fitted which is exclusively for our use. These changes have resulted in a much nicer clean & quiet environment for co-working, and a vastly improved dedicated workshop with some new equipment.

We hope to see you soon, and please do tell your friends!

Press Release: Community Co-Working Space, DoES Liverpool, Opens New Dedicated Workshop Area

9th August 2012
  • john
  • Press Releases, Workshop
  • Comments Off on Press Release: Community Co-Working Space, DoES Liverpool, Opens New Dedicated Workshop Area
"Press Release: Community Co-Working Space, DoES Liverpool, Opens New Dedicated Workshop Area"

DoES Liverpool, community workshop and co-working space in central Liverpool, has celebrated its first year of operation by expanding its space and creating a dedicated workshop area. With a 61% increase in floor space DoES has been able to create five specialised areas meaning that users can get the best out of each part of the space and avoid causing disruption for other visitors. DoES Liverpool is giving the public a great opportunity to visit and try out the space during the Grand Opening on Maker Day 11th August 2012.

The workshop now boasts some more traditional woodworking equipment such as a band saw and bench grinder to complement the existing digital fabrication facilities of the MakerBot CupCake 3D printer and LS3040 laser cutter and engraver. Stations for soldering or just general making are available for use during the regular Maker Night and Maker Day events or throughout the week by signing up for a workshop membership or paying for a single day’s use. Storage is included in workshop membership and available for purchase by other visitors. As ever, the first day’s use of the equipment and space is free if you bring along cake to share!

Removing the workshop equipment and much of the storage space from the main room also freed up more space for co-working. A cool new hot-desk hub has been created using an original Gostins dining table, and an existing pod of desks available for permanent members has been expanded. The meeting room now doubles as a comfortable break-out area with a large screen display available for viewing presentations and videos.

Richard Foulkes, Director, propertytranslator recently returned to DoES Liverpool after trying out other serviced offices in Liverpool, he said:

I’ve rented serviced offices from corporate landlords in the past and DoES has always offered a friendlier atmosphere in comparison. The recent improvements in layout and planned new facilities should make the office space an even better working environment going forward and I’m sure I’ll be using it more often.

As a regular visitor to the space, freelancer Joanna Leng offered her thoughts:

I enjoy working out of the DoES Liverpool office one day a week. I get a desk, electricity, wireless network, hot drinks, friendly intelligent conversation and networking all for £8 per day. DoesLiverpool also run lots of clubs and user groups – there is plenty going on. It is very creative.

This week they opened up a new work shop next to the office area. It is light and spacious and now if someone is using the laser cutter or 3D printer I can chat to them but I do not have to hear the machinery. I can also use the laser cutter to make some Xmas presents while I am there. The meeting room allows me to organise meetings here rather than at my home.

 

Further changes are planned including a newly fitted kitchen and electronic locks which will allow DoES Liverpool to expand its hours of operation beyond the standard work day.

For more information about Maker Day see makernight.co.uk, for more on DoES Liverpool – its services, facilities and prices – visit doesliverpool.com

Happy Birthday To Me!

4th July 2012
"Happy Birthday To Me!"

DoES Liverpool will be celebrating its first anniversary in the next week! We’re putting on a few activities to celebrate and we’d love you to come along.

Friday 13th July Daytime – lucky for you as we’ll be offering a day of free Hot Desking. Come down and try out the space, use our laser cutter, maybe even 3D print something without paying a penny. You don’t even need to bring cake (though we won’t complain if you do)! A great opportunity to get some work done while meeting up with other freelancers and laptop workers.

Friday 13th July Evening – the luck continues as we’ll have a few drinks to celebrate the success of DoES over the past year. We’re still making plans but at there very least there’ll be alcohol and the opportunity to look around our existing space as well as the new room we’ll be taking over in the next few weeks.

Saturday 14th July Daytime – an extra special Maker Day, celebrate a year of making, by making! Bring your projects or bring yourself and get involved in someone else’s projects. We may even have some projects to enable us to hack DoES Liverpool itself!

Saturday 11th August Daytime – another special Maker Day for the grand opening of our new workshop space, come along to see our new space and find out how you can get access to and make use of it. Or bring your projects and get making, again we’ll probably have some projects on the go to hack DoES too.

(Click on the links to head over to lanyrd and let us know you’re coming, that’s optional but is a great help to know who’s coming)

Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported DoES Liverpool over the past year, we couldn’t do it without you, literally. DoES Liverpool’s services are paid for solely from people paying for our services, our running costs are not subsidised at all. So thanks to all of you friends, hot deskers, permies, workshop members, event sponsors, interns and everyone who has been involved in our events over the past year; here’s to great things in the future and hope to see you in DoES Liverpool soon!

For the fact fiends: DoES Liverpool CIC was incorporated on 10th June 2011, so by that date we’ve already missed our birthday! Worry not though as we didn’t really do anything until the 8th July when we moved into our space in the Gostins building, after that we didn’t actually open to the public until the 18th July. With all these dates it’s difficult to pick one so we simply chose an appropriate Friday which just so happened to correlate with Maker Day!


(If you want to make one, you can find the design for the laser cut cake over on thingiverse)

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