Weeknotes

Week 392 – Can Those Synths Play Christmas Tunes?

10th December 2018
"Week 392 – Can Those Synths Play Christmas Tunes?"

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 10 December, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearable Tech Group
Tuesday 11 December, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Thursday 13 December, 9:00am-6:00pm Jelly Liverpool
Thursday 13 December, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night
Saturday 15 December, 3:00pm-Sunday 16 December, 5:00am Christmas Party

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 297 open, 702 closed

2 new issues:

Featured issue: Get new 20mm o-rings to go behind the intermediate mirrors. Can we move this on or close it?

8 issues closed:

Thanks LeeCarmichael, goatchurchprime!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Week 391 – Cooking with cork and chocolate

5th December 2018
"Week 391 – Cooking with cork and chocolate"

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

Tuesday 04 December, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Tuesday 04 December, 6:30pm-9:30pm Hack the Space Evening
Wednesday 05 December, 7:00pm-9:00pm Liverpool Linux User Group
Thursday 06 December, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night
Saturday 08 December, 10:00am-5:00pm Liverpool Synthesiser Meet
Saturday 08 December, 10:00am-5:00pm Maker Day
Sunday 09 December, 2:00pm-5:00pm Christmas Decorations Workshop

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 303 open, 694 closed

10 new issues:

Featured issue: Replace toner (and belt unit?) in the OKI colour printer. Can we move this on or close it?

9 issues closed:

Thanks MatthewCroughan, johnmckerrell, zarino, goatchurchprime, amcewen!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Week 390 – New carpet for Room 29!

27th November 2018
"Week 390 – New carpet for Room 29!"

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 26 November, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearables Group
Tuesday 27 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Tuesday 27 November, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearables Group
Thursday 29 November, 6:30pm-9:30pm GDG Liverpool – A Night of Technology
Thursday 29 November, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night
Saturday 01 December, 10:00am-2:00pm MCC AGM

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 302 open, 685 closed

6 new issues:

Featured issue: Look at whether there are any “no strings” funding sources to assist with the move. Can we move this on or close it?

6 issues closed:

Thanks johnmckerrell, magman2112!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Week 389 – Instrumenting the space

21st November 2018
"Week 389 – Instrumenting the space"

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 19 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Tuesday 20 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Thursday 22 November, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 302 open, 679 closed

8 new issues:

Featured issue: Sort out Reward Shirts. Can we move this on or close it?

10 issues closed:

Thanks goatchurchprime, johnmckerrell, amcewen, Sean-anotherone!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Civil Society and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

18th November 2018
"Civil Society and the Fourth Industrial Revolution"

Last week I spent a day at FACT, attending the #LabOfLabs symposium that they’d convened with Leeds University’s Cultural Institute. We explored what cultural labs are, what they could be, and how we might better connect them (and those of us involved with things-a-bit-like-a-lab).

As part of the proceedings some of us gave Ignite-style presentations (20 slides, 15 seconds per slide) responding to the brief of “my lab is special because…”

I tried to capture the essence of DoES Liverpool’s cross-section-of-society where we have professionals and hobbyists, learners and experts, techies and makers and neither-techies-nor-makers; our enthusiasm-tempered-with-critical-thinking for new technologies; and our space run by and for the community, and paid for by the community.

However, I’m not sure I did the best job at it, although it did result in this ace animated gif!

A pair of DoES Liverpool mugs cycling through a series of completions of the phrase 'Do epic...' ...design, ...writing, ...3D printing, ...research, ...code, etc.

One of the points raised during the day was that we should focus less on numbers and outputs, and tell more stories about what the people in our “labs” get up to (and go on to do).

I’m all for that. At the end of the day, in the Twitter stream for the #LabOfLabs hashtag, Steve Dobson shared this tweet:

It occurred to me that my instinctive response to that—the thought that Nesta need to hang out at DoES Liverpool more—provides a perfect example of how “my lab” is special.

The “fourth industrial revolution” is predominantly robotics, the Internet of Things, AI and VR. Julian Todd and Martin Dunschen have been writing CNC software (that’s how your “robots” are controlled) for well over a decade and sold their company to Autodesk a few years back. I’ve been working in the Internet of Things since 2007, wrote a book on it in 2013 and am one of the leaders in that globally. Alex Lennon is a similarly experienced IoT veteran, and is also responsible for the fancy VR rig that anyone in the space can try out and use. Our AI game isn’t quite as strong, but we did bring it together with the CNC work when Chris Thompson and Jackie Pease wrote software to algorithmically generate poetry, trained on Wordsworth’s corpus, for a performance by our drawing robots.

Where civil society already meets technology the DoES community includes the people who made The Public Whip—Julian (again) and Francis Irving (although he’s recently been tempted down to London)—one of the first big civic tech projects alongside mySociety. Speaking of mySociety, two former members of the community are also former mySociety employees, and we still have Zarino Zappia, who still works for them. There’s also a wider interest in the community for civic tech, with initiatives like #CodeForLiverpool.

Moving beyond the tech, there have been discussions about the place of unions in these developments, sparked when Jackie and I attended the conference on 40 years since the Lucas Plan; a conversation that Ross Dalziel and I are continuing to pick at.

Just as importantly, we have members coming at it from the other side. Patrick Hurley provides business support to social enterprises, as well as being the local councillor who chairs the Council’s Employment Committee. Helen Campbell is a researcher helping charities assess their impact, and Steve Matthews works with social economy, sustainability and regeneration.

There aren’t formal connections or projects between all of these people, but they all share a space and a community, so the influences are small, frequent and unplanned.

The Nesta article talks about the need for new institutions to draw these strands together. In my more bullish moments I think that DoES Liverpool is one of those new institutions, which is mostly overlooked by people like Nesta because it doesn’t have the form of a traditional institution; that its network of interests and actors is the form that 21st Century institutions will take. We tend not to make such bold claims, however: judge us on what we do, not on what we say.

All that said, I do think that the DoES Liverpool community is a solution saturated with an increasingly wide range of ideas and expertise around technology, making, and society. It just needs the “right” people to join (or maybe it just needs time…) for that to crystallize into more projects and activity.

Nesta (or any other researchers/funders/civil-society-organisations…) could do far worse than coming to talk to some of us; or renting some desks to embed some more people into the space for them to tap into the expertise; or commissioning some projects to make some of those connections of influence explicit (and documented).

Not that we have to wait for anyone else. If you think you’d be a good add to the mix then you should definitely come join me and the rest of the community – Adrian.

Week 388 – Doing Epic Stuff and Telling People About It

13th November 2018
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"Week 388 – Doing Epic Stuff and Telling People About It"

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 12 November, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearable Tech Group
Tuesday 13 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Tuesday 13 November, 6:30pm-9:00pm IoT Liverpool – Kx Systems Workshop (Provisional)
Wednesday 14 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Thursday 15 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room
Thursday 15 November, 1:00pm-2:00pm Community Meeting
Thursday 15 November, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night
Friday 16 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking – Sale Sharks – Events Room

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 304 open, 669 closed

8 new issues:

Featured issue: Create a “Cost of Being Epic” poster for the space (and online). Can we move this on or close it?

Thanks magman2112, johnmckerrell, amcewen, paulfurley, jackie1050!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Week 387 – Crumble and Curry

5th November 2018
"Week 387 – Crumble and Curry"

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

Tuesday 06 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking
Tuesday 06 November, 6:30pm-9:30pm Hack the Space Evening
Tuesday 06 November, 6:30pm-9:00pm AWS User Group Liverpool
Wednesday 07 November, 7:00pm-9:00pm Liverpool Linux User Group
Thursday 08 November, 9:00am-6:00pm Jelly Liverpool
Thursday 08 November, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night
Friday 09 November, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking
Saturday 10 November, 10:00am-5:00pm Maker Day

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 306 open, 659 closed

9 new issues:

Featured issue: Replace bent rod on the Ultimaker 2 extended. Can we move this on or close it?

5 issues closed:

Thanks Robotorium, johnmckerrell, amcewen!

Community Content

DoES Liverpool exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Visit to Vila Nova de Famalicão in Portugal

30th October 2018
"Visit to Vila Nova de Famalicão in Portugal"

I’ve just got back from a short trip to the “Textile City” of Vila Nova de Famalicão in Portugal – as it might be of interest to other members of the DoES Liverpool community, I’ve written this short blog about the visit. If there’s anything you want to know more about, get in touch – I’ve got contact details for all the companies too.

I believe the first links between Liverpool and VNF came about when representatives from VNF including Komlan Gnamasti, Isaque Pinto and Augusto Lima attended the Liverpool International Business Festival in Jue this year, and that as a result Deputy Mayor Gary Millar was asked to bring a group of people out to Portugal to find out about the textile industry there, and to celebrate international day. I went as a representative of DoES Liverpool.

The other people who went were:

  • Chris Russell from Virrata Ltd, a company that help increase efficiency of manufacturing processes
  • Chris Warren from the Fashion Hub
  • Fiona Armstrong-Gibbs representing LJMU and Baltic Creative (I was particularly interested to talk to her about a project involving 3D printed shoes she’s been involved in
  • Janice Egerton from Hope University
  • Suzy Jennions representing Try and Lily and the Fabric District
  • Mihaela Giuiu and James Darne, both fashion MA students at LJMU

We were also joined by representatives of the British Chamber of Commerce in Portugal.

Wednesday 24 October

I arrived in the evening along with Gary Millar and Chris Warren. We met up with the others in the centre of Porto and went on a quick sightseeing trip. It definitely deserves a longer trip sometime.

Clockwise from bottom left: tower of the Clérigos Church, a Porto street, and views of a street and the river Douro from the church

We then visited a shop called ‘meia.dúzia’ which sells a large range of different flavoured jams, honeys, and olive pastes in tubes – the owner was apparently inspired by the tubes used for oil paints, and the business is a successful graduate of the VNF incubator program. We tasted a selection of jams, along with cheeses and cold meats.

Clockwise from bottom: Selection of jams in tubes, group photo, olive pastes on bread

After that we went to a lovely restaurant en route to our accomodation in VNF.

Thursday 25 October

After breakfast, the coach took us to the town hall square to have our picture taken with the mayor,  followed by a visit to the offices of the incubator program for a presentation about the textile industry in VNF. It was very interesting to find out about how the textile industry was an integral part of the community and the major local employer, and also worked to involve students while they were still at school, and on pre-university placements.

Top: members of the Liverpool group with the mayor and VNF representatives, Bottom: watching presentation

Then it was off to visit the incubator businesses, which are housed in a building belonging to the Riopele textile company. Businesses can stay in the incubator for up to 2 years before moving on to stage 2 accommodation. I can’t remember what the rent was, but everyone was surprised at how low it was. There were several software companies, along with textile-related businesses including one producing streetwear  and another that acted as an agent arranging different types of sportswear manufacturing.

From bottom left: Gary Millar with t shirt (spun, woven, sewn and printed in VNF), Kortex software banner (use of OSB typical of incubators!), talking with developers, incubator signage

Following our visit to the incubator, a private/public partnership, we moved on to visit a more traditional part of the Riopele textile company, a factory employing more than 1000 people, of a type that has become rare in the UK.

Riopele was formed in 1927 and is still run by a member of the founding family. It’s a vertical producer so does everything from spinning, weaving, dyeing and applying finishes to producing finished clothes. 96% of its output goes directly to export, with the remaining 4% going to other Portuguese producers who then export their output! We were able to see the production and quality control process, before moving on to a presentation, visit to the design studio, and working lunch in the board room.

From bottom left: Dyeing machines, also dyeing machines, QR discussion, general introduction

From bottom left: part of a laser-controlled colour mixer, chief designer with fabric swatches, more fabric swathes, lunch

Group photo outside the Riopele factory before leaving

Following lunch, we moved on to  AAC Textiles, a production and development studio for high end brands. As well as interesting fabrics, finishes and embroideries, members of the group found elements of the interior design inspiring.

From left: AAC sign, inspiring quote in polystyrene, and table

Left: Embroidery examples, Right: Large flower skull hanging in stairwell

After AAC, we got back on the coach and moved on to the textile and nanotech research centres of citeve and CeNTI. These are housed in the same large building complex. After a presentation on their facilities (we’ll be getting a copy of the slides later if anyone needs more information on what they do), we were shown round both facilities.

citeve and CeNTI logos

Citeve run annual fashion design competitions on the themes of recycling and tech (maybe something DoES Liverpool could get involved in!).

Entries to a previous year’s competition involving recycling materials

Entries to iTechStyle awards

Following the presentations we visited the labs, and facilities that could be used by students – in many cases the equipment mirrored that which we’d seen earlier in the factory.

Clockwise from bottom left: long corridor (lots of labs on either side), view through window of lab, room with fire testing dummy, cork coated cotton fibre

Equipment available for use by students

We were able to see some of CeNTI’s work with screenprinted conductive and electroluminescent materials. These produced flexible and unobtrusive circuits that could be used in car textiles, for example. CeNTI works with companies, including startups, to produce small volumes of product, for proof of concept etc.

Flexible and screenprinted circuits produced by CeNTI

The two Fashion MA students who were with us were very interested in getting placements in CeNTI, AAC or Riopele and it looks like they might be able to.

Once we’d finished at CeNTI, we went back to the town hall for International Day celebrations: in addition to the Liverpool contigent, there were representatives from the town in Galicia, Spain where Inditex (owners of Zara) are based, and a large group of French students.

People who had moved to VNF from other places talked about their experiences, as well as those who had moved away but still had good memories.

Komlan, who arranged our trip, is from Togo, and put on a traditional shirt. He’s married to a Portuguese woman and has a Languages company in VNF. Sandy from East Kilbride, also moved to be with his wife. He was involved in the Manchester music scene before moving to VNF and performed several songs.

Komlan and Sandy

There were more speeches; from the Spanish mayor (in Spanish), from Gary Millar, and from the mayor of VNF, then all the members of the partnership got up to take a bow. Then there was one more group photo opportunity for us (I don’t think I’ve actually included all of them here!) and Gary presented the mayor of VNF with some music produced at Parr Street Studios, before we left for another great restaurant meal.

Last group photo of the trip

Gary making a presentation to the mayor of VNF

Evening meal

Friday 26 October

On Friday morning we left early to get the flight back to Manchester (several people made the sensible choice to fly back to Liverpool later and had time to do some more sightseeing in Porto).

Definitely a worthwhile trip, and with several possible areas of interest for DoES Liverpool. I will try to follow up the flexible, printable electronics at CeNTI.

Although there was a lot of textiles-related equipment available to students, there didn’t seem to be anything like a maker space with a wider range of equipment and available to more people (at least we weren’t shown anything like that).

As several members of the Liverpool group pointed out, it would be difficult to implant something like DoES Liverpool, which has grown organically over quite a long time, in a new location, but maybe we do have experience that could help others.

A group from VNF are likely to be visiting Liverpool in February, so maybe we can come up with some interesting ideas for collaborations before then.

 

Week 386 – Factories and Freebies

29th October 2018
"Week 386 – Factories and Freebies"

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

Tuesday 30 October, 10:00am-3:00pm Private Booking
Thursday 01 November, 9:30am-5:30pm Axon Vibe
Thursday 01 November, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 302 open, 654 closed

3 new issues:

Featured issue: Review registered business addresses. Can we move this on or close it?

4 issues closed:

Thanks magman2112, amcewen, johnmckerrell, goatchurchprime!

Community Content

DoES Liverpool exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Week 385 – More streaming, and a small step towards tidying the space

23rd October 2018
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  • Weeknotes
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"Week 385 – More streaming, and a small step towards tidying the space"

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 22 October, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearables Group
Wednesday 24 October, 6:00pm-8:00pm Ladies that UX
Thursday 25 October, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 303 open, 650 closed

10 new issues:

Featured issue: Build a rack to store vinyl. Can we move this on or close it?

11 issues closed:

Thanks johnmckerrell, amcewen, magman2112, goatchurchprime, zarino!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

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