Photo for Jan 9, 2010

There is an awesome off-licence (beer shop) a short drive from our house called Beer Ritz. It sells at least 500 different types of beer. Whilst working in California I got a liking for American Beers from the smaller breweries which, unlike those from the main producers, don't taste like fizzy dishwater. In fact some are CAMRA members and get inspiration from British bottled beers. Beer Ritz sells some of these beers and Saturday night is beer night.

Photo for Jan 10, 2010

I love LEGO. I have a few unbuilt sets stored various places. I decided to get one of these out and build it. It's a neat little quad bike that now adorns my desk at work.

Photo for Jan 11, 2010

My work desk. This picture is annotated on Flickr (click the image).

Newcastle Makefaire 2010

I am delighted to announce that I have been selected to exhibit at Newcastle Maker Faire. The theme of my display will be crafty geekery.

I am intending to take along items which are a mix of traditional crafts such as knitting and jewellery making combined with tech. For example programmable earrings, a temperature sensing hat and a bag that has a proximity detector and RFID tag so it can detect its owner.

I am also going to show off a couple of my other projects like an ethernet adapter for a BBC microcomputer and a "Mood Wall" (It analyses twitter tweets for the mood of the content displaying patterns and colours which reflect the prevailing mood).

Hopefully I will see you there!

Originally posted in Spice World

Manchester Geek Girl Afternoon Tea

While I'm announcing appearances I am excited to announce that I am presenting an Arduino workshop at Manchester Geek Girl Afternoon Tea this month at Madlab, Manchester's Hackspace in the Northern Quarter.

I will be bringing a long several Arduino-a-likes together with a variety of components and CDs of the IDE so that we can get together in groups, code and play.

Originally posted in Spice World