There have been fewer distractions in the last few months of lockdown so we've been super busy in The Geekery finishing the fit-out.
We've created a lovely space, welcoming and functional, and are ready for others to join once lockdown is lifted. The highlights of the many changes we've made are:
Insulated floor over the cold concrete
4 desks
French cleat wall (so good)
2 3D printers
Laser cutter
CNC mill
General tools for making
42 power sockets and a stop switch!
Loads of storage
Upgraded security
Kitchen facilities
That's all wrapped up in a brand new brand developed with beckyismyname, a local designer, as seen on our new sign in the image above.
We tried and tested courses available on how to live stream events, 3D scanning, 3D designing and 3D printing. A course on Node Red is in the pipeline. We've demo'ed laser printing to several adults, introduced 3D printing to 3 classes worth of kids, and are helping the Porchlight charity by running an IT Hub for their clients.
The Thanet Technology meetup is getting the organisational focus it deserves now. The March meetup was a huge success with two world-class speakers. Andy Stanford-Clark is a father of The Internet of Things who showed us many cool projects using MQTT. Sean Clark is the artist behind Internet of Art Things. Both were inspirational and triggered us to develop our course on Node Red as an easy way to get in to IoT and develop apps that connect us to data and interconnect us socially via MQTT. (Andy Stanford-Clark's Homepage)(Sean Clark's Homepage)
April's ThanTech meetup will feature Alan O'Donohoe who is an epic educator in computer science as featured on BBC's Click earlier this year (click on tweet below to see it). We're hoping to pair him up with another fascinating speaker or two - yet to be confirmed. We are so lucky to have some time listening and talking to these amazing people.
You can relive the glory of the meetups at https://bit.ly/theGeekeryThanTech where you'll find links to recordings of all meetups and web pages relevant to various discussions.
What's next? Now that lockdown is lifting we're all lumbering out of our shelters, squinting in the post-lockdown sunlight. First we will open up The Geekery to 3 lucky co-workers, hold hybrid IRL+Zoom ThanTech meetups and are planning a launch event in 2 or 3 months.
Now for the call to arms... Follow @thegeekery.uk on social media (FB, IG & TW) to keep up to date with what we're doing. Also connect with our community and never miss an event by subscribing to our email list at www.thegeekery.uk and let's spark some ideas!