FarsetLabs BELFAST

The launch day went, in our humble opinions, fantastically.

As in, really fantastic.

We’ve met our targets and everything passed smoothly, but, far more importantly, we had an awful lot of fun.  A range of projects were attempted by those in the space over the 24-hr period, some of which were unexpected, all of which were cool. We can only mention a selection of the activities, but some of the most notable follow.

Andrew Sheppard learnt the ropes on an Arduino Uno and got some guidance on some of the low-level aspects of microcontroller interfacing. He also went nuts with a labeller in the kitchen. Ben Bland and Conor Flanagan, among other things, did the necessary measurements and are well on the way to creating a 3D model of the building. Eoghan Murray and Conor Robinson set up an amateur radio station in the Event Space, with an antenna running nearly the length of the building. It was illegal for around two minutes when one... ...

Today is the day; After a long time coming (too long for some), Farset Labs is ready to launch in an ‘open beta’ stage.

From 1500, we’ll open the doors (for a small fee for non-members), and we’ll be live-blogging here for your delectation.

To get involved in the community; join us on IRC, Facebook, Twitter, or G+.

[liveblog]

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The Farset Labs team is still in the space at one in the morning – now that’s dedication!

We went in this morning with no working network, no backbone connection, little equipment and no computers running. Over fourteen hard hours later, we now have every viable socket networked, switches installed, WiFi running, our Tibus internet connection enabled, a PowerEdge running ESXi with virtual machines, the RM1 up and booted and some new equipment donated. The plumbers have been in and mostly fitted out the remaining toilet and we’re expecting the cooker shortly. The plumbing should be finished by Thursday night/Friday morning and the spark will be in again tomorrow to finish his work.

Cleaning will take place tomorrow (er…today, Thursday – probably time to leave!) and we’ll finish up all the random little problems, such as the fact that our laser printer is in triage and one of the toilet doors is not quite ready for Release Candidate status.

The space is still... ...

Another day of frantic work and continuous driving has brought us much closer to our launch tomorrow. The plumbers have completely fitted the toilets to a great standard and the electricians are making sense of the circuits around the building; the puzzle pieces that were outside our control have pretty much fallen into place. After a long day driving to collect tables, hoovering endless dust and generally cleaning up, we’re about to pack up for the night, exhausted.

We’ve fitted out the reception area with a little more server equipment and a slightly fancier network configuration, and have the water supply turned on, making the space a lot more pleasant to be in. The contractors are finishing up and our outer window frames received a welcome coat of paint. Windows were scraped and the equipment store was further populated.

Tomorrow morning, final preparations include the plumbers and electricians finishing up, the hopeful delivery of our electric cooker, preparations for the rooms and general last-minute cleaning.

We can’t wait to see you all at our launch event tomorrow at 3pm!

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Thank you very much to everyone who has offered to donate equipment to Farset Labs – we’re very grateful, as members’ generosity is what has allowed us to start.

However, none of it is in the space yet, so we’d like to let you know that today (Wednesday 4th April), Farset Labs will be open for the dropping off of equipment from 11am to 6pm.

If you need something bulky picked up, we can send out reinforcements equipped with a trailer and if these times don’t suit you, don’t hesitate to get in contact (david@farsetlabs.org.uk or eoghan@farsetlabs.org.uk) to arrange a more convenient slot.

We advise that you give us a heads up before you come round to Farset Labs, as we may be away for short periods doing pick-ups of bulky items, but we’ll do our best to have someone around to let people in.

If you would like to add your equipment to the list of donations, we’d be very grateful. To do so, fill out our short donation form at http://bit.ly/donatetofarset

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