The date is 22/7, or Pi Approximation Day, so it’s a good day to announce Northern Ireland’s very own charitable space programme, and start work on sending a Raspberry Pi into space. We’ve picked this project deliberately because it will require people with a wide range of skills and interests to collaborate, hopefully uniting our technology community… and because SPACE.

The plan is to attach a Raspberry Pi to a weather balloon and track its progress as it travels into the stratosphere and, hopefully, returns safely to Earth. Photos, videos and measurements will be taken on the journey, and for the next few weeks it’s open season on any crazy stunts people want the craft to perform while it’s up there. “There” being SPACE.

This kind of thing has been done before, typically using a smartphone for GPS and GoPro for video, so we’re going to have to make use of the Pi’s computing power to do something unique. This might as well be a world-first, no point aiming lower.

The thinking behind this is that we have this community of geeks who are all keen to build things together, the... ...

Nominations are now closed for our Director Elections. In alphabetical order, our candidates are as follows:

Ben Bland

The maker movement is a primary axes of the current industrial revolution. So when I first met the current directors of Farset Labs, just before launch, I was eager to be involved. I could see then that a hackerspace could be a major asset for the tech community here. I introduced the directors to what is now our studio, and have aided the community’s development since. In that time the directors and several members have become good friends.

My offer to our community includes 12 years’ professional experience, with particular knowledge in organisational strategy, digital media, and marketing & communications. My work in that time has focused on the digital, creative and tech industries, in which I’ve built a strong network of relationships with relevant people and organisations.

I propose to focus on the following:

• Increasing and diversifying the membership base.
• Developing sustainable and efficient business functions.
• Building relations with the wider tech and creative community.

My schedule will put constraints on the time I can provide but I aim to build a productive role that will enhance... ...

The last time round that we opened the Director elections, we probably didn’t do it at a great time…exams, holidays and general tomfoolery were all ensuing. Consequently, we’d like to reopen them and give people a second chance to become a Director of Farset Labs.

Follow the guidelines from our previous post here and send your submission to david@farsetlabs.org.uk and CC admin@farsetlabs.org.uk as well.

Nominations are open from the timestamp of this post until midday on Thursday 13th June. Voting will then take place from when the nominee profiles are posted on Thursday 13th June until midday Saturday 23rd June.

Good luck!

**UPDATE**: 21/6/13 (Bolster)

In the light of the discussions held on the recently released Discourse, and the fluffy date (Saturday 22nd or Sunday 23rd?) we’re extending voting through to 5pm, Monday the 24th of June.

This will also tie in with the normally scheduled Director Meeting, that evening, and we will be inviting the two new directors to that meeting to discuss how to move forward.

...

Even as we count down to our Steampunk-themed birthday party this weekend (Tickets still available btw), we were approached to host one of the more esoteric events of the calendar; a Steampunk LARP.

LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing, and can be summarised as a cross between a costume party and an immersive acting improvisation session, with a dash of D&D thrown in, usually involving either historical, fantastical, or ‘alternate histories’ scenarios playing out with a cast of costumed characters imagining themselves in the part.

So on September 28th, we’ll be playing host to…

Steel and Water

It’s 1882 and Belfast sits proudly as the de facto capital of The Federated Northern Isles. Its docks bustle with trade from Scandinavia, Russia, the Americas and North Africa and the populace thrives within the established social classes of Tin, Brass, Silver and Gold. Boasting the worlds first subterranean, submarine public transit system and home to some of the worlds grandest and finest engineering Belfast is the very model of a modern city. However, civilisation and endeavour always come... ...

Hi Everyone,

As a further update to ourlast post on the topic, we are pleased to announce that starting today, Enthusiast and Freelancer members of Farset Labs are able to obtain *free* Evorack Virtual Private Servers (VPSs)!

Why are you doing this?
In collaboration with Evorack, Farset Labs wish to offer our members the  tools needed to develop, test, build and break awesome cloud and server applications, as well as have fun just learning about the inner workings of a Linux server environment.

Linux? What’s that all about?
GNU/Linux (or simply “Linux”) is a Free and Open Source Operating System. According to a Security Space Study, over 60% of the worlds web servers run Linux. While being presented with a shell prompt (“Command Line”) at first can be daunting to some, we are confident that the millions of free software packages available for Linux, as well as the endless configuration possibilities will get you excited... ...