Fun at C4DI

This is the view from the window at C4DI down in the Fruit Market part of Hull. This is definitely a region “on the grow”, what with Platform Expo and a bunch of other tech folks setting up shop around there. As you can see, it is a stone’s throw from The Deep, a fantastic looking building (although I don’t think they’d appreciate you throwing stones at it…)

Anyhoo, C4DI provide space for business to start, grow and flourish. For a monthly fee you can get access to a desk, power, a fast (and I mean really fast) network connection and ample coffee.

You are also surrounded by like minded folks, and so there is tremendous scope for mentoring and collaboration. Jon Moss, one of the folks behind the project, will be coming up to the university to talk about what they are doing as part of our Rather Useful Seminar series next semester. They have some amazing plans for the future.

Peter and I went down to C4DI to talk about taking part in session about 3D printing that we hope to set up in a month or so. While we there we sat in on a Skype call with Brendan Dawes, which was very illuminating. I know what I want to do when I grow up now….

My view of the call

Brendon takes stuff, fiddles with it to find out what it can do and then uses it to make interesting things. I sometimes build things “for no reason” or to see what they do, and I love the idea of being able to do that for real.  He has been doing some neat things with Electric Imp devices. I saw these a while back but the cloud based model that underpins them worried me a bit as I’ve bought a couple of devices (Chumby and Nabaztag rabbit) that turned into paperweights when their supporting companies went bust. However, if you think of them as a bit of fun you can have for less than the price of a video game, they start to get a lot more interesting.

I’m going to get one or two to play with when I get some free time. And I’ve paid for the new washing machine that I seem to need…