Announcing The Fourth Nottingham AWS Meetup.

Posted by Billy Law-Bregan

 

How time flys by! It has been two months since our last Meetup, already.

The last meeting was brilliant and it was great meeting everyone and seeing so many new faces. So, with that in mind, we are proud to announce the fourth Nottingham AWS gathering.

Here’s the details for your diary.

When?

Monday, 29th June 2015.


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Where?

Antenna Media Centre, Beck Street, Nottingham, NG1 1EQ.

What time?

18.30 – 20.00.

This Meetup will feature two top speakers:

We’re pleased to announce that the first guest speaker will be Peter Mounce, The Senior Software Developer (API/Payments) at Just Eat. He will be giving an AWS DevOps talk—a live demo of continuous deployment, from source control commit to deployed-in-production.

The second guest speaker is Chris Davidson, Operations Technical Lead at Reconnix – a Node4 company. Chris will talk about how his company used AWS to create a cost-effective hot standby solution for a customer’s website—going from nothing to a full website in less than 10 minutes using CloudFormation! The talk will also include a live failover of www.reconnix.com.

Here’s the Agenda:

  • 18:30 Arrival: Networking in the bar area
  • 19:00 – 19.30 Peter Mounce, AWS DevOps talk
  • 19.30 – 20.00 Chris Davidson, Cloudformation and live failover
  • 20.00 Hometime

Remember, if you know someone that might be interested in attending, sign them up and bring them along.

All in all, it’s going to be a great night. Sign up now and make it AWeSome.

Tell us why you’re interested in Amazon Web Services, leave a comment below.

What Did The RISE Challenge Winners Think of Their Day Out?

Posted by Billy Law-Bregan

Team D won the R.I.S.E. challenge and they celebrated in style.

There’s nothing like a day out to celebrate winning a competition. So, as a reward for winning the R.I.S.E. challenge, team D went on a day trip to the the original codebreakers HQ: Bletchley Park.

Bletchley Park, for those of you that don’t know, is a heritage site in the U.K. It boasts iconic WW2 codebreaking huts and blocks, as well as a wealth of information on the code breaking machines and the work-life of the average worker. Interestingly, Bletchley Park say that the work of the codebreakers helped shorten the war by two years!

This is what the Team D members thought about their visit:

Caroline Rowe:

The fact that it was kept a secret for so long and how the workers coped in that environment for so long. It all was completely fascinating.

Danny Roberts:

“The people at Bletchley Park were hugely important in creating computing as we know it today but even after the ban on speaking about their activities was lifted they are still largely unsung heroes.” – That’s certainly the most striking thing I took away from it.

Daniel Abbott:

I found out that the enigma machine not only had multiple cogs that could be switched in and out, but also that in the military edition there was a switch board system on the front that further complicated the system.

Below are some photos from the outing. It definitely looks like they were having fun:


So, that’s it for the R.I.S.E. challenge. Will there be another R.I.S.E. challenge?

Who knows?..

Your turn. Have you been to Bletchley Park? What did you find fascinating? Let us know. Leave a comment below. :)

Arduino Fans: Steve Nice gets creative with the Arduino!

Posted by Billy Law-Bregan

Find out how Steve used the Arduino for his latest creation.

In honour of the recently finished R.I.S.E. challenge, Steve brought in his Arduino project that he has been working on: An Arduino powered 3D printer.

Steve spoke about his Arduino project:

My 3D printer has been inactive since being built last year. For those who didn’t follow my progress I backed Blue Eagle Labs Kickstarter project for a 3D delta printer. I opted for the kit version so that I could learn as I assembled. It duly arrived and at first I was a bit overwhelmed by the task but quickly got to grips with it. It was larger than I thought standing almost a meter in height.

Arduino 3d Printer Power

Steve continues:

Constructing the actual hardware build took about 6 months on and off for a couple of hours per week. Working out the software and configuration was the next challenge.

Arduino Power 3D

Following instruction from other kit builders I got sorted and excitedly printed my first object (a small cube). Apart from a couple of other small objects I’ve not really made much use of it. I’m open to suggestions…

Now, being the sleuths that we are, we think that Steve’s 3D printer may have something to do with the next instalment of the R.I.S.E. challenge. Perhaps seeing the 3D printer will prompt the R.I.S.E. teams start planning their next project. Stay tuned to find out what’s in store…

Your turn. What do you think Steve has planned? What else can Steve print? Let us know. Leave a comment below.:)