nerd nite wellington

Posts Tagged ‘construction’

This nerd nite – our sixteenth! – will look at buildings things. Building structures, building adventures, building Arduinos. Hooray for the makers!

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As usual, nerd nite will start from 6pm, with speakers beginning at about 6:30pm. It’ll take place on Monday, May 13th, at Hotel Bristol (our official home, dontcherknow).

Our speakers, listed in an order they may not necessarily actually speak in, below. See you there!

Nerd nite is a free-entry community education event, where passionate people talk about their loves while their audience eats and quaffs beer (or whatever). We’re always looking for speakers and topics, so get in touch!

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Title: Rocking in the Free World with Post-Tensioned Timber Buildings!
David Carradine

Post-tensioned timber buildings were being developed as early as 2004, but following the Christchurch Earthquakes there has been a dramatic increase in the acceptance of these buildings as one of the possible ways to create beautiful, resilient and sustainable structures that have the potential for immediate reoccupation following seismic events like those experienced in Christchurch. How do these buildings work? Why use timber? How are they different from other buildings? Come find out what the hype is all about and get a short lesson in earthquake engineering without the need for your calculator or pocket protector, although both are optional.

Engineer, woodworker, builder and breaker of wooden objects. I have worked as an experimental researcher in the field of timber structures for the past 15 years, testing everything from single nail connections up to 15 meter long poles made from Brazilian hardwoods and lots of things in between. I came to New Zealand in 2008 to work as a Timber Research Engineer with the Structural Timber Innovation Company (STIC) in Christchurch where I had the pleasure of working with a team of very talented people from around the world in a effort to develop post-tensioned timber buildings for multi-storey applications. While in Christchurch I also had the fortune/misfortune of experiencing all of the major earthquakes and most of the subsequent aftershocks, after which I spent moths evaluating buildings and learning what happens to buildings subjected to seismic loading beyond that required in the building codes. I currently work for the Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ) as a structural engineer.

Man vs Andes – making life into an adventure
Mark Chambers

Feeling a bit of a fraud alongside previous nerdnite talkers, I’m not going to talk about my latest research or climate change or even computers. I am, however, going to talk about the 6 months I spent cycling through South America whilst attempting to make it sound more than just “hey check out my cool holiday snaps”.

Currently I’ve no idea how to do that, but I have a month to think about it!

In my 9-5 I am a Web Developer, in my 5-9’s I’m an adventurer, brewer, baker and candlestick maker. Well I probably could make candlesitcks if I wanted. And I like bicycles, very much.

An Aduino in Twenty Minutes
David Preece (@rantydave)

The best thing about Arduino’s being the new hotness is how ridiculously simple they are. As if to prove a point, Dave is going to build one, from individual parts, in under twenty minutes. And, y’know, talk about what the bits do or probably segue into fixing helicopters. Murphy’s law of technology demonstrations is sure to be in attendance.

David Preece just wants to make cool stuff. Normally involving software but he can feel the call of the dark side. Right now he’s doing some more Mac development and loving it.