Calendar
At Creative Coding Utrecht we organise a range of monthly events that cater to different interests, age groups and skill level. We aim to help you develop your connection with all things coding, no matter how foreign the subject might seem to you.
Have no idea what Creative Coding means? Have a background in programming but you wouldn’t know where to start making your own, creative stuff? Or do you simply want to enhance your pre-existing skills and create even more flashy visuals, animations and more?
Filter our events by topic and accessibility level, there is something for everyone. To look up any of our past events, check out the archive.
Rooted Networks: Mesh Networks Workshop
TicketsRooted Networks: Mesh Networks Workshop
Curious about radio, DIY electronics, or community-built networks? In this hands-on workshop, People of Earth invites you to explore the world of radio through making, testing, and experimentation.
We’ll look at how small antennas help send information over long distances using very little power, and how this technology can be used as part of community-built mesh networks. You’ll build and tune your own DIY dipole antenna while learning some of the basic principles of radio communication and antenna design.
We’ll also use simple tools to explore the radio signals around us. With a network analyser, we’ll test and tune our antennas, while a Software Defined Radio (SDR) will let us visualise some of the signals that are usually invisible to us. Together, we’ll explore the radio waves that surround us and think about radio as a shared space for communication.
The workshop is open to all levels. No previous experience with electronics, radio, or networking is needed — just curiosity and a willingness to experiment. You’ll be able to take your antenna home with you afterwards.
The workshop onnects with the growing community effort to build alternative, community-run communication networks using Reticulum. This includes a repeater node that will soon be installed at the Hof van Cartesius and the expanding network in the Werkspoor area. By exploring the physical building blocks of wireless communication together, we also contribute to a shared pool of community knowledge, helping more people understand, experiment with, and take part in building these networks.
This workshop is part of our ongoing project/research Rooted Networks, made possible by the Creative Industries Fund NL and Gemeente Utrecht.
What we’ll do
- Introduction: Short introduction to Rooted Networks, LoRa, radio communication and the basic idea behind dipole antennas.
- Build your own antenna: Measure, cut, and assemble a DIY dipole antenna.
- Test and tune: Use a small network analyser to see how your antenna performs and experiment with adjustments.
- Break
- Explore the radio spectrum: Use a radio receiver to visualise signals around us and discover the different kinds of activity happening in the air.
- Final testing + experimentation: More time to tune antennas, compare results and experiment.
- Closing: Short recap, connection to the Reticulum workshop and some additional resources for further exploration.
- Experiment together: Compare antennas, try out adjustments, and share observations and ideas.
- Closing: Recap what we’ve explored and share resources for further experimentation and ways to get involved in community-built networks.
About People of Earth
People of Earth is an art collective co-founded by twin brothers Phillip and Frederick Ekwaro-Osire, merging traditional practices and ancestral knowledge with visions of the future and technology.