We Are Team Rubber

Drawn on the last day, when just a few of us were left. Maybe we should have one for each member of the company:

My first laptop was a Dell 320N, which I recently recovered from where it’s been gathering dust for over a decade. When I first unpacked it I found that it was reporting read errors from the hard disk, so I was going to start over and install linux on it. Luckly, having taken it to pieces (which was tough - the secret to removing the 320’s case is to undo the screws hidden under the rubber base) I found that there was a dusty pin on the IDE connector, and having fixed that it booted fine.

I am proud to say that booting up into DOS (and then Windows) brought back all the excitement I remember feeling 15 years ago at the power at my fingertips in such a small package.

The 320 runs an AMD 386 at a whopping 20MHz clockspeed (that’s roughly 300 times slower than my current laptop) - giving up to 10MIPS (Mega Instructions Per Second) - roughly 2,250 times less than my current laptop. With the extension module giving me 2 MB of RAM, and a 30Mb hard disk, I felt like I had enough power to do anything I could dream of (Although I never bought the Maths Coprocessor)

Having booted it up I couldn’t help but try out my favorate game - “SkiFree”. This skiing game really packed a punch (notice the screen colours are inverted to increase readability)

How does Team Rubber celebrate it’s 7th Anniversary? By going on holiday, of course. Team Rubber recently returned from a seaside holiday in Dorset, filled with songs, laughter, food and a gale force wind or two.

Many of us enjoyed playing the guitar and the singing of happy songs (despite not always knowing the words). The weather was typically British. Friday was amazing - clear skies, sunny and gorgeous. The rest of the weekend, not so much.

Laura organised the lovely, seasidy holiday cottage for us. Cheers for that! It was situated right on the beach. Inside was “like a maze”, with “cozy” rooms, and “individual and idiosyncratic” beams (quite literally - they weren’t always structural!). There enormous dining room table received many compliments, which accommodated all 18 of us.

Thought the house was spot on, loved the sophisticated-rustic balance, the chance to fully enjoy the sea views whilst staying warmly cocooned from the gales and the fact that it was right next to the pub (allowing me to drink two whole pints of cider without blowing my designated driver responsibilities).” - Ben

I was happy to sit in the conservatory all day.” - Katrina

Amazing. We should buy it.” MattG

It suited Team Rubber. I want to go again!” - Michaela

The house did have it’s quirks, though (rattling windows, temperamental cooker and casual hot water!) but these merely added to the charm.

More photos on our Team Rubber Flickr group, including the awesome panorama.

What were your highlights of the holiday?

• Andy: Lanterns!
• Matt: Pizzas, Photography, Sky Lanterns, Discovering Thatchers Gold
• Katrina: Swimming in the ocean and being covered in crustaceans in the sitting room
• Laura: Untying knots and the Friday walk on the beach
• Tim: Going swimming in the sea, the food, the lanterns and watching our cross-dressers
• Ian: Eating big breakfasts and dinners together and seeing people outside of work — true colours!
• Michaela: The amazing sunny day walking on the beach and the general atmosphere
• Rory: Lanterns, Friday’s sunny weather, and pancakes and bacon for breakfast
• Jenny: Playing the guitar and singing, and lighting the lanterns
• Alex: Thursday was fun and drunken and Friday was really nice out on the beach with the lanterns and fire
• Lisa: Everyone scoffing my American pancakes, hanging out with everyone, walking up the coastline and the night-time campfire
• Matt: Dreamlike, tasty, magical
• Kirk: The lanterns, and swimming with Tim and Alan
• Jess: All sitting down to dinner together, being right on the beach, the beach at night and sitting around in my pajamas til 6pm
• Ben: Mostly just being able to legitimately ‘hang out’ with the good folks of Team Rubber who happen to be some of the nicest, coolest people I know (it always feels like a bit of a shame when all I get to speak to them about is projects, budgets, clients and the like). Also enjoyed the fire and lanterns evening, the frequency of Boggle games and the indulgent opportunity to play some cheesy social guitar without being laughed at

What three words describe the holiday for you?

• Alex: Beardy. Windy. Happy.
• Laura: Relaxing. Extreme. Snotty.
• Katrina: Bonding. Comfortable. Cute.
• Ian: Wind. Sea. Fire.
• Michaela: Relaxing. Fun. Epic.
• Rory: Pure Dorset Gold
• Jess: Chilled. Windy. Relaxing.
  (Jess: Is chilled the same thing as relaxing? Me: Not unless you meant the other kind of chilled, especially at night)
• Lisa: Great Mad Fun
• Kirk: Team Rubber Holiday
• Andy: Sun.  Hurricane.  Fire.
• Ben: Ace. More, please.

In summary, according to Jenny, it was the “Best fun you can have with your clothes on!”

Hey all!

JessG here - n00b blogger for the TeamRubber blog. Just thought I’d put up a little note about the TeamRubber Korean Lazer Ball experience from last Sunday @ Igfest. Lovely Helen told us all about this a few weeks back and we all wanted to join in with gusto. And join in we did!

Alex: Yeah!

After much planning (not!) we decided that uniforms might be a good idea, as there was a prize for the best costumes for the KLB tournament. So we spent some time on Thursday/Friday coming up with some concepts and I got to work on ‘em over the weekend - if you ask me, I think they look rather spiffy:

The team was made up of myself, Matt Wilkes, Ant George, Alex Pitkin and Heather Craggs (who has been on maternity leave recently, so good on her for joining in, even with the little one in tow!) and we rocked peoples socks - there was even a cheering section for “TeamRubber” which spurred us on, we thought, towards victory.

But it wasn’t meant to be; unfortunately, we didn’t win :(. We were beaten 22-26 - the “winning” team came up from behind in the last like 10 seconds. But we did win the award for best costume XD! Check it out:

How pretty :D.

Well, I don’t have much more to say for now, so I’ll leave you with some more shots from the day:

Yeah! Well done team ^_^

Well, what a weekend! I spent Friday chasing people over the city dressed in what can only be described as an eclectic combination of clothing, however, my sports shoes let me down - I tried to catch a group of people and as I ran to catch one of them I went hurtling across the shiny concrete floor by the amphitheater, but ever the professional I told the people I was chasing to carry on regardless leaving me to pick myself up, with only a slightly bruised ego as testament to my accident.

Saturday was non-stop for all the volunteers who came down to help. Katrina came down and helped out at the iglounge where all games started from, here she got chatting to the authors of a game a few of us are playing in the office which is called Call and Return, she also helped out at funfed and managed to blag a place on a team for the ‘Rainbow Rain’ a massive paint fight that happened on Castle Park….I think her team might have won…….

I played the last game of Saturday night and yet again I found myself being a ‘baddie’ (I was a catcher the night before and a catcher again on Saturday) The game Sneaks and Blaggers is held in a multistory carpark, roughly based on snakes and ladders, all the sneaks have to find a complete set of coloured cards without being caught by the two blaggers who have bells around their ankles to warn the sneaks of their wear abouts. The game was voted as the audience’s favourite at the Igawards and was lots of fun to play as a sneak or a blagger.

Sunday was a wonderful end to a great weekend, a lot of the volunteers (including myself and Kat) went out and burnt the candle at both ends on Saturday night but it didn’t affect our enthusiasm on Sunday, a lot of the games on Sunday were family orientated and so where heaps of fun and we were all about to muck in and get involved. The most notable of the day was Korean Lazer Ball, which I unfortunately missed due to other commitments but I am assured will be blogged about by one of the Team Rubber Team members.

My mind is still buzzing from the weekend, the chance to be involved in such an interesting festival has given me insight into alternative ways in which to use our environment and ways to have fun that are away from a screen, keyboard or mouse. It has also taught me how kind and enthusiastic people can be when they are involved in a project that they feel positive about and how this energy is transfered to people who attend the event……Thanks you to everyone who was involved in any capasity at all.

Happy Gaming

x

Some of us like to work at our desks, some of us prefer to move around. I’m in the second group. My desk is principally a place to keep things - mostly books I am reading, or will be reading. Books are good. So are Lego Technic sets, elephants and penguins. There are many things that can be improved by the introduction of Lego, elephants, or penguins.

Team Rubber spent a couple of happy years in Bristol University’s Set Squared incubation centre. We first made contact with them after I saw this banner, back in 2004. The banner wasn’t around for a couple of years, so it’s nice to see it back - just along the road from our Bristol studio.

Set Squared is a key element in Bristol’s Silicon Gorge phenomenon. If you’ve got a strong technology based business idea, and need desk space and support, you could do worse than talk to Nick Sturge (tell him I sent you!).

Manchester is nice, in a big, rainy, black-pudding-and-peas kind of way. Our hotel was not nice, in a stuffy, badly-furnished, curtains-don’t-keep-out-daylight kind of way. No names mentioned, but if you walk into a hotel and see this carpet pattern, consider walking right back out again. Unless it’s raining.

MG MGB GT (Chris) versus Bajaj Hidec (Andy)

0-60: MG Wins (Bajaj tops out at 37mph)
Fitting people in the back: Bajaj wins (back seat of the MG best suited to small parcels and lapdogs).
Fitting people in the back legally: MG wins
Having doors: MG wins
Doing 80 miles on £4.44 of diesel: Bajaj wins
Being red: draw
Having circular headlights: draw