Testing, AI, Thinking
For our fourth event of 2026, we're at Blue Beck in Macclesfield.
Join us for a series of talks and a chance to meet, mingle and share ideas, with refreshments provided.
Presentations:
Testing What You Can't Control - Adam Davis
Adam is bringing a live, demo-led session where you (and your phone) become part of the system.
Using his side project, pixelmesh, Adam will turn the room into a distributed real-time display powered by the audience's devices. What starts as a simple interactive demo quickly becomes a lesson in what happens when software leaves controlled environments and collides with real-world conditions.
Lighting changes. Networks fluctuate. Devices behave differently. Timing drifts. People move unpredictably.
Together, we'll explore how systems behave and misbehave when you can't fully control the environment around them, and why testing in perfect conditions only tells part of the story.
Part engineering deep dive, part live experiment, this session is hands-on, a little chaotic, and designed to show what real-world testing actually looks like when the audience becomes part of the system.
Local AI at the End of the Tunnel - Mike Irving
In this session we'll combine Local AI, .NET and Dev Tunnels!
To begin we'll look at how easy it is to install Ollama, and download a suitable model to run locally, on our own computers.
Turning to code, we'll then discover how quick it is to connect to Ollama via our own C# Code, using the Microsoft.Extensions.AI library. Initially interacting via our own Console App.
Sidestepping, we'll look at an often overlooked feature: Visual Studio Dev Tunnels. We'll look at the benefits for Web Applications and Web API.
Bringing everything together, we'll take our (minimal) Console App code, bake it into a Blazor Web Application, and expose this via a Web Tunnel. Creating a route through to our Local AI installation from any web modern browser.
Who is doing the thinking? - Robin Roy
A talk about how AI is changing the way we work and whether its slowly replacing our cognition.
Agenda:
6.00 Arrival
6:45 Intro
Talks (from ~7pm, with break between. running order may vary)
Outro
Networking
9:00 Close
Food:
Our hosts Blue Beck will be providing complimentary refreshments and catering.
Entry:
Find us on George Street, behind Sunderland St. We are above The Silklife Centre. The entrance is to the right of the Church / Foodbank entrance, marked George Street House. Take the lift or stairs to the Second Floor. Someone will be there to greet you and direct you to the Blue Beck offices.
About the venue:
The talk will be hosted at the Blue Beck office in Macclesfield. The full address is:
Second Floor,
George Street House,
George Street,
Macclesfield SK11 6HS
Step free access is available at George Street House with lift access to the Blue Beck offices.
Further information on our venues can be found at macctech.co.uk/venues
Parking:
George Street: 2 Hours free pre-6pm, no restrictions after 6pm.
Nearest Car Park: Sunderland Street Car Park - Map
Further information:
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Get in touch via www.macctech.co.uk