hacklab.to

Pi Day is nearly upon us, and no celebration plans have yet been made.  I hereby propose that we meet at the hacklab on Sunday, March 14, from 5pm onward, for a celebration of pi(e).  Create your best pie, bring whatever beverages you desire, and let’s have a good time!

This is a free one-day Esperanto class for total beginners. You will get an excellent overview of all the basics of the Esperanto language and culture. Non-members and random other friends are fully welcome to attend too. Just show up.

Location: Toronto HackLab, 170A Baldwin St in Kensington Market
Date: January 23, 2010
Time: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with lunch break
Cost: Free, but you’re welcome to bring food for the teacher or fellow students

Join the HackLab-Lang Google group to be updated about future language boot camps!

This is a free one-day German class for total beginners. You will get an
excellent overview of all the basics of German. Non-members are fully welcome to attend too.

This is the first in a series of one-day language boot camps facilitated by Sonja. Future ones will include Esperanto, Toki Pona, French, Latin, Mandarin, etc. or whatever else people request.

Location: Toronto HackLab, 170A Baldwin St in Kensington Market
Date: January 9, 2010
Time: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with lunch break (show up on time! we have a lot to cover)
Cost: Free, but you’re welcome to bring food for the teacher or fellow students

Join the HackLab-Lang Google group to be updated about future language boot camps!

Python Newbie Nights on Thursdays will be on hiatus for a couple of weeks, returning in mid-January. Folks aren’t around as much and I’m a bit burnt out, so it just seemed like the right time to take a break. Watch this space for the class’s return!

-Leigh

JetBrains has donated licenses of their excellent Ruby Mine IDE for the lab computers. Thanks guys!

Read all about it!

Street Level: Behind the doors of HackLab.TO.

So after doubt was instilled in the minds of various webizens whether our laser does in fact play Super Mario (the theme song, not the game), Cory Doctorow visited the lab this weekend and now believes our laser cutter cuts with awesomesauce, rather than lasers.  Thanks, Cory, hope it was fun!

We’re left wondering whether the sudden influx of visitors last night to the lab had anything to do with said-eating-of-words, but we’re always excited when new people show up.  Welcome, people!

Since this post hasn’t moved yet beyond “shameless self promotion”, I’ll continue the trend and say that if you’re sitting on the fence about coming down and checking out the lab, not only do we not actually bite, but we run several interesting workshops and events that are mostly open to the public which are all visible in our google calendar and don’t happen on nights when the lab is crammed with curious onlookers.  So if you’re into cool things, come and check it out, or at the very least, check out our mailing list.

On September 1st, I sent an email to the HackLab discussion list asking for folks to commit. Less than 24 hours later, members and non-members alike stepped up and pledged $700 in addition to my initial commitment of $200. Our MakerBot Batch 7 CupCake CNC will ship in early October, hopefully in time for MiniSoOnCon!

3D printing is so amazing. This is the MITS Altair of a DIY revolution whose shape I’m not at all certain of. I couldn’t be more exited to see what the hacklabbers make and how we improve the machine, too.

In alphabetical order, the donors were:

3ric Johanson
Alex Leitch
Byron Sonne
Chad Mounteny
Cheryl Mok
Chris Pilkington
Dale Babiy
Dan Kaminsky
Eric from NYC Resistor
Kate Raynes-Goldie
Sergio Martns
Seth Hardy

Welcome to the future, folks.

-Leigh

We’ve joined together with think|haus from Hamilton, diyode from Guelph, and Kwartzlab from Kitchener-Waterloo to put on a mini hackerspace conference!

Where: think|haus, 152 Niagara St, Hamilton ON

When: October 2-3, 2009

Who: Makers from all over southern Ontario and beyond. You should come too!

Cost: $25 for the first set of tickets. Use the EventBrite system at http://minisooncon.eventbrite.com or contact Seth (shardy@aculei.net) to buy a ticket.

On Friday October 2nd, the conference will host a BBQ and party. Bring cool projects to show off. Awesome badges will be handed out.

On Saturday October 3rd, think|haus will host talks, how to sessions, and a projects gallery at which anyone who is interested can give a 20 minute talk on something related to creating projects, show people how to build/take apart/modify something, or show off their cool projects.

Some confirmed talks so far are:
• You Let Your Kid Do What? A brief story about children and taking advantage of applied engineering skills in a positive way.
• Intro to Kite Aerial Photography Come learn about the kinds of kites you can use to fly your camera, what you need to build your own kite, and how to modify your camera to take pictures automatically.

Check out the website at http://minisooncon.ca and add your own talks or projects.

Thanks to Adina from think|haus for the original post I’ve semi-stolen. :D

The HackLabTO board of directors is responsible for the legal structure behind the lab, and is accountable to the members. Tonight we had the first meeting with our new board members, Dan Fraser and Chad Mounteny. It was quick and efficient, and we got lots covered; the minutes are up on the wiki here (registration-required). Fred Supinski, who was one of the initial Board signatories, is passing on the torch but staying on as a member.

We’re still looking for members to step up to be officers of the corporation – an email will go out to you all shortly.

-Leigh