A cup holder meant for a wheelchair adapted using a 3D printed bracket for use on a walker (Photo: Scott Sullivan)

Scott Sullivan, long-time member and current president of HackLab, preaches the practicality of 3D printing. When a regular guest at the lab went from using a wheelchair to using a walker, Scott volunteered to help adapt their wheelchair’s accessories to the new support, including a cup holder. He designed a bracket that allowed the cup holder to be attached to the different shaped body of the walker.

Around the lab, one can also find many examples of practical ingenuity that was made possible by 3D printing. A 3D printed desk organizer sits on the soldering bench holding important components so they are not lost. Customized brackets hold the game consoles to the wall in the TV area. There are even bag hooks at each hot desk so that desks are kept clear, and bags are kept off the ground. Ice trays are stacked up in the freezer with specially created shelves.

“As I’ve had the privilege of visiting other hacker spaces across North America, I’ve never failed to find a 3D printer and some practical problem in the space solved with a 3D print,” said Scott.

Ice trays stacked using 3D printed shelves (Photo: Scott Sullivan)

A big aspect of the technology’s practicality is how quickly new items can be prototyped. Fabricating an item using a 3D printer can be quick and approachable. Whether you find a model online or make your own in software, there is something so convenient and magical about an object coming into existence layer by layer. I needed a bowl for the change that was collecting on my bedside table, so I found a cool design online and printed it. Unfortunately, its original size was too small. Forty five minutes later, I had a perfect bowl for my out-of-control coin situation.

Two 3D printed bowls of different sizes. The bowl on the left was too small so the one on the right was printed. (Photo: Luciano Cesta)

HackLab was an early adopter of consumer 3D printing. In 2009, the lab had a low serial number Makerbot Cupcake CNC printer, one of the first commercially available consumer 3D printers. While the quality of its printed objects was not reliable, it was immediately useful to the lab as something to attract people to the space. It allowed people “to rapidly start exploring ideas,” said Scott.

Hacklab’s low serial number Makerbot Cupcake CNC 3D printer (Photo: Hacklab Public Wiki)

The Cupcake CNC’s frame was made of laser cut wood and was known to break and produce inconsistent prints. As Brian Benchoff said on Hackaday: “The Cupcake was a primitive machine, but it existed, it was open source, and it was cheap – under $500 if you bought it at the right time.” He notes that they were ubiquitous in maker spaces.

The lab now uses printers like the Prusa Mini and the Creality K1 which are more approachable. Preparing the printer and sending a file to print is a breeze. The Cupcake CNC required a lot of tinkering from job to job but was still a powerful tool for drawing people to the lab and empowering them to make things.

With the consistent quality of prints and their ease of use, 3D printers have become practical tools for solving problems that cannot be easily solved with an off the shelf part. As I sit writing this blog post, a member is printing a simple coat hook for his apartment. The printer is whirring away in the background solving another problem cheaply and elegantly.

• Sunday January 19th
• 12 Noon – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots of little chips and bytes for random hacking too. Anything left at the end will be picked up on Monday and responsibly recycled!

House Rules: Items brought in for the Junk Day are not to be disassembled on site. If you want only part of an item, take it home, and bring the rest back next junk day.

Raspberry Pi Pico MicroPython Beginner Workshop for total beginners

Saturday December 29th 2pm-5:30pm

SIGN UP HERE ON EVENTBRITE

A RaspberryPi Pico Beginner Workshop for total beginners, all are welcome.

A 3d printed robot claw, electronics bits and a RaspberryPi Pico of your very own is included in the $75 ticket price. You’re more than welcome to bring your own kit and attend the workshop for $20. Please contact us to let us know you’re coming (or buy a ticket on Eventbrite).

Zach will show you how to get started with the RaspberryPi Pico, the super-friendly microcontroller platform that even artists love. We’ll cover…

• getting the software installed and going
• hooking up the RaspberryPi Pico
• little bit of basic programming in microPython using friendly examples

You too can copy and paste your way to a working project!

What you’ll need:

• A laptop on which you can install software.
• The thonny python IDE installed: https://thonny.org/

Come on out to learn with us and support your local hackerspace, hacklab.to!

Workshop Wiki Page

Come follow us on Bluesky, the social network with an open protocol that everyone is talking about! We are posting announcements and other fun things there. Our Twitter archive has also been uploaded to the site.

https://bsky.app/profile/hacklab.to

Weekend Open House – Sunday December 22nd, 3-6PM

In addition to our well know Tuesday_Pattern. Join us the also this coming Sunday!

Hope to see you out!
Bring a project if you wish!

3D modeling is a key tool in the maker toolkit and HackLab is full of makers who are skilled in the process.

Lawrence Temple, a longtime member of HackLab, taught a class this past August explaining the fundamentals of measuring the real world and using CAD software.

“In the maker community, there’s a lot of different ways that [3D modeling] can be used,” said Lawrence.

He mentioned three different uses of 3D modeling that are commonly deployed in HackLab; art, 3D printing, and machining.

“Anything that exists in three dimensions, you can model,” he said.

The first thing that Lawrence taught is how to measure things with precision. He spent an hour and a half of the three-hour class teaching participants how to use calipers to accurately measure objects in real life so that they can be recreated in a CAD program. Participants measured the dimensions of their cellphones and created models of them on their computers. Those models could then be used to create cases.

Lawrence, a software engineer by trade, wanted to get into 3D modeling to build a Gameboy Macro – a project where you modify a Nintendo DS Lite by breaking off the top screen, making it into a big Gameboy like device. He first learned how to model at the Fort York branch of the Toronto Public Library and then taught himself more using YouTube videos.

He spends some of his time at HackLab on his 3D modeling projects. He’s made a few different projects using the skills he has taught in the class, one of them being light fixtures, the results of which can be found in HackLab. The fixtures are thin-walled and clear, created in a vase style for aesthetic purposes. Through the design process he has been able to make different light diffraction patterns. His favourite fixture diffracts the light in a flame pattern.

From teaching the class Lawrence has learned that there are multiple ways to approach the same problem in design.

“You can basically approach [3D modeling] as many ways as you would draw a picture,” he said. “Some of it is intuition and some of it is tools.”

HackLab.TO Intro Series: Guided Teardown of Medical Devices (tickets on EventBrite)

In this “guided teardown” we will have multiple medical devices to disassemble and discuss, led by someone who was on the design team for electrical and software.
Learn about what it takes to make a real product and bring it to market!

Sunday, October 27 at 2PM at Hacklab

No materials required, any skill level is welcome!

Salvage will be available (some items will be reserved and there may not be something for everyone, so consider this a bonus instead of the main event.)

Over the next few months, we will be posting about the myriad of projects that people get up to at HackLab. Make sure to check back regularly for updates!

It can be hard to get information about social services in Toronto for people who are experiencing homelessness. They may not have regular access to the internet and pamphlets are notoriously easy to lose. Zach Donsky, a long-time member of HackLab, thought that there was a better way.

In 2018, Zach created Chalmers Cards, a set of wooden squares that have an abundance of important information laser-cut into them. They are tied together by an elastic hair tie that also makes it easy to attach to pants or a backpack and can be distributed by workers within the social services system. The cards can be easily and cheaply produced in maker spaces across the city and print files can be found on the project’s GitHub. It takes around three hours to make eight sets of cards and the materials cost around $1.

“Access to social services is not as easy as I think it should be,” said Zach.

Information is available online but is not often in the simplest terms. Most of the resources recorded on the Chalmers Cards are accessible through 24-hour toll free phone numbers. You can find contact numbers for TeleHealth, shelter referral, legal aid and more. Many people experiencing homelessness do not have regular access to computers or the internet, so phone numbers are often their best option for accessing services.

“A lot of social services documentation is available on the internet,” according to the Chalmers Card website. “But getting on the internet is a real chore when you don’t own a computer.”

The cards also contain brief guides on getting government identification and financial aid – no access to a computer required.

More than 1000 cards have been produced and distributed since the project was started.

• Sunday September 22
• 2PM – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots of little chips and bytes for random hacking too. Anything left at the end will be picked up on Monday and responsibly recycled!

House Rules: Items brought in for the Junk Day are not to be disassembled on site. If you want only part of an item, take it home, and bring the rest back next junk day.

After our hiatus last week, we have resumed normal weekly Open Houses.
We look forward to hosting and engaging your curiosity!