Some of you have already heard, word is getting around, hacklab has signed a lease on a new space!

We’ll be moving to 1266 Queen Street West, units 6 & 12. It’s at Dufferin Street, in Parkdale. The two units together have a HUGE amount of space, roughly equivalent to 5 existing hacklabs! Our lease starts Sept 1st, but we’ve got possession early to do some renovations. Many hacklab members are extremely excited about the potential of the new space!

Hacklab open house will continue to be at the current location (170A Baldwin Street in Kensington Market), likely till at least Mid-September. Every Tuesday evening 5:30pm-late as always. We will let you know when the location of the open house changes.

Thanks to everyone who supported our indiegogo and all of our activities throughout the last year – we wouldn’t be in a financial position to do this without you! I’ll be lasering up our thank you plaque soon!

If you’d like to contribute towards our moving expenses, we’re always happy to take donations, please click the button at the bottom of this page or just come to our open house and put some money in our donation box. We’re also looking for all kind of in-kind support (got some extra furniture?), please contact us.

Hacklab.TO had a booth at digifest for the family day exhibition – it actually felt a lot like a mini maker faire, with most our usual friends in attendance (hi makerkids, toronto tool library, techknight, getyourboton etc). We showed off a variety of member projects, including crowd-favorite Flipdot Game of Snake, some 3D printed objects, and some electronic jewelry. Looked to be about 1000 people through over the course of the day, check out my flickr gallery: digifest 2014

Thanks to chillinbeta.

As we mentioned, hacklab gave a talk about 3D printing, hackerspaces and maker faires to the Toronto Reference Library a few weeks ago. It was extremely well received! We showed off 4 different 3D printers, actually operated one to print an object live (under a magnifying camera which streamed to the projector!), passed around a large number of 3D printed objects, and also demoed a variety of wearables projects. About 100 people saw the talk, and judging by how many stayed around to ask questions, and then how many came to hacklab to get a tour, we really made an impact! The library put a blog post about it themselves: An Evening with HackLab.TO at the Toronto Reference Library. I’ve also uploaded a variety of photos to my flickr. Thanks go out to Norm, Jammies and Rob for making this event a big success. We’re looking forward to continued conversations with Toronto Public Library about their plans to have something like “maker spaces” inside both the Toronto Reference Library and the new Fort York branch.

Hacklab.TO will be giving a talk at the Toronto Reference Library tonight, Wednesday September 11th, at 6:30 till 8pm. We’ll be demoing our 3D printers and talking about the Maker Movement. The title of the talk is Technology and Creative Community Spaces: HackLab.TO, and it’ll be Eric Boyd, Rob Gilson & Alice Thorne speaking. The Toronto Reference Library is at 789 Yonge Street (just north of Bloor), the talk will be in the Atrium on the ground floor, just inside the security gates, you can’t miss it.

Yes that’s right, we’re moving next door to a larger space! Our Hacklab.to is moving indiegogo campaign is off to a great start, with $870 pledged only 2 hours in! We have awesome swag rewards including stickers, t-shirts and mugs. We’ll be using the money raised to help fully equip the space: everything from tables and chairs to new tools for the shop to kitchen essentials. Go pledge now!

Hacklab is going to be at the Mini Maker Faire Toronto! We’ll have our usual booth of awesomeness, showing off members projects (flipdot game of snake, Train Overlord, electronic jewelry, our 3D printers, circuit stitching, etc) and inspiring people to get their DIY on. Come see us there, Sept 21st & 22nd, at Wychwood Barns, near St. Claire West Station. Get your tickets here, with 20% discount for friends of hacklab!

Hacklab Soldering Workshop (for beginners, free but RSVP required)
Monday July 15th, 2013, 7pm-9pm
Want to learn how circuits are assembled? We’ll show you how to solder, the process of using a hot iron to place parts permanently unto circuit boards. Many easy to assemble and cool kits to choose from!

Hacklab Arduino for Total Beginners Workshop (free but RSVP required)
Monday July 29th, 7pm-9pm
Arduino Beginners Workshop. For total beginners. All are welcome. Eric will show you how to get started with Arduino, the super-friendly microcontroller platform that even artists love. We’ll cover getting the software installed and going, hooking up the Arduino, and a little bit of basic programming, via explanation of the Examples. You too can cut and paste your way to a working project!

Thank you Type A Machines for donating a 3D printer to hacklab! The Series 1 machine is now working perfectly after some small fixes and several upgraded parts (including printer head fan and filament spool holder), making our roster of 3D printers more awesome. Biggest 3D printer is Best 3D printer!

Hacklab had a booth at the Waterloo Mini Maker Faire, ironically held at Kitchener City Hall. We talked to hundreds of people about our tech community here in Kensington Market, and gave away a lot of stickers, buttons, and inspiration. Check out my flickr gallery of the faire, or read the posts I made at Toronto Maker Faire blog and my personal blog digitalcrusader.ca.