There was a huge turnout at our event yesterday in collaboration with Hackaday! Check out some photos.

Hacklab.TO and Hackaday are hosting a Bring A Hack meetup on April 15th! Doors 7pm, talks start 8pm.  Party till late.  Please RSVP on eventbrite: Bring a Hack, this will let us buy the right amount of beer and pizza :-)

We’ll have drinks, snacks, hacks and swag. It’s a Bring A Hack style meetup, where you bring the project you’re working on and show it off to enthusiastic supporters.

There will also be lightening talks, which are short talks about projects or ideas you’re working on.

Sophi from Hackaday will be in town to talk about the Hackaday Prize, the engineering competition that sends you to Space (SERIOUSLY).  http://hackaday.io/

In fact, Hacklab entered the competition last year and will talk about their project, Retro Populator. Want to get on the talks list? Let us know! (contact sophikravitz at hackaday dot com)

UPDATE: just to be clear, you can totally just come to see the talks and hacks, you don’t need to bring your own, and nor do you need to be a hacklab member.  Just RSVP and come have some fun!

Junk independence day at hacklab again, Sunday March 22nd!  2-7pm. Bring your e-waste, root around in other people e-waste, and walk home with new treasure!  On previous junk independence days people have gone home with wonderful treasures like a 1TB HD, an iPod touch, a decent desktop computer, a classic Macintosh, and various pieces for projects… Anyway, come with your e-waste and have some fun at hacklab!   All e-waste will be responsibly disposed of by Revolution Recycling, they are scheduled to pickup stuff at hacklab on Monday March 23rd.  Thanks Revolution!

On Saturday the Repair Cafe had a successful repair clinic at Hacklab Toronto.
Many came through the lab for a tour while waiting for their spot in line to start
work on their personal treasures to be repaired, and to learn a little about
repair themselves. Like those articles and photo narratives, in the past
crosstalk has featured other spaces, how others engage with the wider community.
This successful Repair Cafe was hosted by Hacklab Toronto, and allowed the lab
to give back to a community that does great work.

RSVP on facebook!

Come celebrate Pi Day (March 14th, 3/14, 3.14…) at hacklab! Bring a pie and get in free, otherwise admission is $10/person at the door. All types of Pie welcome – e.g. Shepherds pie, quiche, Australian meat pie, and of course fruit pies, lemon meringue, etc. We’ll be baking pies starting at 1:59pm if you want to join that. Main party starts at 6pm (dinner will be pies, of course!). Bring friends and feast. BYOB, stay tuned for more details.

This will also be a Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality wrap party, one of many dozens occurring all over the world on Pi Day. For those who don’t know it, you can read it in full at hpmor.com. It’s a fanfic of Harry Potter raised in a scientific household. Totally awesome read. The author will be posting the final chapters over the next month, so we’ll be celebrating the end of the story. (There are 100+ chapters, so if you haven’t started, you might still be able to catch up.) We might share favourite passages or try to experiment with magic ourselves. :-)

On the other hand, even if you’re not an HPMOR fan, there’ll be pie, and that’s a good enough reason to come and have fun!

Hacklab is excited to host Repair Café Toronto this February!

The Repair Café is a monthly gathering where there will be volunteer fixers available for computers, electronics, small appliances, clothes, books, among others. For whatever you need fixed, bring it on! You can learn how to fix it while enjoying a cup of coffee or tea, or see what’s possible with the 3D printer or laser cutter on site. To avoid lineups, please arrive early. It would be best to arrive before 3 p.m. so that there is enough time for the fixer to examine your item.

When: Saturday, February 21, 2015 – 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: HackLab.TO, 1266 Queen Street West, 2nd Floor (buzz Unit #12)
Cost: Free (Donations are welcome!)

Lockpicking is a fun and unusual skill, and can help people get a better grasp of their physical security situation.  Come to one of Hacklab’s two lockpicking workshops and learn a skill which is applicable for physical/digital security experts, security-minded home-owners, and anyone who wants to survive the zombie apocalypse!

Hacklab is running two Lockpicking workshops on February 14, the first running from noon until 2pm and the second running from 3pm until 5pm.  This event is open to all ages and all interested parties.  Free signup at EventBrite is mandatory — there are only 5 spots available at each workshop.  This event is Pay-What-You-Can, with a suggested donation of $10 or more to help us keep the lights on.  Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

If you don’t get a ticket, don’t worry: we’ll be running this workshop again soon!

Signup for Lockpicking at EventBrite

The electrons are being excited this weekend at Hacklab with the Sound hackers audio meet up happening on Saturday January 10th, 2 pm – 12 am.
Click here to see  a complete schedule of events happening.

As a pre-amp to all the electrons being excited. Enjoy some of the photos from the Toronto Synth meet up, where I met up with one of Hacklabs members Andrew Kilpatrick and had the chance to play with his new Synth the phenol (Photo below). Andrew has a  Kickstarter for the lovely piece of hardware on the go if you like more info on it.  This is a bit of a different cross talk then in the past. For this is the first time a cross talk has gone from an external event into a internally hosted one.
There has been an Audio swap meet in the past and, now we have the great pleasure of hosting the Sound Hackers meet up at Hacklab.
Stay tuned for this weekends photos. In the mean time here are the best of the Synth meet up from November 2014.

Join us a for an action-packed day of audio hacking. Bring a cool hardware and/or software project to work on. Work individually or in teams.

Presented by Soundhackers and New Adventures In Sound Art

Schedule:
2:00 – 2:15 Hacklab Tour and Hackathon Overview
2:15 – 2:30 Introductions / Team Formation
2:30 – 6:00 Work on Projects
6:00 – 7:00 Break
7:00 – 10:00 Finish projects
10:00 – Midnight Show & Tell / Performances

Demos:
Soldering (soldering irons are available)
Making Inductor Coil microphones

Kits available to purchase:
NAISATron
Contact Mic
Micro Radio Transmitter

All experience levels welcome. Participants welcome to use any tool they wish.

Possible technologies include Arduino, Max, Pd, Ableton Live, Supercollider, Fabrication/3d Printing (TBD)

Admission $10
Open to the Public

Hey everyone!

We get asked every now and again if we could host weekend open-houses for those of you who can’t make it out to our Tuesday Open-House nights. Well, your dreams have come true!

Hacklab will be hosting a weekend Open-House on Saturday December 6, starting at 2pm and going until at least 6pm (but likely later). Come bring your curiosity, neat projects, your weird and crazy ideas and your awesome selves.  As always, our open-house is at 1266 Queen Street West, Unit 6.  Buzz our unit number at the door to be let in.

Also, there will be free vegan food! Show up for some noms, stay for the blinking LED’s!

Any questions about this event can be directed to us via the Contact page.

Hope to see you there.  Happy hacking!