Over the last few weeks there has been some rising use of the lathe.
Here are a few photos from some of the work going on.

Aluminium coupler for drive wheel, that was taped to be attached to motor.

Threading a rod.

Recently, one of our members surprised us all by showing up to the lab with a flight suit.

As the title of today’s post reads. This post is a little out of this world. Recently, one of lab’s members surprised us all by showing up to the lab with a flight suit he had obtained. We were all a little curious about its origins and the patches upon the suit. It turned out that the Ontario Science Centre had decommissioned this suit and this lucky member had been on a tour of the Science Centre at the right time to receive it. The patches on the uniform are a bit revealing. All of them seem to be authentic and telling as well.

The patch on the right side is from the Challenger Shuttle Mission in 1986.  I think this has been a little gem the Science Centre has had for many years. To include mission badges from such a tragic mission that ended in the loss of the entire crew on a flight suit that was meant to help educate and teach science has been a touching tribute. A tribute that has allowed the ideas of exploration and those who have been lost in its pursuit to be still part of it. Now the flight suit lives on with a member of our own exploration community. I hope that it can still help foster ideas of exploration, learning, curiosity, and education with its new owner.

Challenger Mission badge.

One of our members brought in a CT scan of a Kinder Surprise to show the lab one Tuesday evening, during open house.
Some of those lucky enough to be present this night had the unique chance to see what a CT scan looks like and learn about the process. The picture below provides a glimpse at the detail these machines can capture as well as the difficulties that can be encountered when trying to navigate the UI in the attempt to see around a proverbial and literal corner.  The photo described as view from top down is the top view looking at the imaging data. It is a little hard to distinguish what shape it is what as well as where one object starts and another ends. While in the second image a reference object is present in the foreground aiding the ability to distinguish shapes present in the background of the image within the CT scan imaging. This is why I said those who were present were lucky on that Tuesday evening, we were able to learn about and were provided a glimpse into what medical professionals may see and some of the difficulties they encounter when using visualisation technologies to identify and distinguish between objects.

CT Scan. View from top down.

A CT scan of a Kinder Surprise. In the foreground can be seen the Plastic toy. Background can be seen the toy still in the Kinder Egg.

During the summer we had two guests stop by on a Tuesday for help with a special project.
To build a Adam West era Bat Phone, which was to be a birthday gift.
So to make sure the gift was not spoiled I was a bit extra cautious and did not post any photos.

Now that the coast is hopefully clear I can post several build photos from the project.
Several HackLab members jumped in on this build aiding with the modification of the phone.
Teaching how to solder and assembling the PCB the guests bought for the project, and
of course quality assurance. Quality assurance in the sense of everyone who was
around once the build was done had to try out the finished build.

Replacing the Bulb with an LED.

Determining how the original guts of the phone are to be reused.

Assembling the sound shield for the Arduino.

Successful installed new LED.

Bat Phone all built and tested.

This weeks photo of the week comes in a pair,  I could not decide upon a single photo from last weeks Open house.

Preparing a lock to have its pins drilled out.

Marking where the pins are to be drilled out.

This weeks post is split into two, the first half is about a bearing made at the lab this week. The second half below the 4 photos from this week you will read about my adventures in Alberta and how I relate them to the community. This week  Atrain decided to outdo me and print a better bearing. If you frequent Hacklab, you may have played with the bright green printed bearing that is stiff and does not seem to be effective. Both of these bearings are open source, the bearing design is generated in OpenSCAD and is personalized to your printer. You can find the design on Thingiverse. Well Atrain did just that, went ahead and printed a bearing out of orange ABS on the Cupcake printer. The Cupcake is the oldest 3D printer the lab has, and of late it has been receiving quite a lot of TLC and some upgrades causing it now provide the Ultimaker with a bit of a competition. See the photos to see the great print quality, and the bearings in action.

Close up of the bearing.

Atrain preparing the 3D bearing for a test spin.

The Bearing in action.

The bearing resting,

LED's behind a defusing medium.

I have been a little lax this month on posting new photos.  This has not been out of laziness, or the excuse there is simply no room on my camera. No, I have been away travelling around Alberta and volunteering at the annual  Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology conference (CITT). This year the conference was held in Calgary and while in town I took the chance when I had it to visit Protospace, Calgarys hacker space.                                 .

Moving Head fixture. This light on closer inspection is mainly built of stepper motors and controllers. The case contains atleast 9 stepper motors.

The CITT conference is an annual trade show for industry Representatives, Technicians, and more. Over the last few years of volunteering at the conference I have seen more DIY, RaspberryPI, Arduinos, 3D printing, and approaches to theatre discussed in a hacker and maker mindset. Theatre has always been a hacker and maker space, using little to no resources and lots of ingenuity, and usually little time.                          The diverse background of those in theatre, are possibly akin to those in the maker and hacker community.  Each person in a hackerspace has unique knowledge and skills. I forsee in the future theatre nestling or cuddling up to the maker community. The future should be an interesting one.

Tuning the newly assembled Series 1 3D printer, from Type A Machines.

As of late Tuesday night, HackLab is now the proud owner of a Series 1 3D printer, by Type A Machines. Leading to 5 members to tackle the construction, calibrations, initial tuning and testing of the printer. I expect throughout the following week the printer will be fine tuned and will settle in amongst the other printers we have in the lab.  I am sure we will be printing some add-ons for the Series 1 soon as well once the tuning is done, such as a tool rest and holder. We may even be adding LED lights to it to better see how the print job is adhering to the surface and see when problems are occurring in during the print job.                                                              I care to thank Type A Machines for the donation of the new printer, and care to extend an invitation to please stop by the lab during our Open House to see what we are creating with this amazing printer.

3D printers settling in to their new place in the lab.

At the rate we are building, working with, and utilizing 3D printers we may have to designate part of HackLab the Print Lab. I hope soon we can add the second Ultimaker we have been slowly repairing to our library of tools allowing more members to print at the same time and gain experience working with these tools. Thank you again Type A Machines for aiding to our creative, and educational tool library.

For 11 more photos from the build. and a photo of the first item printed please click upon the (continue reading) text below for more.

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What does this room of people all have in common?

Arts and crafts being setup.

Several weeks ago now the Toronto Mini Maker Faire Launch party happened.

You can find more images on the following photo streams; Photo booth shots and more,  Photos by Adam Evenden

Upon entering the launch party and registering attendees where faced with an arts and crafts table, full of hot glue, blank masks, LED’s, Coin battery’s, pipe cleaners, markers,  tape, Glitter, and more.
Click more to see some of the creations.

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