Hacklab has moved!

Come visit us at Hacklab 2.0, now located in Parkdale! (1266 Queen Street West) We’re open every Tuesday night (Including this Sept 30!)

New lab!

Hacklab’s new classroom and large hacking area

More photos of the process here.

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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Hacklab the movie Exclusive still preview.

Todays post was originally suppose to be a comic strip that ended upon a past internet Meme which has recently been gracing the lab, specifically the LED sign.                                                               The Meme in question is the video of Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up.  The LED sign just cant handle the current video this internet favourite, but I have high hopes for the video/animation currently in use with some more tweaking and editing it could be fully working in no time.                                         So instead of my intended comic I am present everyone with a mashup between a make your own caption, and what I am calling Hacklab the movie.

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

There are a ton of things to keep straight when starting up a hacker space.  Just look at the design patterns document – so many things they talk about are the initial stages, not the day-to-day running of things.

We spent a lot of time getting things like a net connection, insurance, two-factor door authentication, and a monitored alarm system set up.  But in the end, incorporation was about the most stressful thing to get going, and we’re not through the process yet.

Obligatory not-a-lawyer preface:  I’m not a lawyer, I was simply raised by a pack of them.  I can read forms and websites, but this should in no way constitute legal advice.  Do your own research and consult a good lawyer – it will save you hassle in the long run.  If this post kicks your puppy or causes your hacker space to burst into flames, please complain elsewhere.

Incorporating a non-profit in Ontario isn’t a huge deal, or particularly expensive.  It’s $155 and a 4-page form, plus a corporate name search (NUANS search), which costs around $35.  We expedited ours for $100 to get 7-day service, and it ended up taking 4 business days – way awesome compared to 6 weeks for the normal fee.

The Ministry of the Attorney General has a really excellent guide to incorporating non-profits up on their site.  Read the whole thing.  The form you need to fill out is in the appendix.

The one thing I wish the guide had been clearer on is that for a non-charity non-profit, which is what we are, you don’t need to have your corporate objects approved.  That’s just for charities.  Phew, we don’t have to pretend we’re a club….

But wait, we kinda did.  They didn’t like our name!  HackLab Toronto Inc.  Sounds too for-profit, apparently.  So it’s HackLab Toronto Club Inc.  Which is way too wordy for my tastes, but I really don’t care enough to be concerned.  So yeah, make sure your name sounds non-profitey in a way that is consistent with your corporate objects, which you will learn all about when you read the handbook.

Here’s what we ended up coming up with.  It’s suitably vague-yet-specific, but in retrospect I can see how the person doing the filing thought we should have “club” in our name.  These are the “objects for which the corporation is incorporated” to use the official Ministry lingo:

Hacker Club: The establishment and operation of a social club for individuals interested in computer security, technology, electronics, and related topics for the purpose of:

* providing facilities and equipment for the pleasure and accommodation of members and guests;

* sharing information and knowledge for the mutual benefit of the members;

* organizing technical, educational, and social events;

* promoting awareness of privacy and digital rights issues affecting members and civil society;

and such other complementary purposes not inconsistent with these objects.

For the special provisions, we just left it at the default which comes pre-printed on the form.  You should consult a lawyer to see if that’s what you need to do to.

I got the NUANS search done here, and they took about 18 hours to get it back to me.  Make sure you get a full NUANS, not just a pre-search.  Also, you can do pre-searches for free on the federal NUANS site – just let your session time out if you use up your 8 free ones.

The other board members and I are working on our Bylaws, which for Ontario corporations are not approved by any government agency, just kept internally.  Ontario corporations are kinda great that way.

Tomorrow I’m going by the office to pick up our Letters Patent, and then we’re all set to get a bank account, which is pretty much our last step in becoming all official and stuff. Except registering for PST / GST… but more on that later.

-Leigh