Laser cutter fun.

During one snowy Hacklab open house there was some creative

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On Saturday Feb 11th, I’ll be teaching an Introduction to Python workshop. It will go from 10am to 4pm, with a break for lunch.

Python is a popular programming language, known for its simplicity, ease of use, and elegance. An excellent language to start programming in.

We’ll cover some basic programming concepts. What that will include will depend on how fast we go :)

Please RSVP — we have limited space!

Every Tuesday, from around 6pm until late, the lab opens up our front door to members of the public. We’re specifically excited about folks who want to show off projects they have made or are working on, want to ask for help with making something awesome, or want to help out on other folks’ projects. Bringing a laptop along to just chill out with other geeks is also welcome.

There’s no minimal skill level required to participate, and we do our best to be a respectful, friendly environment for everyone. Regretfully we are not wheelchair accessible – there are 17 steps leading up to the lab, and 2 steps up to the bathroom. As a heads-up to folks with sensory processing issues, the Tuesdays can get quite busy and noisy. 7 to 8 pm tends to be the busiest time.

Members of the media are also welcome, but in the interest of member privacy we have cute little press passes hanging by the door, and require that permission be sought before taking photos with people in them.

This is a free one-day Esperanto class for total beginners. You will get an excellent overview of all the basics of the Esperanto language and culture. Non-members and random other friends are fully welcome to attend too. Just show up.

Location: Toronto HackLab, 170A Baldwin St in Kensington Market
Date: January 23, 2010
Time: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with lunch break
Cost: Free, but you’re welcome to bring food for the teacher or fellow students

Join the HackLab-Lang Google group to be updated about future language boot camps!

This is a free one-day German class for total beginners. You will get an
excellent overview of all the basics of German. Non-members are fully welcome to attend too.

This is the first in a series of one-day language boot camps facilitated by Sonja. Future ones will include Esperanto, Toki Pona, French, Latin, Mandarin, etc. or whatever else people request.

Location: Toronto HackLab, 170A Baldwin St in Kensington Market
Date: January 9, 2010
Time: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with lunch break (show up on time! we have a lot to cover)
Cost: Free, but you’re welcome to bring food for the teacher or fellow students

Join the HackLab-Lang Google group to be updated about future language boot camps!

For the past couple of weeks a few of us have been meeting up at the lab to learn some Python.  Some of us are complete beginners, while some of us have been programming profesionally for years.  It makes for an interesting evening and we’re been learning lots.

We’re basing the sessions on the book Python for Software Design: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist, which is available for free online.  We’ve been impressed so far with the book’s clarity and the quality of the example code it comes with.

After a few successful sessions, we’ve decided to make this a more regular / official meeting at the lab.  It’ll be every Thursday at 7PM until around 9, though we have gone later in the past, and some of us show up earlier as well.  Feel free to drop in our IRC channel (#hacklabto on freenode) if you want to see if anyone’s already at the lab.  For this Thursday if you feel like catching up before you come out, we’re at chapter 4; don’t worry, though, we’ll be able to get you caught up if you’re a total beginner :)

-Leigh