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

Raspberry pi: getting started with physical computing – Sun Feb 15th 2-5pm, in the hacklab classroom.

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/raspberry-pi-workshop-getting-started-with-physical-computing-tickets-15644682667

Getting started with Raspberry Pi physical computing workshop. All are welcome. We will show you how to start working with Raspberry Pi and get it to interact with the physical world. This will include setting up the Pi, connecting some electronic components to it and doing a “Hello World” project.

Please bring a laptop and a Pi if you have one, we will have a number of them provided, but probably not enough for everyone. You can buy one at Creatron at 255 College Street or online at http://canada.newark.com . The new version of Pi just came out, but is still on backorder at Newark(element14), so it will be a dilemma for you – get an “older” B+ or wait for new Rpi2 :)

If you have any ideas for a project, bring it along with any components you might need and we will help you get started with that!

Finding Hacklab: We’re at Queen and Dufferin, NW corner, buzz unit #12.

A PWCY (pay what you can) donation of $10 is suggested. Nobody turned away for lack of funds.

http://hacklab-arduino-11.eventbrite.ca

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!
***You’ll need to bring your own Arduino (any kind will do) and a laptop on which you can install software. Also please bring any cables required to attach your Arduino to your laptop – typically this means an A to B USB cable. If you do not have an Arduino, you can purchase one at Creatron at 255 College Street (or online, of course). The Arduino Uno is the recommended board for beginners, but any arduino will do if you have a more specialized project in mind.***
Finding Hacklab: We’re at Queen and Dufferin, NW corner, buzz unit #12.
A PWCY (pay what you can) donation of $10 is suggested. Nobody turned away for lack of funds.

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

cadsoft EAGLE workshop: Feb 9, 16 & 23
$free (donation to hacklab encouraged & appreciated)
https://hacklab-cadsoft-eagle.eventbrite.ca

Come learn CADsoft Eagle, “award winning software [that] offers user friendly, powerful and affordable solutions for PCB design, including Schematic Capture, Board Layout and Autorouter.” It’s used by many hobbyists thanks to the free version, which isn’t horribly crippled, and it’s used by Spark Fun, so many open source PCB designs are already available and easy to copy from! The tutorial will be in three parts, over three consecutive Mondays:

Monday February 9th: Schematic Capture. Taking your circuit schematic and laying it out in Eagle, including things like adding parts, wiring parts, and naming things. ERC electrical rule check.

Monday February 16th: PCB Layout. Including part placement and routing of signals. Trace thickness, autorouting, layers, and DRC design rule check.

Monday February 23th: CAM Processor, Ordering Boards & using the Parts Editor. Using the CAM processor to create Gerbers (the data files that all board houses accept). Quick review of some PCB making services. Creating a new part. Copying and editing an existing part. Library management.

Attendees should come to all three sessions, to get complete coverage of Eagle. So make sure you are available for all sessions before signing up. Please download and install Eagle before the first session.

The tutorial will be taught by Eric and Sen, we both have years of experience using Eagle to make PCBs for shipping products.

NOTE: the interface is confusing, you need only one ticket, just pick the first date from the dropdown, and you’ll be registered for all three dates of the event.

Some folks are at the lab eating Christmas Curry and Axis Of Evil Cookies, listening to secular christmas music and debating whether we want to subject ourselves to Seth Rogen’s The Interview. There’s quite a bit of hackery happening, and vegan hot chocolate has been enjoyed by all.

Whatever you’re doing this holiday season, we hope you’re having as much fun as we are.

Happy Hackmas from everyone at the lab!

Sen using a thermal camera to monitor the exact temperature of the Roller Derby skates baking in our oven. For science!