This years Mini Maker Faire in Toronto is over, but it was a grand success in my eyes.
People from all walks of life and age came out to explore, create, share ideas, and hack.
I believe the community just became a little bit bigger from this weekend, and a lot closer for those already in the community creating new connections and friendships.
I am hard at work combing through the photos, trying to decide what to do with them all.

I hope everyone had a blast this weekend and made memorys.
Here are a few moments I captured that I care to share.

This is the Droid you are looking for.

Lock-Pick Village

RGB LED strip Holds wonder.

Hacklab.TO will be giving a talk at the Toronto Reference Library tonight, Wednesday September 11th, at 6:30 till 8pm. We’ll be demoing our 3D printers and talking about the Maker Movement. The title of the talk is Technology and Creative Community Spaces: HackLab.TO, and it’ll be Eric Boyd, Rob Gilson & Alice Thorne speaking. The Toronto Reference Library is at 789 Yonge Street (just north of Bloor), the talk will be in the Atrium on the ground floor, just inside the security gates, you can’t miss it.

Yes that’s right, we’re moving next door to a larger space! Our Hacklab.to is moving indiegogo campaign is off to a great start, with $870 pledged only 2 hours in! We have awesome swag rewards including stickers, t-shirts and mugs. We’ll be using the money raised to help fully equip the space: everything from tables and chairs to new tools for the shop to kitchen essentials. Go pledge now!

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.

Hacklab is going to be at the Mini Maker Faire Toronto! We’ll have our usual booth of awesomeness, showing off members projects (flipdot game of snake, Train Overlord, electronic jewelry, our 3D printers, circuit stitching, etc) and inspiring people to get their DIY on. Come see us there, Sept 21st & 22nd, at Wychwood Barns, near St. Claire West Station. Get your tickets here, with 20% discount for friends of hacklab!

This weeks is to be viewed as a bit of a comic strip.
Effect and Cause, Cause and Effect.

What ever is causing such a contemplating look?

Why it is his recent test of his Game of Life program.

Hacklab Soldering Workshop (for beginners, free but RSVP required)
Monday July 15th, 2013, 7pm-9pm
Want to learn how circuits are assembled? We’ll show you how to solder, the process of using a hot iron to place parts permanently unto circuit boards. Many easy to assemble and cool kits to choose from!

Hacklab Arduino for Total Beginners Workshop (free but RSVP required)
Monday July 29th, 7pm-9pm
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!

Thank you Type A Machines for donating a 3D printer to hacklab! The Series 1 machine is now working perfectly after some small fixes and several upgraded parts (including printer head fan and filament spool holder), making our roster of 3D printers more awesome. Biggest 3D printer is Best 3D printer!