Embossing
Marcel was busy over the weekend using the hacklab CNC mill to make some pretty cool embosing dice.
He has written an Instructable describing the process.
Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire
Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire took place last Sunday, at Summerhall. Hacklab being on site made it easy for us to get involved.
The centre piece of the lab’s projects was a marble-run with a magnet-based lift belt, based on a previous version installed in the Forest. By Saturday evening the run was starting to take shape, but there was a lot still to be done. After “rapid prototyping” and trying out different ideas the run was completed and briefly tested just as the sun was rising.
As visitors started to arrived the marble run sprung into action. As with the previous version it had a tendency to drop ball bearings once in a while, so the area directly underneath was cordoned off and a “ball picker” equipped a magnet on a stick positioned to retrieve fallen balls. Occasionally a ball lacked speed to negotiate the loop in the run, resulting in a blockage that was again cleared with the help of a magnet.
Gandolf’s Optical Pixalator and Andy’s takeaway carton based Airship attracted attention and discussions with visitors. Peter wondering around with his LED Sombrero perched precariously on his head.
The hacklab was open for vistors and was almost full to capacity on a few occasions. Gary brought along many One Laptop Per Child machines for people to play with. Tom L also did some musical CNC. Some familiar faces dropped by to say hi and a quite a few first time visitors were impressed and we expect to welcome them back on an open night or to a workshop.
Thanks to everybody involved: those who worked on projects, the other exhibitors, Edinburgh Science Festival for doing organisation, and most importantly the visitors who came and made the day a great success. Bring on next year!
Workshop: Candle Making Basics
Creation from the last Candle Making workshop
Following on from the previous Candle Making workshops, we are happy to announce the 3rd running of the workshop. Covering the basics of candle making participants should leave with enough knowledge to try some candle-making of their own. No previous experience is required just come along and have fun.
Areas covered will include:
- Different types of candle and wax
- How to safely melt and pour wax.
- Basic candle making techniques.
- Re-using wax successfully.
Location: Edinburgh Hacklab, Summerhall [Getting There]
Date: Sunday 5th May 2013
Time: 10:30am until about 3:00pm (quite a bit of this time will be spent waiting for wax to cool)
Cost: £5. Including materials, tea and coffee.
Registration: Email peter@greenhac.org.uk if you would like to attend, or have any questions.
Workshop: Candle Making Basics
Creation from the last Candle Making workshop
Following on from the previous Candle Making workshop, we are happy to announce the workshop will be running again. Covering the basics of candle making participants should leave with enough knowledge to try some candle-making of their own. No previous experience is required just come along and have fun.
Areas covered will include:
- Different types of candle and wax
- How to safely melt and pour wax.
- Basic candle making techniques.
- Re-using wax successfully.
Location: Edinburgh Hacklab, Summerhall [Getting There]
Date: Saturday 23rd March 2013
Time: 10:30am until about 2:30pm (quite a bit of this time will be spent waiting for wax to cool)
Cost: Hacklab members – £2, Non-Members – £5. Including materials, tea and coffee.
Registration: Email peter@greenhac.org.uk if you would like to attend, or have any questions.
The Lab is Moving!
Some exciting news.. After around a year of searching and quite a bit of persistence Edinburgh Hacklab is moving to a new much bigger space at Summerhall. The former site of University of Edinburgh Vet School, Summerhall is on the corner of The Meadows. Used extensively as a Festival venue in August, there is a year round program of events and exhibitions including the Mini Maker Faire. We’ll be neighbours with Techcube and expect to get to know some of the tenants.
We have the use of 3 rooms enabling some of the nosier and messy bits of equipment to have a space of their own and room for some dedicated project storage. As the photos show the rooms are much as they are when the university moved out so we have plenty of sinks (3 in total) and lots of sockets!
The main room – G1
“The dirty room” – G2
We are doing most of the moving this weekend so the first open night at Summerhall will be on Tuesday 22nd January from 7pm. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for further updates and events.
Thanks to all those involved, especially Mike and Al, in making this happen.
Candles were made…
Exactly a month ago the first Candle making workshop took place at the lab on a unseasonal sunny Sunday morning. After a quick run through the types of wax and candles, and some safety tips it was time to get candlemaking.
Kayla decided to make a candle in the shape of her home state of Ohio. Tinfoil was acquired and used to make a mold.
Ohio
Following the same theme Grace made a mold in the shape of the Scottish mainland using tin foil and electrical tape (we couldn’t find any duct tape), there were a few significant leaks but they were plugged by the first poring of wax. A wick was added followed by a few more layers of wax.
Mainland Scotland with raspberry purple top layer
Al went with a slightly more conventional design using a commercial mold with a bit of tilting of the layers.
Al’s creation
Ashley used a ginger beer bottle as a mold, to be broken a day or two later once the wax had set, hopefully reveling a beautiful bottle shaped candle.
Enjoyable day had by all, with some tips picked up for future candle-making. Look out for some more workshops at the lab….
All finished…
Workshop: Candle Making Basics
Photo by Deadicated – Creative Commons
Edinburgh Hacklab are pleased to be hosting a Candle Making workshop. Covering the basics of candle making it aims to give participants enough knowledge to try some candle-making of their own.
Areas covered will include:
- Different types of candle and wax
- How to safely melt and pour wax.
- Basic candle making techniques.
- Re-using wax successfully.
Location: Edinburgh Hacklab [Getting There]
Date: Sunday 7th October 2012
Time: 10am until about 2pm (quite a bit of this time will be spent waiting for wax to cool)
Cost: Free, required materials are provided.
Registration: Email peter@greenhac.org.uk if you would like to attend, or have any questions.
Edinburgh Hacklab @ EMFCamp
The first UK hacker camp in many years was taking place in Milton Keynes, hackers, makers and other interested people were going to be there from across the UK and beyond. It was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed. After a early start the “hackbus” (a hired 9 seat mini-bus) was making good progress and we arrived by mid-afternoon in time to put up our tents and connect to the supper-fast Internet connection before the first talk started….
There were several other hack spaces, including NottingHack that had brought a gazebo village complete with laser cutter. Our “village” was slightly more modest a few straw bales with cooking equipment spread out nearby. A borrowed sail provided the only means of identification and protection from rain, that fortunately didn’t occur in any significant quantity.
Edinburgh Hacklab Village
Edinburgh Hacklab Team Wins Coderace 2012
In true Hacklab style we found out about the event (Thanks Jane!) with less than a week to go. After a bit of hasty origination we had 4 Android phones, 4 people, 3 bikes and one car.
The rules were simple. Go to points marked on the map, use a clue to find the answer and enter into the App. Only the first player to enter the correct answer at each location would score. When a clue was solved 2 extra locations would appear somewhere on the map. About 15 minutes before the game started we were shown the game area, it was larger than expected.
Alistair, James and Peter, were riding bikes whilst David was driving a car. Strategies were discussed and then simplified to, “go to an unclaimed point near you that somebody else isn’t near to”. We were up against a team with some serious looking cyclists, wearing Lycra, sun glasses and everything. We were a bit worried that our lack of cycle fitness might find us wanting…
Ready to Set off. Left to Right: Alistair, James, Peter and David. Photo: Coderace
We left Edinburgh Napier Craiglockart campus at 2pm, with 2 hours to get as many answers as possible. Most clues were fairly straight forward but some involved a bit more work and strange looks from members of the public as an out of breath cyclist asked what was written on the plaque attached to the bench they were sitting on! There were a few technical hiccups with Alistair’s phone hitting the data cap and then the battery running out. It gave him a bit for free time to do some juggling entertaining passers-by in the Meadows. The really nice weather meant reading phone screen was sometimes a little tricky in the sun, but it’s much better than having a wet phone.
Slightly surprisingly Edinburgh Hacklab pulled out ahead and the final score was 18, 4. James got the most points solving 6 locations, whilst Peter got 5, including ne with 45 seconds to spare. It was a really enjoyable day and has given us some ideas for future location games.
Many thanks go the other competitors, the organising team especially Brian who was very receptive to our bug reports and enhancement suggestions. Thanks also to the sponsors for providing prizes. More information on the Coderace website Alistair has also blogged about his experience
Looking forward, to next year’s event with hopefully more teams to compete against.
The final game play screen, the red crosses were unclaimed points
Relaxing with the other team. Photo: Coderace
Edinburgh Hacklab Limited
After almost 2 years of existence as a non-incorporated organisation, Edinburgh Hacklab has incorporated as a limited company by guarantee. This legal structure is used successfully by the majority of other UK hacker spaces.
So what does this really mean. From a day to point of view the hacklab will operate as it did before. There are no shareholders and Articles of Association define that any surpluses have to used to further the aims of the Hacklab. A board of directors elected by hacklab members, will be responsible for ensuring that the hacklab meets it legal responsibilities and other procedural maters.
The main things that have changed are:
- The hacklab can enter in contracts that previously as an unincorporated organisation we couldn’t. This means for example a lease can be signed by Edinburgh Hacklab Ltd name rather than a single individual member as the case was previously.
- Each member is liable for a token amount (£1 in our case) in the event that the hacklab is unable to meet it’s financial responsibilities. This is obviously not a situation that we would envisage ourselves being in. Previously the members would have been jointly financially liable for the full amount.
For the curious our company Registration Number is SC427746 and the initial directors are Aaron, Al, Gareth, Peter and Tom H.
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Hacklab status: Closed :(
