Christmas present for our members: we just bought a larger and heavier band saw! Please use the old one until we get this first installed and adjusted.
The manual milling machine in metal working room has reached a point where we can now announce it ready to use. We received a lot of tools alongside it, so ask Miikka or Markusjm if you need help in selecting the right one for the job. The machine can be used as an ordinary drill press for metals.
Other news:
more hearing protection soon arriving
batch order of laser cutter materials? (planning stage)
we’ve budgeted for buying new cleaning tools, another vacuum cleaner, first aid supplies and storage boxes
Events and happenings in the near future
Next open Tuesday on 1st Jan 2019
Disobey – We will be at Disobey 2019 with hacklab.fi, please come say hello and make/break stuff at our workshop table.
This year’s last Open Tuesday is on 18th Dec, so there is no meeting on the first Christmas day. The 2019 Open Tuesdays start on the first day of January.
There are still some days left for making DIY gifts at the hackerspace, especially with the new laser cutter!
Helsinki Hacklab now has a new 150W CO2 laser cutter with almost 1,5m² of work area. Most other laser cutters could fit inside this beast!
This week we have had the first user introductions for members, and the wiki page for the machine probably updates in the process. We have made some tests with plywood and acrylic so far, but the materials are not limited to those only. We’ll try to arrange some basic stock of laser cut suitable materials soon. We are going to require membership and basic training before use. By the way, membership fee for the rest of 2018 is free of charge for new joining members.
We received generous help from Minela Säätiö foundation, the local Rotary club among others, and importantly – our own members. Thank you all who participated!
Our front door was swollen, twisted and did not keep the cold outside well enough. I restored an another old door, removed the paint, filled, sanded and repainted it with “club colors”. Also, the emergency exit back door got a fresh new look too. Here’s a photo collection of the process:
Removed old paint from the replacement doorThe old door
Starting point with some sanding and fillingsEmergency exit back door paint jobInside details
Now it’s quite easy to give instructions how to find us: if you don’t see a green door with orange circles, you’re not there yet.
Iso Omena Library hosted another WÄRK:fest this year together with Wärk ry. and Aalto Fablab. The maker event was open and free for everyone. The library itself is designed for makers too: it has a laser cutter, numbers of 3D printers, robot workshops and a heat press to name a few examples.
Helsinki Hacklab took some interesting projects on display and Tuulis instructed crafts projects for children. We have more photos from our table and elsewhere in the event in Flickr: WÄRK:fest 2018
The quiet summer is now over and we should expect having full house on Open Tuesdays again. Here are some projects we’ve been making lately:
Helsinki Hacklab is now testing and soon setting up a more permanent SatNOGS station in our hackerspace. The antenna cable is installed trough an air duct that goes all the way up to the roof from our cellar level space. We already have an antenna and our own satellite tracking station site in the SatNOGS network. You can check out our latest observations there!
Our members just bought a manual milling machine for the metal working room. The machine and its tools is now waiting for a transportation to our address. We arrange training later for those who are interested in learning to use it. There’s also a better drill bench in the woodworking room now.
Other new things at the lab include better emergency exit markings, fixed 3D printers, and a showcase cabinet for selected or archived example projects.
Back door emergency exit paintjobFixing bikesNo unruly parking!Tuesday update: The milling machine arrived quickly!
Kesän kiireistä johtuen jäsen- ja avainhakemuksien jonoa ei ole ehditty käsitellä hallituksen kokouksessa. Jos olet lähettänyt jäsenhakemuksen, voit osallistua toimintaan normaalisti jo ennen kuin hakemuksesi on käsitelty.
Due to summer schedules, member applications and key member applications have not been processed in board meetings yet. If you have sent us a membership application, you can already participate in activities before you have been formally accepted.
Helsinki Hacklabin kevätkokous 2018 / Spring meeting
Helsinki Hacklab ry:n sääntömääräinen kevätkokous pidetään lauantaina 19.5.2018 klo 14. Paikkana työtilamme Takkatie 18 alakerrassa.
Paikalle saa saapua jo 12 alkaen valmistelemaan ja siivoamaan tilaa. Virallinen kokous aloitetaan kello 14. Ennen ja jälkeen on epävirallista kokoontumista.
Tarjoilu nyyttikestiperiaatteella. Tervetuloa!
Helsinki Hacklab holds its annual spring-meeting on Saturday 19.5.2018, 14:00, at our premises in Takkatie 18. You can arrive starting from 12:00. After the official part there is general hanging around and snacks using the potluck principle. Welcome!
Ten participating hackerspaces must be a record for the biannual gathering of Finnish hacklabs! Hacklab Summit Finland 2018 was arranged in Jyväskylä, and despite the local hacklab was in charge of the event for the first time, they managed to make this happening one of the best in the history of HSF.
Our hangout place
The major theme for this year was planning the way how to formalise hacklab.fi as an official organisation of hackerspaces in Finland. We now have initial idea how the organisation should work, based on opinions and votes of those, who took part in this meeting. Unanimous conclusion was, that the founding assembly is going to be the next HSF in Helsinki this summer. Hacklab.fi has a history of more or less informal co-operation between cities since 2012. The new organisation will be strictly for member-operated hackerspaces, supporting new groups to get started, offering web services, representing our local scene in events both in Finland and further away, and making all kinds of PR work to help people find their local hacklabs.
Jyväskylä Hacklab took the responsibility to arrange HSF in connection with Instanssi demoscene event. This enabled us to have more space, content and possibilities than before. As usual, the program was fixed weeks before the start, and a hourly timetable kept us on track with finishing robots ready for the competition, remembering to eat, presenting recent happenings in different hacklabs, doing something more than just sitting behind the laptop, going to a indoor trampoline park and of course, the sauna.
Staying active
Helsinki participated in the robot race track competition with two robots. The robot track is a 1 × 2 m box which has copies of itself in some of the hacklab.fi member spaces. Joonamo found his robot from last summer still working, and I assembled hastily some LEGO robot that had code running just few minutes before the competition started. The program was written in Python from scratch, the robot did zero practicing on the track, and I only knew it could probably move forward when turned on. For my complete surprise, it actually managed to make one clean complete round on the track, and didn’t even finish last on the results list. Joonamo’s robot came 3rd in speed results and 4th in popular vote, and the host city Jyväskylä took the first place. Robot competition was also included in the Instanssi program, so we had a great audience supporting the bots on the racetrack.
Posing before the race
The weekend ended in visiting Hacklab Jyväskylä, which is about to move to a larger location soon. Tampere Hacklab is expanding its place with a new metal room and textile work section. There are also plans in other cities to look for larger workspaces and Nokia just started their own lab. This HSF had a very positive athmosphere where collaboration is taken for granted.
Definitely looking good for hacklab scene in Finland right now. A big thanks to Jyväskylä for hosting us!
Finally we have some new info about the next Tuesdays:
Volunteer Tuesday 2018-02-13 – moving work tables and other items, reorganizing and sorting
– many tools not in use yet
– simple tasks for everyone
– only limited possibilities to make anything or get assistance, please consider just doing volunteer work
Open Tuesday 2018-02-20 – normal Open Tuesdays return starting from here
It’s OK to walk on the floor now
Courses
Basics of wood turning (in Finnish) 2018-02-14
– English course can be arranged if there’s demand
Christmas present for our members: we just bought a larger and heavier band saw! Please use the old one until we get this first installed and adjusted.
