Announcements – Page 6 – (y) Trouble Maker

Membership has its privileges. And duties.

Written by ylab_admin on December 15, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Events, Post-Event Report, Update.

Monday December 14 was our first members’ only night. Since ylab is an all-volunteer effort, that of course means we got down to some hard work cleaning up the space.

Thank you for your membership payment. Now get to work.

Our call for equipment donations produced some very timely results. Big thanks to Eric for the compressor and ShopVac. There’s more stuff coming in, so cleaning up and painting the floor became the top priority.

This ShopVac gained 12 pounds over the evening.

With all the care due to the historic facility, we cleared the room and scraped, sanded, swept, vacuumed and painted.

The artists get to do the fine trim work.

Some serious anti-gravity physics were deployed to move the behemoths – those two big metal folding machines that were living in the space before we took it over (ylab regulars know what I’m talking about).

The Behemoth. Because the DDO can no longer call it the Immoveable Object.

Remind me... who let these wingnuts in here? — Remind me… who let these wingnuts in here?

The gloriously warm December weather allowed us to open the windows to clear the dust and keep our cool.

It’s OK. She signed the liability waiver.

Big thanks to Avery, Lucian, Pek, Richard and Ross for all the hard work and to the DDO for providing us the odd painting thing we forgot .

After. Stand over there to watch paint dry.

Maker Space Membership Update – the Paperwork

Written by ylab_admin on December 6, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Events, Update.

"ME 401 QuickJob" by Nina Paley - http://mimiandeunice.com/2011/07/25/paperwork/. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ME_401_QuickJob.png#/media/File:ME_401_QuickJob.png — “ME 401 QuickJob” by Nina Paley – http://mimiandeunice.com/2011/07/25/paperwork/. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. We’re making progress, but not there yet.

The good news is that a lot of the heavy lifting is pretty much done – formal incorporation as a non-profit; liability insurance; formal board (required for non-profits), finding a space and getting that agreement in place.

Membership has its privileges… and problems.

Pre-announcing membership fees and models is just not smart until we have all the details in place. We’re making progress, with mandatory things like codes of conduct and liability waivers – you know, those things to prevent us from getting sued.

We’re fortunate to have other maker spaces leading the way and providing us great examples.

Stay tuned. We want to have everything in place by Jan 1 (yes, 2016) – with a deal for people participating during December.

Meetup.com: From Markham Makers to Ylab

Written by ylab_admin on December 6, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Events, Update.

Jay’s Markham Makers group on meetup.com has been a big part of ylab from the start. The group was the initial core, providing a great mailing list for our successful kick-off event.

We’re moving from subtle usurping to all-out takeover. It’s now a formal part of ylab. Some of the recent changes include:

Our Robotycs discussion forum
It’s where we store our design and tutorial documents
Accepting payment for our events, without the service charge you get on Eventbrite.
Rebranding to be less Markham-specific. After all, our space at the DDO is in Richmond Hill!

Expect to see more changes soon as we rebrand, re-logo, re-name and generally re-organise it. Some of the work involves changing URLs, so some of the links you use may not work. If you can’t find something, search on meetup.com for ylab – and please let us know if a link is broken.

Another part of the work is better links from the web site, and transitioning the event calendar to link to the meetup.com events. Our web site wizard Avery is on the case. Be patient with him. In the interim, we will continue to post events on both meetup.com and Eventbrite.

Big thanks to Jay for all his work setting up the group – and all the other things he does for ylab.

Changing gears to become a maker space.

Written by ylab_admin on November 22, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Events, Update.

“Be careful what you wish for”, they say.

ylab is making the transition to become a maker space.

ylab started with the goal of building a real tech community up here in southern York Region – Markham, Richmond Hill, Thornhill and Vaughan. There are scores of technology companies in the area, but outside work, everything seemed to be happening in downtown Toronto.

While we thought a maker space would be a great way to do it, we needed to first build up the community. We decided to do it by running a bunch of one-off events. So we started reaching out to people, and with hardly any notice, we announced our kick-off event on July 25, 2015. And we all know how that turned out!

Because it’s all about community, we reached out to others to join in and help out – or, as often as not, they reached out to help us. It might be as simple as spreading the word, giving some advice, loaning a piece of equipment, or as time consuming as rearranging an office or a schedule to host a ylab event. We’ve mentioned them before – companies like Canada Robotix, Logics Academy, Proto3000, Keating… organisations like Markham Public Library, Startup York, David Dunlap Observatory, York Region Amateur Radio Club… Toronto maker spaces Site3 and Hacklab.to… meetup groups Markham Makers and Coffee and Code York Region… the list goes on and we apologise in advance for any we missed.

But most of all, it’s the people. Every time we run an event, we ask ourselves “will this be the one where we fall on our faces?”. It hasn’t happened yet. You’ve shown up as attendees. You’ve shown up as volunteers. We’ve had people jump in to build the web site. To build the social media presence. To volunteer as board members. To do the legal work. To do the accounting. To join in and teach others. To start an amazing robotics group.

As we announced here a couple of weeks ago, the community is giving back to us in a most incredible way.

We have a maker space.

We have it in one of most spectacular and historic sites in all of York Region – the David Dunlap Observatory.

This is a big transition. We have a lot of organisational things to take care of. We’ve already covered some big hurdles – incorporation as a non-profit; creation of a board; liability insurance. We’re working fast (not fast enough!) on the rest of it. Membership types and pricing. Formal agreements. Codes of conduct. Crowdfunding campaign.

We’ve come a long way in – wait a minute – is it really just 4 months since July 25???

So stay tuned for more announcements. We’re reaching out to more groups. We have more plans for more events. But we’re going to be really focused for a few weeks on crossing all those Ts and dotting all those Is to get the maker space going.

In the meantime, your feedback would be appreciated by all the volunteers who’ve worked so hard. Be sure to let us know what you think on those twitter (@ylab_maker) and facebook links on the right side of the page. Or send us a non-public comment on our About Us page.

The ylab team.

Big Mix Night: Robotycs, Arduino, Car Hacks and the DDO!

Written by ylab_admin on November 5, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Events, Post-Event Report, Robotycs.

Wed Nov 4, 2015. It was like a whole bunch of ylab events, shaken up, mixed together and served up with everyone wondering how on earth the unholy mess would taste.

Our friends at the David Dunlap Observatory somehow agreed to let us in to the darkest recesses of their basement for what was supposed to be a barely-announced Robotycs hands-on night. As if that wasn’t scary enough, the place was still littered with skeletons, corpses and other horrors from the DDO Haunted House .

As a test event, we limited the announcement to the fortunate people who attended our two first Robotycs meetings and our Arduino class.

The no-longer secret anti-static handshake.

The theme of the evening: Arduino Robotic Car Hacks. No, not the kind of cars from our August Car Hacks/OBD-2 Event.

Victims of the evening's activities. — Victims of the evening’s activities.

Instead of using robotic kits, we asked everyone to bring whatever old wired or R/C cars they had lying around their basements to modify for Arduino control.

There's an oscilloscope. This must be science. — There’s an oscilloscope. This must be science.

Ylab volunteers brought in oscilloscope, voltmeter, tools, soldering irons and other implements of toy destruction. Robot Ross gave the introductory lesson on how to work to work the motors with Arduino. Then the mayhem started.

Looks complicated... and they haven't done the software yet. — Looks complicated… and they haven’t done the software yet.

Formerly-abandoned toys started coming to life. What were previously single-speed cars were now controllable to run at different speeds.

Isn't this how Frankenstein was brought to life? — Isn’t this how Frankenstein was brought to life?

Some achieved variable steering instead of full-right or full-left. Humming, un-moving motors were explained (more power!). Beginners learned a heck of a lot. Our DDO friends looked on in… let’s say puzzled amazement and leave it at that.

Big thanks to the regular ylab volunteers (Richard, Ross, Jay, Pek), to Canada Robotix for the discount on the Arduino boards, to the DDO for hosting, and, above all, to all the attendees who came out and made the event a success.

BREAKING NEWS: MORE OF THE SAME NEXT WEEK! Look for the booking announcement in the next couple of days on this page (Over there! On the right side!) or by searching on Eventbrite. Same time – 7 PM Wednesday – and same place, which we’ve officially nicknamed the ylab DDOngeon.

October Wrap-Up: Python! Robots! Nerds! Makers! Haunted House! TAVES!

Written by avery on November 3, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Post-Event Report, Robotycs, Upcoming Event.

October 2015 YLab Group Shot — October YLab Meeting Group Shot.

October was a crazy month. YLab is all about tech community, so it’s more than just the events we put on. YLab regulars, volunteers and friends have been all over the place, including:

YLab’s Python Constricted class, hosted by the Markham Public Library, where a dozen people were introducted to the Python programming language, and helped along by ylab volunteers.
Our second monthly Robotycs meeting, hosted once again by Logics Academy, covered an intro to Arduino and Raspberry Pi. We’re looking for a serious competition project!
We have a small offshoot of beginners from Robotycs who are eager to learn and will start some hands-on weekly training by hacking remote control cars. Experienced volunteers will be showing up to help them with soldering irons, oscilloscopes and Arduino gear.

Robot Ross Giving a Presentation and Halloween at the DDO.

We were busy with our friends at the Markham Public Library, where:

YLab’s Robot Ross and Jedi Jay displayed their wares that the Mini Maker Faire.
A few ylab regulars’ faces were in the audience for their evening with Cory Doctorow.
Their Nov 13 TEDx put out a call for speakers. We introduced a couple of ylab friends from The David Dunlap Observatory (DDO) and Site 3 Maker Space who have been selected. Our proposal for a Site 3 flaming demo in the parking lot… well, that went down in flames. Tickets are going fast!

Speaking of the DDO… We wrapped up the month with a Halloween eve visit to their Haunted House in full geek-out costume, complete with pocket protectors, taped eyeglasses and white socks. That was after a visit to TAVES Consumer Electronics Show held at the Sheraton at Hwy 7 and Leslie. Big thanks to the TAVES organisers for the free weekend passes. The must see item: the Richmond Hill AMD team’s virtual reality demo.

YLab Visiting TAVES to get an AMD VR Demo — YLab Visiting TAVES and Getting an AMD VR Demo

The DDO’s Haunted House was augmented this year by contributions from YLab friends and robotics experts Eric and Brett Hagman. The sound-activated, full-size crawling skeletons were a nice touch.

Stay tuned for more November announcements!

Programming Unrestricted at Python Constricted Event

Written by ylab_admin on October 10, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Post-Event Report.

A dozen programmers came in to learn the language. — A dozen programmers came out to learn the language.

Programmers came out on October 7 2015 for ylab’s Python Constricted – a crash course in the Python Language for people who already know how to program.

Attendees arrived ready to go with Python already loaded on their laptops. They worked their way through the hands-on overview of the general structure and features of the language. Then they got down to some serious coding with the help of ylab’s Pythonista volunteers.

When we say challenge, we mean challenge.

The participants got over the biggest hurdles, figuring out how to load additional libraries and get all the necessary pieces together. In the three hours available, they got the hang of it, and many were up to the challenges of retrieving data from web sites and reading and writing database records. There was a lot of surprise that in Python, these tasks are as easy – if not easier! – that writing to files in other languages.

Sometimes, even the volunteer is puzzled.

Big thanks to ylab volunteers Arjun, Craig, Michael and Pek for mentoring, setting up the servers for the class, and preparing the challenges; and to Simon’s Coffee and Code York Region Meetup Group for helping to get the word out. An extra special thanks to Markham Public Library for hosting the event and going the extra mile in allowing us to stay for a hour after closing.

YLabs Announces Robotycs Monthly Meeting. Will Mayhem Ensue?

Written by ylab_admin on September 1, 2015. Posted in Announcements.

Robot Ross (known to humans as Ross Lunan) is breaking out the high-voltage cables and jump starting Ylab’s first regular monthly meeting – the Ylab Robotycs group. First meeting is Wednesday September 30^th from 7 PM to 10 PM, and every 4^th Wednesday of the month starting in October. Apparently we didn’t do enough damage at last week’s Arduino class, so Ramy has somehow agreed to again let is in to Logics Academy for this first event.

You’ve seen Ross’ and other volunteers’ creations at our Kick-Off event and at the Maker Festival.

Potentially dangerous robots. Well, not really. — Potential YLab robotics mayhem. Not necessarily as illustrated.

Registration is open on Eventbrite and space is limited. Come out and join us for fun, a chance to share and gain experience, and hopefully not too much mayhem.

First Month Recap and Top Ten Things We’ve Learned

Written by avery on August 28, 2015. Posted in Announcements, Update.

At Wednesday’s Arduino class, YLab regulars were talking about how hard it is to believe that it’s only been a month since our Kick-Off event. That was way back on July 25, and the Arduino class was on August 26. OK, a month and a day.

It’s been a challenge, an inspiration, and most of all, a whole lot of fun for the growing group of volunteers, makers, techies, geeks and just plain enthusiastic people who’ve been showing up. All ages. All skill levels. All having a great time.

Our planning is best described as “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”. Much to our amazement, it all worked out. We’ve been growing in numbers as more and more York Region makers are discovering us. We’re always happy for those curious to check us out or contact us on social media if you have any questions at all (Facebook or Twitter)

So what’s next? Watch this space for the announcements – we’re working on some new amazing events and updates! They’ll be up soon we promise. In the meantime I bet you’re wondering what we’ve learned in our first month?