New schedule! New seminars! New Open House format!

Written by ylab_admin on September 9, 2016. Posted in Announcements, Events, Upcoming Event, Update.

We’re changing things up for the fall!

OPEN HOUSE NIGHTS: LESS IS MORE!

We’ve halted our regular open house Wednesdays to make them even better.

Starting October 12, we’ll have them bi-weekly, on every second Wednesday, and feature a free one-hour seminar/demo session at each one.

To kick it off, we’ve scheduled a free What’s this Arduino Stuff All About? on Wednesday October 12. For those who want more hands-on, we’ll have an advanced, 3-hour class that’s in planning now.

But what’s happening between now and then?

YOU WANT CLASSES? WE GOT CLASSES!

We’re kicking it off with our two-evening 2D Design/Laser Cutting class that’s happening next week, Monday Sept. 12 and Wed Sept. 14.

Our 8-week ham radio certificaton sessions start on Thursday Sept. 15, and we’ve made the first session a free ham radio open house night. Come out and see what ham radio is all about in the age of Arduino, Raspberrie Pi and the age of digital, software-defined radios.

BREAKING NEWS: Our not-a-l*ght-s*bre making class (it might happen to look like one, but is clearly not, as we don’t want Lucasfilm to be upset with us) is open for registration. YLAB MEMBERS: Check your email for the secret access code.

EMAIL LIST GOING AWAY

Some of you receive messages through our meetup.com group and because you’re on our email list.

We’ll have one more email notice through our non-meetup email service and then kill it. Communications will be through this meetup group and direct emails to paid members.

The privacy rules around email make it almost impossible to manage an email list without using a professional email management service, and we’ve done that scrupulously since the startof ylab. We’ve had sign-up lists and have not added anyone without their express consent. We used Elite Email’s excellent free service. But people who’ve willfully signed up will frequently mark the messages as spam instead of unsubscribing. This creates a vicious circle where the major email programs like google and yahoo then automatically flag all the emails from the service to the spam folder. We know from the Elite Email reporting service that the open rate is dismal, and people tell us they didn’t get a notice because it went to the spam folder.

Lots of fun at the Toronto Maker Extravaganza – and some ylab news

Written by ylab_admin on July 11, 2016. Posted in Announcements, Events, Update.

The Toronto Maker Extravaganza at the Toronto Reference Library this weekend was another big success – and ylab was there.

Nobody told us we couldn't put up our banner. Until they did. — Nobody told us we couldn’t put up our banner. Until they did.

Our contingent and display were organised by Ross and Pek, and staffed over the weekend by Ross, Jay, Brooke and Richard, with Pek volunteering with the event organisers. We saw other ylab members visiting the show (slackers!). Our laser cut windmill/generator made it down to the sailboat races.

Fans strong enough to turn windmill, but not enough to blow his hat off.

Could that actually be... finally... the new ylab circuit board for... — Could that actually be… finally… the new ylab circuit board for… something that’s not a light thingy?

Displays were most impressive, but the best part was getting to see friends and makers who’ve helped us out and inspired us to make ylab happen. Hats off as always to Site3 and Hacklab.to, among others.

Everyone one loves those things that are not light sabres. Everyone.

Newmarket’s NewMakeIt had a huge modified geodesic dome out on the street. There’s a group coming together in the Oshawa/Durham area. Like our friends at YRARC, tomesh.net does interesting things with wireless mesh networks. One guy came by, saw our display on the RASC/DDO, and introduced us to a great radio astronomy web site. Repair Café Toronto introduced us to their fun and helpful events.

Operation Gorilla Phoenix is trying to bring back the Active Surplus stores. If you don’t know what Active Surplus was, or, more importantly, what a gorilla has to do with it… ask an old geek or maker.

We had some special things of our own at the festival:

For members, we announced the kick-off meeting at 7:30 this Wednesday, July 13 at the DDO for this year’s Halloween project (ylab and DDO members only).
We had the first display of our new not-a-light-sabre project, with Richard’s next-generation circuit boards fresh in from manufacturing, and the latest multi-colour LED strips.
We announced a joint DDO/ylab maker day for Saturday, September 10th at the DDO.

We’ll have a posting about that last one up soon, and we’re already inviting some great hobby/maker groups to join us.

AGM: Of Course We’d Like Fries With That!

Written by ylab_admin on June 24, 2016. Posted in Events, Post-Event Report, Update.

Ylab held its first member’s Annual General Meeting on June 20 at the DDO. How do you get a bunch of makers to actually show up for a boring meeting? Hold a BBQ!

Can we be any clearer that it's a ylab BBQ event? — Can we be any clearer that it’s a ylab BBQ event?

July 25 is the anniversary of our first event, so it’s not quite a full year. Fiscal year end is March 31 because our volunteering accounting people have the time now to do all the book closing and reporting stuff Big thanks to Jenn, Murray, Joel and Wendy for all their work that nobody else wants to do.

Being makers, frozen patties would just not do. Nothing but fresh ground beef. A charcoal kettle. A big vat of boiling oil and fresh cut fries. Bitten tongue was on the menu for those who thought we would put breadcrumbs or milk-based substances in our burger patties (you know who you are). The nerve.

Boiling oil. Don't piss us off, or we're taking it to the roof. — Boiling oil. Don’t tick us off, or we’re taking it to the roof.

The BBQ was a most pleasant and relaxed event – a warm summer solstice evening, a perfect venue at the DDO, a good breeze to keep carnivorous bugs away from the carnivorous makers, and good company from the invited RASC-DDO members who open the doors for us on our maker nights and do an all-around amazing job.

Turning away from the camera because they ate TWO burgers.

The AGM part was mercifully short. A member vote brought in new board members Pek and Richard. Our eternal gratitude to departing board members Peter and Gary for all their work helping ylab get off the ground.

At the end of the evening, the usually-dark parking lot was lit by a squadron of fireflies.

And that’s how ylab does an annual meeting.

Laser cutter class tested on ylab rats

Written by ylab_admin on April 21, 2016. Posted in Events, Update.

Ylab members volunteered themselves to test out and be tested themselves in our first two formal classes since moving into the DDO – our Intro to 2D CAD, followed by our Ylab Laser Cutter Certification.

No actual rats harmed by this laser cutting.

Since we want a solid foundation to build-on, we used the free version of DraftSight, a CAD program with great 2D and 3D capabilities, and a user interface that’s compatible pro-grade tools like AutoCAD.

Participants suffered through some trial and error. We allocated some extra time. And some more extra time. But by the end of the class, participants had etched their own dog tags and cut out their graduation certificates.

We now have great intro material and better structure for the next set of classes, which we’ll be announcing soon.

BONUS FEATURE: Thanks to the people at TechSoup who do so many things for non-profits, we’ve acquired a full license for AutoCAD for the maker space at a very, very significant discount. Now to find and adequate PC to put it on…

No Open House Wed Apr 13 – Laser Cutter Class

Written by ylab_admin on April 12, 2016. Posted in Announcements, Events, Update.

Open house is cancelled this week – Wednesday April 13 – due to our members-only laser cutter class taking over the space. Ylab paid-up members are allowed to come in for whatever activity they normally do.

Ylab's laser cutter at work. What else would we cut? — Ylab’s laser cutter at work. What else would we cut?

March 29: Qualcomm Hosting Next Ylab/North of 41 Event

Written by ylab_admin on March 10, 2016. Posted in Announcements, Events, Upcoming Event, Update.

Our last corporate event at Lenovo was such a success that we’re doing it again – and this time, Qualcomm Canada is hosting us.

Breakfast with the CEOs: Innovation and Technology in the Cloud

Come out and hear how three York Region companies have innovated to use cloud computing to create new lines of business.

These companies are building and running successful ventures on an international scale that would not be possible without the resources and technology of the cloud.

Our speakers are not just users – they’ve been leaders in addressing the regulatory, security and data locationon issues with government and some of the biggest cloud suppliers.

Find out how they’ve handled business, scaling, security and other issues – and join in the Q&A to get your own questions answered.

ylab-event-poster-north41-with-CEOs-v4

Larry Keating – President and CEO, NPC (http://npcdataguard.com )– invented and brought to market his industry’s first secure managed endpoint computing solution, changing how laptop computers are managed for business. NPC uses the cloud to secure, manage, monitor and back up laptops in a way that’s superior and cheaper than companies can manage themselves. As president and CEO of Keating Technologies he founded in 1987, Larry has brought more than $1.5 billion in technology and services to Canadians, and is a 3-time national winner of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies award.

Anthony R. Pearlman – President and COO, Intertainment Media ( http://intertainmentmedia.com ). When some of the biggest names in entertainment hold their special events, Intertainment Media is there. Through their divisions and various company investments, they manage the dynamic web presence and ensure it can scale to meet the demand. They syndicate live content to millions of users globally. They’re enabling cloud-based ventures like Yappn for real-time e-commerce translation services. Anthony has over 25 years of hands-on technology experience from co-founding and running early stage late 90’s e-commerce start-ups all the way to the C-suite in large public enterprises.

RJ Juneau – CEO and Founder, Maxxian( http://www.maxxian.com). Maxxian provides world-leading technology for managing and securing millions of video set-tops and Internet access devices for cable operators from Alaska to the coast of South America. They use the same virtualisation and system management technology used by cloud providers to manage systems at their customer sites to reduce their costs, speed deployments and increase reliability and flexibility. RJ’s been at the leading/bleeding edge of technology for over 30 years in banking and trading systems, supercomputing, MPEG video and other fun things.

IT’S IN MARKHAM, SO THERE’S LOTS OF FREE PARKING!

Full details here on Eventbrite.

Get your registrations in now – the Qualcomm space is smaller than Lenovo’s, so seating is limited.

Habemus Lux Gladium! (We have a laser cutter!)

Written by ylab_admin on March 10, 2016. Posted in Announcements, Events, Update.

All great announcements should be in latin.(*)

On Monday night we took delivery of our brand spanking new laser cutter – a monstrous 90W unit with a 24″ x 36″cutting surface.

OK, it's a big giant laser. Now what do we do with it? — OK, it’s a big giant laser. Now what do we do with it?

At least he didn't take a selfie with it. — You can feel the excitement. At least he didn’t take a selfie with it.

Now comes the hard part – figuring how to use the infernal contraption. We’ll be working out all the rules and procedures and safety issues, and setting up a formal class.

Ylab scientists trying to figure out how to make it work. — Ylab scientists (not evil… yet…) deciphering complex instructions

Last night we worked feverishly to get our first design cut.

Just made it by closing time!

Ylab - a proud part of the community since 2015. — Ylab – a proud part of the community since 2015.

(*) If you actually speak latin… yeah, Habemus lux gladius is not the greatest translation. But it fits nicely in a headline. If you really want to get picky about it, Habemus cultellum excitata per lucem is a better description. Habemus lux gladius could also be used to describe a light sabre. Remember: Google translate is your friend.

Firsts this week for ylab, York Region, and the world!

Written by ylab_admin on February 26, 2016. Posted in Events, Post-Event Report, Update.

Hasn’t been a blog post in a few weeks… because it’s better to be doing than blogging. But once in a while, we need to post something – or people claim nothing is happening!

York Region is the y and the why of ylab – and this week we had a bunch of firsts in three different cities.

At our DDO maker space in Richmond Hill, we had all three 3D printers fired up for the first time. Big thanks to Jay and Richard for making it happen. More gear appears every week, more gears are being printed, and they’ll soon be joined by our new laser cutter.

York Region Coffee and Code kicked off the first PHP user group in Markham on Tuesday night. With Maxxian agreeing to loan their boardroom to kick it off, organisers Glenn and Simon ran out of excuses and just did it. 13 people attended ranging from newbies to some very serious talent to help them.

That very same night, Pong Studios hosted the first Unity game development meetup in Vaughan. In our newsletter, we said they were going big by bringing in top Unity evangelist Mark Shoennagel… and they went even bigger! Mark is an excellent speaker, and he provided the world’s first public demo of the new networked, multi-player version of Unity. He took us through a full sequence of game development, explaining all the features and built-in defences against hacks and cheats, all while connected to one of only five operating network servers in existence. We got to see it before everyone else at the upcoming Game Development Conference.

Lots more happening in the background for light sabres, robotics, more coding groups, haunted house, ham radio, hackathons…

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.