Summer Meetups

All branches of the Ottawa Public Library will be closed on Sundays for the summer starting June 30th. This means we will not be able to use the Imagine Space on Sundays for our meetups until the fall.

For the summer, we will be holding meetups at different locations. Some locations being considered are the uOttawa Makerspace and Minto Park. There have also been suggestions from a few members about holding meetups on Saturdays so the Imagine Space can be utilized.

The calendar will be very tentative for the duration of the summer. Meetups may be held less frequently depending on turnout and host availability.

Your feedback is very important. If you have location suggestions, please voice them in the Google Group forum. If suggestions are proposed by the main hosts, please provide your opinions, both supporting and dissenting.

Google Group Email Delivery Preference Instructions

Proceed to the Hack613 online discussion!

Instructions

The following information describes how to adjust the frequency in which emails from our Google Group enter your inbox:

  1. Click the Discussion link above.
  2. Click the Sign In button in the upper right-hand corner of the page and sign into your email.
  3. Click the My Settings button near the upper-right corner (person with a gear beside it). From the drop-down menu, click Membership and email settings.
  4. In the Email delivery preference: section, select your preferred method from the drop-down menu and click Save. This completes the process.

Make a Sign

Here’s another challenge for people to have some fun with! To make a sign to post at our meetups so others can find us easily.

Rules: None

What can you win? A super cool remote control cockroach like the one Lakota has. 🙂

How to win: We keep track of questions and mentions any of the signs at the meetup. The one with the most wins.

Blink CNC

Blink CNC is a group CNC build within the hack613 community!

The fist challenge is to build a drawing machine based on this electrical kit.

Two of these steppers with controllers ($3.88 CAD)
One of these servos ($1.83 CAD)
An Uno ($7.64 CAD)
A power supply ($4.31 CAD)

That comes out to $17.66. None of this links or prices are well researched, your mileage may vary. Many people will have an Uno and a power supply so for them this is a $5 project.

A drawing robot was chosen because it gets rid of the spindle. Also the servo can simplify the Z axis.


Future Options to be Considered

2) 2 AxisTwo of these steppers or these cheaper steppers. This motor shield. One of the above servos.The above Uno. Some kinds power supply.
3) 3 AxisThree of these steppers. One of these grbl boards. Three of these stepper drivers. Some kinda power supply.
4) 3 axis nema 17 kit: Parallel port based kit.Desktop computer with mach3Spindle kit.
5) Baby CNC 3018 kit.
6) base level cnc 3040 various machines
7) Base level cnc machine 6040 machinevarious machines

Why is it called BlinkCNC?

Way back a few years ago for a short time our group was called Blink. The idea was that when newcomers came the objective was to get them to be able to run the Arduino Blink program. Sort of an initiation and also a way of welcoming new people to the group.

That was pretty successful.

Our group has made many leaps and bounds since then and now we’ve got a group build of an experimental CNC machine! Newcomers can now get a CNC machine at low cost.

Engraving Hockey Pucks at Mayor’s Family Skate Day

We had fun engraving/carving hockey pucks last Weekend. It was like a mini-CNC-faire. We had four CNC machines onsite with a team of nine people designing and cutting pucks.

This is all thanks to Artengine, the City of Ottawa and Hack613 (us!).

A few more pictures from preparation leading up to the event.

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Puck engraving #cnc #hack613 #engraving #v-carve

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Wednesday Meetup

Our last meetup was a bit more sparse than usual but it looks like some progress was made on fixing up one of the participants guitar amp.

Also some pictures from Drawing at the Rooster.

 

 

Hover Board

Ray brought in his hoverboard. What a crazy device.

Also Doug and Lakota showed off the latest versions of their carts.

Here are the pictures. Credits: Lakota, Darcy

OCTG – Ottawa Creative Thinking Group

Wow what a fun meetup last night!

I was hoping some people would come for our regular show and tell and activities.

I did a presentation on Social Network Theory and Computational Sociology. I also showed my pendant project. Lots of amazing ideas came forward!

We really need to get out to this group again!

Box

At tonight’s meetup we had fun with Doug’s propeller powered cart plus some other drone and glider activities.

We also discussed the new “box” project. The idea is that people can subscribe to this “box” and then receive a box of parts on a regular basis. People could have fun with the kits and other contents and share ideas with others about how to use the components…

What do you think? What to call the program?