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?

Nice Day Sunday

I checked the RSVP status for the meetup and there weren’t any so Doug and I decided to do some work on the Hack613 Space Program.  As you can see we’re starting small.

We also did a wire wrap lesson.

We found out after the fact that Andrew was at the meetup location with his daughter.

 

Hack613 Space Program!

People in our group are starting to talk about a space program!

We talked about an ambitious plan of going very high (18km) and also a series of lower height launches.

We were discussing some balloon launches with photography.

What do you think?

I suppose the first steps are to start to imagine the payload? How do we get the data back? Can we recover the payload?

Related

Link from Bill Wagstaff at the rocketry club: http://www.hobbyspace.com/NearSpace/

Hack613 Logo

The Hack613 project has now reached a critical mass where a logo might be fun to have.

Is anybody interested in a logo design contest?

I just put together this logo for fun. Is it good enough or do we need a contest or some other process?

Here it is shown on a business card, tent card, name tag and t-shirt stamp…

I’ve got some printouts of them so we can discuss this at tomorrow’s meetup (who ever is interested in that topic that is)..

 

Meetups 2018

We’re starting to talk about if, when and where we want a meetup during the weekday evenings.  The discussion is in our online chat forum. I’m very curious to see what people want.

Here are pictures from Friday and Sunday. I forgot to take pictures so there’s not much.

Kits for Block Printing

Adrian put together some kits so the people in the block printing workshops could have something to take home and start printing right away.

We still have three left so please contact me at darcy@inventorArtist.com.

The kits are $30.

 

Call for Makers! Meetups and More!

Hello Makers and Artists,

One of the key reasons we set up the Hack613 space was to have a great place for meetups and communal activities. Also to have a place for peoples’ projects, workshops, to share tools and have a convenient central location for their activities. Further to have relevant tools with high availability (no long queues and schedule conflicts).

Let’s discuss the regular Wednesday meetups we’ve been having over the years. Here are some of the ideas:

  1. Pubs. They’re a great place for meetups since they’re neutral, self cleaning and have food and drink. These chaotic and fun environments are a lot of fun and give the group some visibility in some cases. On the downside you tend to have to be in constant communication with the staff and meet thresholds to keep the bookings. Another community I’m very involved with holds the booking by guaranteeing $500 of business.
  2. Other Public Spaces. Places like the Nepean Library, Central Library, Ottawa University Makerspace have some awesome spaces to meet. There are some interesting tools with varying availability (Nepean lets us have one of the lasers). They tend to be free but do require some volunteer work to maintain relationships with the venues and ensure there is a time and place for the meetups.
  3. Our own makerspace. This is a good option because it has space, tools (can have proximity to social districts for bringing in food etc.) plus there can be breakoff spaces such as lounges, kitchen and boardrooms. On the downside there are expenses for the space, consumables and there needs to be someone to clean up, take out garbage, vacuum and so forth.

What do you want with meetups? 

This discussion can take place in the comments of this post and at the meetups of course. I look forward to hearing what you all think.

What do you want in a makerspace?

A makerspace is great for meetups but is also for much more than that. I’d like to invite people to continue this discussion as well to see if we still have critical mass for a project like that.

Of course this discussion can take place in the comments here and at the meetups. I’d like to favor people who are genuinely interested in supporting such a space so a separate regular meeting might be in order. If your want to be a member, let’s talk about when this regular meeting could be.  I’d propose this extra meeting be just before or after any existing regular meetups but look forward to other ideas.

Darcy Whyte

Bring-a-Friend!

The Hack613 steering committee has been discussing community sustainability.

A suggestion came forward of asking repeat meetup attendees for the Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoons to bring a friend! What a great idea!

Of course the issue arises: “What if people ignore the suggestion?”.

We will have a donation box with a suggested donation of $10 for people who don’t bring a new person to the meetups.

If you can’t afford the $10 and don’t have time to find a new person to bring, perhaps have a look at the volunteer page and help with some of the items there.

Also the idea is to bring someone new who hasn’t been to the space. Just pairing up with someone who comes is defeating the point.