Edinburgh Hacklab

Summerhall, the arts complex where the Hacklab is based, has been put up for sale. We became aware that the public may only know Summerhall as an events venue, and not realise how many artists and businesses have studios and workshops here. For that reason, residents at Summerhall are offering tours to show some of what happens here.

If you would like to join a tour, just turn up…

The hacklab has been mostly quiet recently because of COVID-19 closure, but having an empty lab is an opportunity to renovate. We are busy working on installing a new floor and furniture to make the place comfortable for when we reopen.

After watching the institutional lino floor in the main lab crumble under our feet exposing the bare concrete it was time to do something. After furniture Jenga and 3 coats of floor paint we have a “new” floor ready to support our hacking.. Thanks to everyone that helped out!

Our warriors of the water have defeated our arch rivals, The Forge (and several small children) to power to victory at the annual canal raft race. In a fine display of water-craftmanship, our team paddled our fine creation Dragonana through three heats to glorious win. With the rain lashing down, and The Forge’s 10 metre long raft a constant companion, it was by no means an easy win. Even the canal’s own swan racing team put up fine competition and were in the lead for much of the first heat.

He…

Welcome to 2017!

Edinburgh’s Mini Maker Faire returns this year on Sunday 16 April 2017. It takes place at Summerhall, right on our doorstep, and is a great chance to meet like minded folk from other hackerspaces, see interesting things that people are working on and play with robots.

For this to happen, the Faire needs makers to bring their stuff to Edinburgh’s biggest nerdy show and tell, that means you!

Here’s some of the stuff the Maker Faire is looking for:

• 3D printers and digital…

Hacklab member Al (who writes in the third person) is helping to organise an event at Summerhall on Monday 28th of November to show some glass pieces that are the output of a collaborative art project, combining glass blowing and casting, electronics, sound design and composition.

The event will include some brief presentations about collaborative art, tours of both the Hacklab and ASCUS’ bio lab, and a chance to meet and discuss cross-disciplinary projects and ideas over a pie and beer. All in…

Recently our Ultimaker 3D printer was kept busy for a few days printing strangely-shaped pieces for Edinburgh-based artist Penelope Kay. Penny had been working with Dr Thomas Pratt of Edinburgh University to create strange pseudo-organic shapes that blur the lines between diagrams and the the real world. The 3D printed pieces were encapsulated in medical-grade resin to make a stackable and re-arrangeable artwork. It’s always great to see interesting things being made in the lab, and satisfying…

Your favourite hackerspace is about to get bigger. An empty room became available near our current “suite” of rooms, we’ve snapped it up, and we have a plan…

If you’ve visited the lab and taken the tour, you’ll have seen our current storeroom is quite big but our workshop is quite small. We’re going to fix this by moving members storage to the new, smaller room and then refit G8 (the current storeroom) to be an epic workshop!

Since we improved our small workshop (room G2) with a new bench last…

If you’ve been in the lab during the day in the first couple of months this year there’s a good chance you’ve found me, Andrea and Random sweating over LED strips, surrounded by wires and PVC tubing. It was all assembly work for an artwork called Sentient Forest, which has now been installed in its new home in the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail (well worth a visit if you’re down there!).

The piece was created by Edinburgh artist Andrea Roe to show the hidden world of mycelium, a fungi that…

Photo by beraldoleal; – Creative Commons

Arduino is a micro-controller platform designed for ease of use and learning. It allows the creation of electronically controlled projects, whether it be simple blinking lights, a robot or a music generator.

This workshop is aimed at beginners. You don’t needs any previous electronics or programming knowledge or experience.

Topics covered include:

• An introduction to the Arduino
• Using electronic components to build circuits
• Input and output
• Generating…