Upcoming AGM & Big Reboot

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Fligg

Back up; I'm going to try s̶c̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ organising!Leeds Hackspace AGM: Tuesday 27th September, 7pm

As you might have gathered from all the bold, we’re having our AGM at 7pm on Tuesday the 27th of September. I know -you’re silently cursing me, but you’re still liable to forget. Clear your calendars, set plenty of reminders and pin a post-it note to your head. You need to be at Hackspace on Tuesday the 27th of September -at 7PM! Got that? Good. Now I’ll tell you why.

This is the last event (meeting, shindig…) at our current premises on Cleveleys Street; in fact 4 days later our lease will be ending and we’re moving out. Whilst we have accomplished (and failed to document) a lot of different projects in our current space it has not been without its share of problems. Location & transport links have not encouraged people to drop in on their way past and the actual space itself is less than ideal. Don’t misunderstand; the current space is much better than no space at all (and it had close and easy pizza) but we’ve identified a number of things that could be improved on.

Well, not for very much longer.

If you’re currently or were previously involved in Leeds HackSpace then I implore you to come along to the AGM. The good bits are getting better and we’re all working hard to resolve the problems that have been highlighted over the previous year (in fact, you’ll probably find some massive changes have happened since you last stuck your head round the door).

If you’ve not been down before, then try and make it to the AGM. Lots of things are about to change and we really want new people involved; this is going to be our big update to Hackspace 3.0 and we’d really like you to move in with us  (‘cos frankly its just better being involved from the start).

Hackspace 3.0?

Well, I should probably give you a taste of what’s to come; just to get you’re appetite whetted. Without wanting to give too much away (there’s irc and the mailing list for that) we’re not just leaving our old premises. Oh no; we seem to found and reached consensus on a new place. Close to the city centre, ground floor access (disabled friendly :)) good transport and parking and gallons more space than we have at the moment  -oh yes.

Oh; and we’ve acquired a new ass-kicking director. She’s shiny. You have to meet her :-D

tldr: Tuesday 27th September 2011, 7pm: AGM!

  • This is the last meeting at our old space. New and exciting things are a foot. Get involved from the start of LHS:3.0. Roller Shutter Door; oh yeah!
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Middleton Railway

Posted on June 28, 2011 by jon

On Sunday we had a trip to The Middleton Railway. We were fortunate to have glorious sunny weather. Unfortunately due to damage caused to the track by people attempting to steal it the usual sunday steam service wasn’t running, but they were making good use of the available track running a small diesel engine, so everyone got a trip in the cab.

After a good wander around the engine house we were lucky enough to get a tour of the workshop too. The noise of running water was slightly concerning but that was due to a restored engine being filled (it takes rather a lot of water) for a leak check before it’s steamed up for the first time.

We left the workshop feeling rather envious, we’d love to be able to build things on that scale (we had an interesting discussion on the feasibility of a steel extruding reprap-a-like but came to the conclusion that something which cast metal billets and fed them to a cnc machine was probably a better solution to that puzzle).

We finished the day off with a drink and dinner in The Engine.

There’s the distinct possibility that Middleton Railway have acquired themselves one or two extra volunteers, and we’ve all got the perfect excuse to go for another trip once the line is repaired – what better transport for a picnic in the park!

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Thwaite Mills and WWII Operation Continuance

Posted on June 20, 2011 by jon

Sunday saw a handful of hackspacers take a trip to Thwaite Mills, a local watermill which was in use grinding stone to make putty right up until 1976. The power of the water can really be felt, as the building shakes gently as the water wheels turn the gears and line shafts to power the machinery. Also on site is the family home of the Horn family, the drying shed where the ground stone slurry was dried to powder, the engineers workshop, complete with a forge, and assorted water driven tools (including the largest lathe I’ve ever seen), and on the banks of the canal a steam driven crane which was used for unloading barges of rock and flint.

The mill alone is definitely worth the trip, but on Sunday there was a WWII event on – “Operation Continuance”, so the place was full of people in period costume, both civillian and military, there were vehicles on display, and demonstrations throughout the day, though it has to be said that the Home Guard definitely stole the show, they did warn everyone that things might get a bit loud, but I’m not sure anyone was prepared for the last explosion!

Our transport for the day was “Lazy Jane”, a 40ft narrowboat owned by James who very kindly offered his services as taxidriver (on condition we acted as crew for the locks!). Despite an initial dreary start to the day when we left the dock the weather seemed to improve continuously throughout the day, and it was glorious sunshine from lunchtime onwards, resulting in a very pleasant trip back to leeds, spotting assorted wildlife.

Our next trip is to Middleton Railway on Sunday 26th June.

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Upcoming Events

Posted on June 7, 2011 by jon

On Sunday 19th June Thwaite Mills is hosting “WWII Operation Continuance” – A celebration of the continuation of the people of Leeds to the war effort and how the people’s spirit could not be broken. An ideal opportunity to learn about some local history, see some historic vehicles, as well as being able to tour the water mill. With so much happening you’ve got no excuse for not being there!

Update! There’s the possibility of transport to Thwaite Mills by narrowboat – places are limited and subject to confirmation that there’s somewhere to moor the boat. If you’re interested then please let us know (by email, twitter, irc, or a comment below).

On Sunday 26th June we’re planning a trip to Middleton Railway it’s practically on our doorstep, one of our members is even a volunteer there, and yet we’ve still not been! If it’s a nice day then a picnic in Middleton Park is a definite possibility.

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Nottinghack Roadtrip!

Posted on June 4, 2011 by jon

Since the lovely people at Nottingham Hackspace were having an open day on the 29th of May we decided that we should go invade, so 5 representatives made the trip down to Nottingham to see just how impressive their new space is. It turned out to be a day filled with bicycle madness, nerf guns, and mild electric shocks, so just what you’d expect from a well stocked hackspace. Thanks guys, we had a great day out, and we’re still suffering from workshop envy.

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Last Week’s Barbecue

Posted on May 8, 2011 by jon

Our barbecue last week was a great success, with lots of people dropping in throughout the day, a few new faces, and plenty of familiar faces. Some notable achievements were an attendee who’d had a leisurely trip on his bike all the way from Sheffield, and another who arrived by unicycle. With glorious sunshine and a pleasant breeze we couldn’t have asked for a better day for it.

More recently we’ve got our oscilloscope working (and even managed to upgrade it) and we’ve finally got our DSL sorted out, so you can see what we’re up to here and you can control one of the cameras from our IRC channel.

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Sunday 1st May – Barbecue!

Posted on April 19, 2011 by jon

So you’ve watched (or avoided) the wedding, had a day to recover, and you’re wondering how to spend the rest of your bank holiday weekend? We have the solution – a seriously geeky barbecue. Come and peruse our ever increasing collection of projects, lounge around in the sun and enjoy something yummy from the barbecue (and if our last event was anything to go by there’ll be impressive flames, and cola fountains too).

The hackspace will be open from 12pm and we’ll be cooking throughout the afternoon – we hope to see lots of you there!

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What to do with a mountain of op-amps?

Posted on March 27, 2011 by jon

Through a series of strangely interconnected events we currently find ourselves in posession of massive quantities of 741 op-amps. Which leads to the question of just what can you do with a lot of them (apart from maybe making a rather geeky mosaic). Leave a comment with your suggestions, tweet it to @leedshackspace or drop in to our IRC channel and tell us what you think!

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Lockpicking 101 with RandomStorm

Posted on March 23, 2011 by jon

This Tuessday saw the first of what we hope will be a series of lock picking events presented by RandomStorm. If attendance was anything to go by then this will be the first of many such events, with a collection of old faces putting in an appearance, as well as quite a few new ones. It was standing room only (if you’ve got any spare chairs you’d like to donate, we’d love to hear from you!).

The evening kicked off with a presentation from Gavin on the workings, and flaws of pin tumbler locks, how lock designers can make life more difficult for people trying to open the locks, and some examples of how locks can be bypassed completely (one member replaced the lock on his front door this morning after deciding it was too insecure).

After a few questions everyone was eager to try picking some locks, and with the incentive of books, lockpicks, and tshirts as prizes everyone was keen to get working ASAP. Unfortunately everyone was so engrossed in it that it seems nobody stopped to take any photos.

I’d like to thank the guys from RandomStorm for a thoroughly interesting evening, and I hope we can arrange another in the not too distant future. We’ll be acquiring some more locks and getting some practice in first though.

On Saturday we’ll be back to our usual all day hackery starting around 10.30 and if all goes to plan we may have an MOD surplus bomb disposal robot to play with.

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That was 2010

Posted on January 3, 2011 by admin

2010 was the year when we did it: we built a hacker space in Leeds.

First of all thanks to everyone who donated kit – especially a big shout-out to friendly Rails host Brightbox for the latest box full of servers.

Secondly an acknowledgement that all who donated in the past year, especially our regular subscribers, who have allowed us to rent our venue and continue to keep us housed.

2010 has been a fascinating year full of plotting, sawing, soldering, coding and robot-making. Our hack space is full to overflowing with shelves of components. We appeared on BBC radio and in the local press, hosted a great summer barbecue, got shouted about at all over the city.

What we’ve achieved is well worth shouting about. However, what we’re going to do in 2011 is no less important. Here I present our Leeds Hackspace plan for 2011:

Plan for 2011

Connectivity
Due to low start-up finances and silence from sponsors, we haven’t got Internet connectivity at the space. We admit this is pretty poor and is a bit of a turn-off for some. This will be rectified as soon as possible.

More Hackers!
Of a city of close to a million inhabitants, including perhaps a hundred thousand students, I bet we can attract far more people. To this end we will encourage more guest blog posts from local hackers and makers, talk to more disparate groups and get ourselves known at Leeds’ universities. It’s worth noting that this year we may move to a more central venue, too…

Go places
In the past year we’ve talked about arranging outings. Places discussed include the historic Middleton Railway, the totally automated Farnell production line and York’s cold war bunker. We’ll be putting up a call for suggestion and polls for dates etc. in due course.

Tools!
To do more hacking we need more tools and equipment, some of which we’ll be unable to fund through our ongoing subscriptions. We’ll be conducting a poll and soliciting donations for such specific items soon.

So in conclusion, well done everyone! Let’s make 2011 the year when Leeds Hackspace gets it’s name on the map.

See you on Tuesday for a celebratory curry!

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