BLOGIT

First course to begin our year 2016 was 3D modelling basics with Blender. We asked what courses our community was interested in and 3D modelling basics was voted to first place. Luckily we have some talented Blender users in our members who also volunteered to lead the course.

Earlier our courses have been about eletronics and robotics, so now we needed a whole different layout of tables and seating. Course material and instructing was also designed to suit the skills of participating people which varied from beginner to advanced. These facts made the course a test in many ways.

Everything went fine. Even better than expected. Many of participants found 3D modelling interesting and want to learn more. Easily worth the early wakeup on Saturday morning.

We have survived as a registered association for one whole year! One year ago we met and decided to make this thing official – 19 brave hackers signed our charter of foundation. Of course we had began planning the hacklab earlier but after receiving huge support from other Finnish hacklabs at Hacklab Summit Finland 2015 in Tampere we had to make the move. After that we have found a place for our hacklab, renovated it to suit our purposes and after that had fun participating and arranging many wonderful events.

It was time for cake!

We would like to thank all those wonderful people, companies and institutions who have supported us during our first year!

We were invited to plan and execute a small event at local library. Something that involves different examples from our hacklab projects. Something that could make people from junior to senior happy. Something that we can handle with our resources. We would also need a nice name for the event… mmh… this was the most difficult part. Eventually someone screamed out something like Mikkeli Maker Day. Close enough.

The plan was simple: let’s gather our things and carry them there. First on display was an arcade cabinet (12 mm mdf, Retropie, some used parts, some new parts):

Of course we had to bring our tweeting cactus, Teuvo (he is @TeuvoHacklabMLI):

…and Seppo, the clever robot seen at HSF’16:

The inviting party for the event was Mikkeli City Library working in co-operation with ERNOD project. They had a media club which themed in finding a use for discarded library books.