August 1, 2017
by Jeff Szusz in News
Creating A Digital Theremin With JavaScript
Tuesday, August 1 7:00pm
This workshop will provide an introduction to coding in p5.js and JavaScript to turn your smartphone into a digital theremin. This workshop simplifies programming with p5.js and allows you to begin creating your own interactive project. A fun accessible way to learn coding. All required software is free and open source. Please bring a laptop and smartphone device.
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Getting Interactive With Ableton Live
Thursday, August 3 7:00pm
Summer Art Festival ’17 presents an AbletonLive demonstration workshop showcasing how David Bergeron uses Max4Live and various tools to incorporate interactivity into creating electronic music, giving a chance to see some of the possible ways of navigating the technologies.
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Open Coding
Wednesday, August 9 7:00pm
Work on a project, socialize with other devs, get help with a tutorial or show off your latest creation.
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3D Printing Club
Saturday, August 12 1:00pm
The Flash Forge Creator Pro is now ready for action! Learn how to operate the 3D printer we have at Hackforge. In addition, bring your ideas for our first ever Mini Modelling Contest! You can use your new modelling skills to create a 3D printed design and compete to win prizes this Fall.
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Board Game Night
Friday, August 18 7:00pm
Join us for some of our favourite board games, or bring your own!
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Electronics Club: Creating Your Own Circuit Boards
Saturday, August 19 1:00pm
Do you have an interest in creating your own circuit boards? Stepan Tuzlov will briefly talk about printed circuit board production as well as share his industry experience in preparing a PCB layout for low volume print. He will demonstrate PCB layout concepts to accommodate for manufacturability and cost. He will also briefly talk about pros and cons of “auto router” feature in CAD software.
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AWS Users Group
Thursday, August 24 7:00pm
In this second meetup, we’ll deep dive into IAM (Identity and Access Management) Roles and Policies. Come join us and become an IAM policy ninja.
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Border City Data
Monday, August 28 7:00pm
Border City Data teaches aspiring data professionals the ins and outs of wrangling data to find useful insights. August’s Topic will be announced soon!
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Book Club: Makers by Corey Doctorow
Tuesday, August 29 7:00pm
“Barefoot bankers cross the nation, microinvesting in high-tech communal mini-startups like Perry and Lester’s. Together, they transform the country, and Andrea Fleeks, a journo-turned-blogger, is there to document it.” – Goodreads
Download the book for FREE from the author here: http://craphound.com/makers/download/
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Software Guild: Lightning Talks!
Wednesday, August 30 7:00pm
A full slate of speakers will spend 5 minutes each telling you and each other about something cool they know, discovered, learned, built or love. Want to share your own 5 minute talk? Slides optional, email jeff at hackf dot org to secure a slot.
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*N.B Project Management Group and .NET Developers will be taking the summer off*
July 1, 2017
by Jeff Szusz in News
Repair The World (FIELD TRIP)
Tuesday, July 4 7:00pm at Green Sun Rising Solar
Meet us at Green Sun Rising Solar for a tour of their space, where they develop solar electricity and thermal systems.
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Canada150 Indie Game Showcase
Thursday, July 6 7:00pm
Play and discover truly homegrown games. A group of local programmers, artists and game developers are celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary by showcasing a collection of Canada themed video games they have created for the occasion.
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Board Game Night
Friday, July 7 7:00pm
Join us for some of our favourite board games, or bring your own!
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Open Coding
Wednesday, July 12 7:00pm
Work on a project, socialize with other devs, get help with a tutorial or show off your latest creation.
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AWS Users Group
Thursday, July 20 7:00pm
Learn how Amazon Web Services handles security, the foundation of your future AWS infrastructure.
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Border City Data: Connecting Data (Data Basics 2)
Monday, July 24 7:00pm
One of the ways we derive value from data is by connecting it to related data sets. In this beginner-friendly session, Doug Sartori will explain the concepts and demonstrate joining related data with Excel and SQL.
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Book Club
Tuesday, July 25 7:00pm
Read William Gibson’s The Peripheral and join us at this event to chat about it. We’ll also pick the book for September.
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Software Guild: Web APIs and Linux Containers
Wednesday, July 26 7:00pm
Topics: how to design an HTTP API that looks less like your database tables and how to use Linux Containers (LXD) to scale your infrastructure and simulate the cloud on your laptop.
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*N.B Project Management Group and .NET Developers will be taking the summer off*
June 1, 2017
by Sarah Morris in Events, News
A Multi-Cloud Solution using Azure & AWS
Windsor-Essex .Net Developers
Tuesday, June 6: 7:00 PM
While some cloud users are evaluating AWS vs. Azure, many enterprises are planning to use both cloud providers to avoid vendor lock-in and latency while creating redundancy. The session will cover:
1) AWS vs. Azure differences for compute, networking, storage and pricing.
2) Recent and coming enhancements for AWS Lambda and Azure Functions.
3) Multi-cloud environments can be complex so let’s discuss the best practices for cloud deployments when using both AWS and Azure.
Facebook / Meetup
Smart Garden Workshop: Soil Sensors & the Internet of Things
Saturday, June 10: 1:00 – 3:00 PM
Take your indoor garden to the next step with this all-levels workshop. Learn to create a device that will tell you when your plants are thirsty by turning on a light, sending a text, or tweeting! At the end, you will have a full, functional Particle Photon kit to take home.
Register Now!
Summer Jam: The Great Canadian Game Jam
Sunday, June 11: 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Less than 30 days left to submit your project to The Great Canadian Game Jam! In the 150 days leading up to Canada Day on July 1, game developers across the country have been busy making games to show off their Canadian pride!
Join us for our final local meetup before the deadline, share a free pizza supper to keep up our energy, discuss how to add final touch-ups and take a peek at projects our developers have in store! All while E3, the biggest game conference of the year, occurs live online!
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Industrial Automation Group: PLC Design Patterns
Monday, June 12: 7:00 PM
Programmable logic controllers are far from open source, and programming them can seem like an arcane art, but there are certain algorithms and patterns we use over and over. This month at Hackforge’s Industrial Automation Club, we’ll share and learn tricks of the trade. Everyone from beginner to expert is welcome.
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Open Coding Night
Wednesday, June 14: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Have a project you’re working on? Need to bounce ideas off other programmers? Want to try out a tutorial for new programming language? From beginners to pros, Open Coding Night is designated time for you to hone your craft.
Bring your laptop and get coding!
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Artist Talk: Neighbourhood FREE SPACE Residency
Thursday, June 15: 7:00 PM
Hackforge is pleased to partner with Arts Council Windsor & Region (ACWR) for their latest neighbourhood FREE SPACE – Self Directed Residency. Alex Beriault (Toronto), Béla Varga (Windsor), and Laura Horne Gaul (Kingsville) will be giving a talk at Hackforge about their work. Hackforge is hosting Beriault and Varga for the June FREE SPACE – Self Directed Residency.
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Board Game Night
Friday, June 16: 7:00 – 10:00 PM
Join us for a night of board games and card games from 7-10PM. This event is free and open to everyone. If you’re new to board games, we encourage you to come by as we will have trusty Hackforgers there to help get you started.
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Border City Data: Crash Test Data Dummies
Monday, June 19: 7:00 PM
You wouldn’t test a car’s safety features using a real person – they might get hurt. So, why don’t we do the same thing for software test environments?
Is protecting your test environments as if they were production environments a pain? Do you want more flexibility in who gets access to your test environments? Does developer access to sensitive data keep you and your auditors up at night? This talk is for you! Come an learn the fundamentals of changing test data so that it’s no longer sensitive but still useful for tests.
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Repair The World: Field Trip to Green Sun Rising Solar
RESCHEDULED
Tuesday, July 4: 7:00 PM at Green Sun Rising Solar
This month, we will venturing out into the world for a field trip!
We’re going to visit Green Sun Rising Solar for a tour of their space. “Green Sun Rising Inc. is a Windsor Ontario based company focusing on developing and supplying solar systems, both solar PV for clean electricity, and solar thermal for clean heat energy. ”
Repair the World is a monthly meet-up of those who want to learn more about the technologies and policies we can employ in Windsor-Essex to lead us towards a carbon-neutral future and to help our community cope with the effects of global warming.
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Project Management Group: Project Scope and Requirements Docs
Wednesday, June 21: 7:00 PM
In a real work environment, each requirements definition is written slightly differently. As a group are we able to define what works well in each of them to come up with a list of best practices for writing good requirements definitions (e.g. how to write a good requirement, what to avoid, sections to include in the document, etc.). We are looking for examples of well-written scope documents and requirements definition documents, so bring your own and talk about your experiences. Come and share your experience, provide new ideas and learn from others!
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3D Print Club: 3D Sculpting
Saturday, June 24: 1:00 PM
Join the 3D Printing Club for this afternoon event all about 3D sculpting!
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Fireworks Night Drop-In
Monday, June 26: 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Before heading down to the fireworks, drop by Hackforge for tech demos and kids activities! This interactive event is great for all ages. More details to come.
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Book Club: Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older
Tuesday, June 27: 7:00 PM
Join us this month for a casual discussion on Malka Ann Older’s 2016 sci-fi thriller, Infomacracy. The Verge says, “It’s an intense and intriguing thriller about how technology and the flow of information can help sway public opinion and policy across the planet.”
More Info Here
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Software Guild
Apache & Nginx at Scale: A Comparison
Wednesday, June 28: 7:00 PM
Apache, which accounts for 1/3 of all web servers on the internet, is robust and popular web server software that’s been the defacto standard for almost 20 years. Unfortunately, it often can’t stand up to the kinds of punishment modern web traffic throws at it. Find out how Apache fails at scale, and how Nginx fills the gap.
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May 15, 2017
by Sarah Morris in News, Projects
Located in the heart of downtown Windsor at 255 Ouellette, Hackforge is a registered non-profit focused in technology. A member-driven organization, we host events and programming for beginners, professionals, and hobbyists. Hackforge operates as an event space, community workshop, and co-working space.
From now until May 27th, we’re hosting a small fundraiser. All proceeds raised will support our downtown space and programming to promote and teach about technology. We want to keep the majority of our events free and open to the public but we need your help.
We have brand new stickers, 3D printed keychains, t-shirts, and memberships to thank you for your donations. Pick up your swag at Hackforge’s Fifth Anniversary Party on May 27th or later on at our space!
