Repair Café makes good use of technology


On Saturday, October 22, during International Repair Café Week and Canada’s Waste Reduction Week, we visited Albion Public Library in the Finch and Kipling neighbourhood. Our fixers were busy working with visitors to fix their broken household items. At this special event, our fixer team has expanded to include a few special members, both from Vancouver and from Toronto.

g_img_4331

g_img_4357

g_img_4378

Through the video conferencing platform provided by The Global Class at Oshawa’s Durham College, we were able to connect with two repair groups in Vancouver, Repair Matters and Vancouver Repair Café. The two groups were hosting a repair event on the same day and we connected with them from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. The livestreamed hour started with George in Vancouver troubleshooting a coffee maker brought in by our volunteer Cat in Toronto. If was followed by Paul, a fixer in Vancouver who specializes in sewing machines. Paul was asked to troubleshoot a broken sewing machine brought in by a visitor in Toronto and he demonstrated how to maintain the machine. Lastly, Andy, our book repair fixer in Toronto, gave a short demonstration to Vancouver on how to fix a book with simple steps and minimal material.

Here is a highlight (2 minutes):

To watch the full hour of the cross-country fixing, CLICK HERE.

We have also included a little video about another new member of our fixer team,  Ultimaker, check out what this 3D printer can do!

The water jug below has a new tap made by Ultimaker.

water-jug-tap

The blender below was fixed after a new clutch was made by Ultimaker.

3d-printer-blender-fix-3

3d-printer-blender-fix-23d-printer-blender-fix-1