#FabLabFriday

An weekly inspirational spotlight on existing and upcoming worldwide Fab Labs and their projects. Brought to you by The Makers Nation http://themakersnation.com/

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FabLab Namibia, Africa

Open since February 2014, FABlab Namibia has recently the introduction of their Intensive Product Development Program where a team of experts will help participants through a the product development cycle. The 4 step program begins with research and development and runs for approximately 3 months and includes weekly sessions with deadlines to help develop products in stages. It works towards solidifying a brand identity and finished with an actualized prototype.

They also created the amazing HERD initiative to help regional Namibian farmers advance the local wool industry through market research and innovative development. They have collaborated internationally with SAIS of the Finnish Government and locally with AGRA Namibia, The Ministry of Trade and Industry on this project.

Check out this video from their BBC feature from the awesome members and staff!

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Fab Lab Sitges, Spain

This fab lab offers an Ultimaker 2 and laser cutting facilities. Last month they assisted a local doctor in printing a replica of a patient's spine to assist with an alignment surgery. Earlier this fall, they created a Flip-Flap for Maker Faire Rome, which is a open source electro-mechanical split-flap display controlled by Arduino which can enable interactive messages to be transmitted in real time. They have also 3D printed a fairly large replica King Kong to welcome attendees at the Annual Sitges Film Festival.

Possibly our favourite thing about this lab is their Blog, with passionate and political thought pieces by staff member Francisco. He explores Spain economic crises and the role of education in changing the outcome of that. Education is actually illegal in Spain outside of certain areas. Who knew? We look forward to more thought provoking work from Beach Lab.

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Fab Lab XCHC, New Zealand

Fab Lab Christchurch has officially landed in a brand new location of the dynamic Exchange Christchurch (XCHC) building. Part showroom, part production space, XCHC is also home to the Christchurch Transitional Architectural Trust, The Body Festival, Chirny Coffee and Studio Christchurch.  

Things are in full swing after their grand opening on November 15th and they are currently keeping regular hours from Monday - Saturday. In this self-described “community digital fabrication workshop that supports grassroots innovation" you will find seven 3D printers, a laser cutter, vinyl cutter, mini CNC machine and various other tools. Pavletich and McKendry have plans to set up a cafe and retail shop in the Arts Centre in 2015, so stay tuned! And keep your eyes peeled for workshops and after school programs as they develop.

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échoFab, Montreal

  They have been known to take on artistic projects and have welcomed artists in residency programs. A popular creation of their's is a 3D photo booth, which can replicate anyone in 3D. Their notable fabrication projects include a collaboration with computer engineer Stéphane Rousseau on the development of échoRap, the first 3D printer designed entirely in Quebec. The échoFab faculty and members also combined their knowledge in the development of smart irrigation system Arduiflo, a project that was completely financed by their own community.

They’ve also been known to create cheeky projects such as recreating the mayor’s likeness through fabricated chocolate molds. The future of this budding Fab Lab looks bright and we’re excited to see them gain more traction in the Montreal scene!

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Fab Lab San Diego, USA

Naturally we’re equally excited about San Diego’s growing nonprofit startup, their Fab Lab. Established in 2007, The Fab Lab recently relocated to set up shop in a 3,200 square foot location in what used to be a furniture warehouse. The new location is part of the Makers Quarter, a six-block urban development project in the downtown core. Founder Katie Rast hopes to further the Fab Lab’s role as part of the startup fabric of the city in the new maker focused space. One of her ideas is to create stronger ties in neighbouring Tijuana.

Every third Wednesday of the month the Fab Lab hosts a round table for 3D print skill sharing. They also have courses like Intro to Arduino, 3D Printing, Electronics and Laser Cut Jewelry, to name a few. The Makers Quarter will be holding a craft beer night on November 13 with awesome maker activities like bocce ball and life sized flip cup. On the 14th is San Diego Startup Weekend MEGA with a Maker/Mobile/Web them, then later this month the city will host a TEDx talk on how technology can change societal interactions and how individuals can affect other’s lives. Keep your eyes on the Fab Lab for up to date info about ongoing maker activity at their space and San Diego! Oh, and don't miss their Meet A Maker profiles.

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Fab Lab Alicante, Spain

Alicante is a medium sized port and city located in the famously beautiful Costa Blanca region of Spain. The region is home to approximately 300,000 people, crystalline coastlines, University of Alicante and its Fab Lab.

The fab lab has produced some innovative and detailed architectural and design models recently, including a horticultural production prototype that optimizes urban gardening for local restaurants. The structure of the system rotates, allowing for access to cultivation trays in a compact urban setting. This could be a useful solution in many cities given the raised nature of the beds, which allows for multiple compartments. A great space saver and potentially a useful tool for encouraging communal use and community building.

The Fab Lab has also participated in the prototyping of the Shelter Unit for Rapid Installation (SURI), a innovative emergency shelter created as a response to the earthquake in Lorca, Spain. Originally developed by Urbana de Exteriores, it is a structurally versatile invention that is portable and malleable and has a 10 year life span. The SURI model travelled to New York and was presented at a United Nations panel. It has a wonderful accordion style way of expanding to accommodate inhabitants. You can see more and follow its progress here.

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Fab Lab Alkmaar, Netherlands

The fab lab states that its focus is on playful creative applications, and constructs community outreach activities around that.  For the Heritage Days celebration, Kaasfabriek organized an activity with the Church of St Lawrence where children could draw a heritage monument in Doodle3D on an iPad and it would be printed as a 3D object. The also created a time machine of sorts, where attendees could travel back to historical Alkmaar to see it as it was then. They have also run courses on building a 3D printer at home and kids courses on building robots and musical instruments.

Last month, Kaasfabriek Fab Lab launched a new initiative called Makers Podium in collaboration with the Alkmaar Library where local innovators, students, designers and makers meet to present new projects and ideas in a communal environment. This initiative will be ongoing so stay tuned to their Facebook page and Twitter for more updates.

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Fab Lab Belfast, Northern Ireland

In line with its location, Fab Lab Belfast has taken part in some inspiring community projects of late. As a response to North Irish tradition of mural creation, the Fab Lab created a reverse graffiti project on their Shopbot using 8' x 4' sheets of 9mm builders Plywood. The stencils were then hand mounted against a high traffic zone aerial route in the centre of downtown Belfast. A power hose was used to wash away years of car pollutant, leaving a socially and environmentally conscious messages to add to the cities 300 some mural works.

In partnership with the and Belfast City Council, Fab Lab Belfast assisted in building a fabricated 3D model of the city centre out of Baltic birch plywood laid in a topographic style. Their recent events have included the awesome fix it club, where the Fab Lab rehabilitates old electronics in order to extend their life cycle. The first session was limited to electronics and household items, but some jovial hinting has indicated that antique hobbyist pieces may be welcome at the next session if not at the shop during regular hours. We’re excited to see what they do next!

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Fab Labs in Art

This week, we wanted to dive into some of the awesome projects that makers and artists are creating in Fab Labs around the world.  Here’s three projects that incorporate fabrication in order to explore the intersection between art and technology.

In Northern Ireland, renowned artist David Best has launched a Kickstarter campaign so he can build a communal temple, reminiscent of those found at Burning Man. The Temple will be constructed of recycled plywood and computer-aided designs (CAD) and will be housed at The Nerve Center Fablab in Belfast. Through the construction of the Temple, Best looks to promote collaboration in the area of Derry-Londerry, which still experiences residual socio-political tensions dating back to the 1960’s. The tentative date for building is March 2015.  The Temple will be open to the public after construction, but will then be set aflame in accordance with Burning Man tradition.

As part of the Fine Mechanics exhibition, The Israeli Center for Digital Art has developed a multi-media show set to be an ongoing exploration of art and technology in contemporary society. Art will be explored through technology, and technology through art, provoking a dissection of the relationship between the two. The participating artists will spend time in Israel’s Fablab to conduct research and create.

After a summer residency in Fablab iMal in Belgium, new media artist Julien Maire has created a work using 3D projected stereolithography. In the exhibition titled <<Relief>>, Maire modelled 85 different figures and printed them with a Form 1 stereolithographic printer from FormLabs. Each figure played out steps of the action of a man digging a hole. Light was passed through them on a reel, creating a similar effect on film. We appreciated the juxtaposition  between the feeling of viewing a film from a bygone era and the ultra modern fabrication methods used to create it. Maire also used the fab lab to build expansion and contraction sculptures in 3D.

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Fab Lab Barcelona, Spain

Located in Spain’s second largest metropolis, Fab Lab Barcelona was the host of this year’s Fab10 Festival, which we had the pleasure and the privilege of checking out this year. This lab is a collaboration with the Catalonia Institute for Advanced Architecture nestled near Poblenou, a neighbourhood home of ultra modern architecture and the central business district.

Fab Lab Barcelona played an integral role in developing the Endesa World Fab Condenser, a bioclimatic dome created for Fab10 that makes reference to the net shape of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map. The icosahedron shape was modified to enhance airflow and reduce heat. The tent contains 20 triangular pieces, which were fabricated with CNC machines using a parametric design algorithm, and is constructed from 100% organically grown OSB wood and linen. It was intended to symbolize the network of digital fabricators around the globe.

This fully equipped lab boasts an exciting repertoire of projects that match the whimsy of the city itself. They collaborated with The Mobile World Centre to 3D print roses live for the day of Saint George, which is a traditional holiday in Barcelona where men give women roses and women give men books. They also created a responsive installation called Data Net that reacts to the movement of the public below it, creating a gorgeous, ever-changing design. El Born Centre Cultural commissioned them to create a 3D version of Barcelona in the 1700’s last year. Most famously, they invited families to construct a full scale elephant out of laser cut parts, which has set off quite a wave, as we mention in a previous edition of #FabLabFriday. The first time they did this was at the Open Air Festival at Montjuic Castle, which is a mindboggling contrast of technological advances and cultural tradition that we in North America rarely get close to (with the exception of projects like TimeTraveller™).

ELEFAB from Fab Lab Barcelona on Vimeo.

Fab Lab Barcelona definitely has one of the most eye catching websites with a comprehensive web links for global Fab Labs. Tomas Diaz, urban specialist, director of the Fab Lab and initiator of the movement in Barcelona, gave this talk about people power, crowd funding and his Smart Citizen project as part of TEDxBarcelona. 

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Fab Lab London, United Kingdom

Already they have hosted their first Creative Mornings meeting featuring a talk by Stef Ledowski, award-winning designer and Makeshift London founder. The also held AfroRetro’s School of Uganglish fundraiser, where attendees could learn to tell the story of their life through traditional Ugandan fabric techniques. Fab Lab London looks to be an educational space that will enable kids to learn, as well as adults to create products that will ‘change the world’.  They are currently equipped to make ‘anything from jewelry to robots to quad copters’, which in equipment means 3D printers, Raspberry Pis, Galileo boards, a £30,000 laser cutter, hand tools, Arduinos and milling machines.

Access to the space is open to anyone and everyone and can be used on a needs basis or for a £30 a month member fee. Services include large-scale laser cutting and engraving, 3D scanning, printing and CAD design, hardware prototyping facilities and access to design expertise through the RSA Great Recovery Impact Hub. They’re currently pairing with other leading brands in the Tech City UK initiative to fund London and Cambridge based startups and are hosting a Suguru workshop on the 30th. If you’re in London, go check out this amazing space. And above all, keep your eyes peeled for more amazing workshops, events and collaborations! 

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Fab Lab Fabriko Makercrate, Christchurch, New Zealand

Fast forward a few years, and the shipping container has become more than just a  design experiment including  becoming the foundation of a 27-business shopping mall called Re:START. Originally hailing from Wellington, the Makercrate was developed by Colab181 and launched at New Zealand’s first Maker Faire, Maketorium, in 2013. The Fab Lab was permanently established in Christchurch later that year. In its cargo sits the very first Wikihouse, an open source adaptable housing CNC module that doubles as a high performance, protective environment.  

Makercrate currently hosts Crafternoons, an exploration of craft meets digital fabrication, Minimakers sessions for kids, 3D Fabrication 101 and Cybernetica, a meeting ground for the development of biochemical enhancement projects.

Check out the 2nd Christchurch Fab Lab, build in November 2014!

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Fab Lab Dynamic, Taiwan

Dynamic’s mandate is largely focused on social design and looks to use design to bring about social change and improve quality of life. It also looks to enable Taipei’s local communities to realize their design goals. The projects they depict online do just that - one example that caught our attention was their work with hermit crabs. The local hermit crab  population in Taiwan had been declining due to the absence of shells through human interference. Often, they use plastic or glass human-made apparatuses as a solution, but Fab Lab Dynamic worked with ecological groups in Taiwan to help solve the solution by 3D printing custom shells. They also devised an open source doggy wheelchair that can be easily modified by the size of canine.  This alternative, like many 3D-printed prosthetics, offers an equitable solution that can be customized to suit the need of the individual and duplicated easily.

Taipei has hosted its own 2014 Maker Faire and several other innovation festivals to broaden Tawain’s creative horizons, including Delivering Open Innovations for Tomorrow Festival and Fab Lab Taiwan’s own annual Open Fab City meeting. This ran from September 4 – 7 with Anna Waldman-Brown of the Fab Foundation, HON Fab Lab Director Tommy Suryo and Bilal Ghalib of Autodesk.

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Fab Lab Seville, Spain

Their projects include socially focused creations such as a laser cut floating device, which had its maiden voyage on the Guadalquivir River. The Fab Lab collaborated on the raft with University of Seville, the Higher Technical School of Architecture, University of Saint Cyril, Methodius in Skopje, Baum Lab and Arhitektri. It was devised to create an urban experience built bottom-up using digital methodologies in a cooperative environment. Students and tutors hailing from Spain, Macedonia, France, Italy, Colombia and Albania assembled it over a five-day period. They were responsible for the design and construction, and for blissfully testing the piece out by casually floating down the river.

Fab Lab Seville is also interested in projects involving parametric design. Earlier this year they created a work inspired by the 1:1 scale Elephant built at Fab10 Barcelona.  Their response was a rhinoceros made out of laser cut plates and cardboard sheets which they constructed with the help of kids through a Fab Lab workshop. Now, they proudly boast the second-largest animal made entirely in a Spanish Fab Lab! Watch them assemble a beautiful, large walk through installation below!

The Caterpillar Gallery from Visualmov on Vimeo.

For all you Spanish readers out there, look out for their third publication entitled ‘Yes, We Are Open!’ which is fab lab se.

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Fab Lab Pabal, India

Students and faculty of Vigyan Ashram have created many remarkably inventions to make living in their environment easier, some with assistance of the Fab Lab. Here are some of our favourites: 

1 DIY hearing aid kit

This hearing aid prototype is low cost, easy to repair and lightweight for the user. Students who suffer in crowded classrooms from sitting far in the back or from defective hearing can use this kit to improve their education. Similarly, hearing loss caused by aging can also be assisted cost effectively. The project report on this device brings forth a valid point, that village people can literally work a lifetime to earn enough to purchase a hearing aid from Western medical sources.

2. Egg Incubator

Launched in 2013, this product has actually been produced and sold several times by Vigyan Ashram.  Again cheaper than a store bought item, this low cost egg incubator consumes less power than its expensive counterpart. It is also fully, analogue, automated and easy to operate. After a number of tweaks to the technology, the device hatches at a 92% success rate, making it once again a very viable alternative. They are currently designing a machine that will incubate 15,000 eggs and run on solar power!

3. Biogas based electricity generation

Vigyan Ashram has experimented with generating local electricity using locally produced biogas. The initial idea was that biogas could potentially fuel the facilities’ engines, water pump and the lights in the campus housing. At present, the biogasis mostly used for cooking, as it easily overheats, but could still results in  a cheaper and easily accessible option for power in rural areas if those maintenance issues were ironed out.

4. “Human power based energy solution to nomadic tribes”

Through a collaboration with sustainable living non-profit Save Bombay Committee (SBC), this project addressed the lack of power among India’s nomadic tribes by introducing bicycles that produce energy. Of concern to Vigyan Ashram was the statistics that tribal schools located in remote areas spend 50% - 70% of their evenings without power, causing problems to students. Four hours of electricity can be generated by just 30 minutes of cycling with the machine attachment, which is battery operated, lit by LED at night and able to fit onto any bike model.  

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Fab Lab Manchester, England

Fab Lab Manchester is the United Kingdom’s first foray into constructing a Fab Lab, appropriately placed in the world’s first industrialized city.  It is located in the modern development of New Islington on the eastern side of the city, one of the villages conceived as part of the Millennium Communities Programme. The Fab Lab is located in the brightly coloured Chips building, which was the first commercial building constructed in New Islington and is surrounded by water on three sides.

The Fab Lab, opened in 2010 and is the brainchild of the Manufacturing Institute (link), a charity that supports businesses focused on manufacturing. “We want to create a culture of people who think more about creating and making things, not just going in a shop and buying things,” says Eddie Kirby of the Manufacturing Institute. “So if we create a culture where people think, I’ve got a problem to solve, I can actually solve it myself, rather than just buying something off the shelf, that starts to create a culture of innovation.” Kirby is very much interested in the idea of expanding the network of Fab Lab’s nationally to have up to 30 in Britain, providing experimentation grounds for thousands of potential fledgling manufacturers in the UK. Annually, around 2,500 people use Fab Lab Manchester.

Since Fab Lab Manchester is supported through charitable donations, there are several free nights each week where individuals can come and explore the equipment. They warmly welcome schools, businesses, and community groups to use the facilities and they hold special education sessions for those who volunteer.

The Fab Lab  hosts a monthly “Do It With Others”, or DIWO, meeting which runs through December 2014, allowing makers to meet and exchange ideas. At each DIWO session a Fab Lab member  presents their current projects to attendees and shares some insights into their creation process. Future DIWO topics include How to Get into Programming, Turning Lasercut Designs into a Business, and How to Make a Carbon-fibre Bike Frame.

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Fab Lab El Paso, Texas

Located in the international metropolitan area of El Paso del Norte is Fab Lab El Paso Having opened its doors in November 2013, this Fab Lab  is the brainchild of El Paso native Gustavo Arriaga and his partner Cathy Chen. Behind Fab Lab El Paso the idea is to share as much knowledge as possible. They encourage people to develop open source projects so people can make and improve upon them. The collaborations reflect that as well, embodied by a beautiful wooden beehive made through open source technology in collaboration with Fab Lab Barcelona. 

The Lab has also assisted Augment El Paso with 3D printing, created pieces with Gishwhes (the greatest scavenger hunt in the world), and helped create shelving for local businesses. Over the summer they have run various children’s Maker Camps with themes like ‘Make Believe’ and ‘DIY Music’, working on solidifying a place in the El Paso community.

On the maker movement, Arriaga says ‘There’s something that I always thought was funny about (it); that it’s only called a “maker movement” when a certain type of person does it. You know, like a certain class, a certain wealth status, a certain level of education. But people have been making their own things and hacking things together since forever. Especially Mexicans. We’ve been making things forever, you know, “jale Chicano”. And it’s nothing new. What it does is just amplify that DIY spirit. All we want to do is just give you more tools to make things more efficiently, more affordably, and to help you just take it to the next level.’ The concept of “el jale Chicano” is a Mexican term for a home-engineering quick fix, an attempt to macgyver broken devices despite a lack of knowledge or expertise. And that is what Arriaga and Chen look to bring to the Lab, for it to be a space of uninhibited learning that is not intimidating but instead is wide open to experimentation.

Fab Lab El Paso offers some other seriously amazing workshops like origami bow tie making where laser cutting is used to score the paper in advance, reducing the arduous process of manual tessellation to a less labor intensive practice. They have also hosted an Eggbot Workshop that enables highly detailed egg decoration through open source technology. They are currently seeking help crowdfunding a Particle Filter to get rid of the wood and glue dust that the CNC machine produces. Help them out here, there’s some great perks you can gain in return for giving them a leg up.