First place Fab Awards winner Afate Gnikou and Koffi Jodji Honoli with their e-waste 3D printer
This week 600 people gathered in Barcelona for Fab10, a truly international conference on the state of digital fabrication and open source hardware, as well as a convention for the global FabLab makerspace network.
Fab Labs are the brainchild of Neil Gershenfeld of MIT. His vision was to build a network of standardized makerspaces outfitted with a suite of digital fabrication tools that would enable one to make just about anything. What I’ve understood from attending #Fab10 is that this list of equipment is important for facilitating the globally distributed Fab Academy – the Fab Lab network’s 6 month maker training program.
In Barcelona over 600 of these students, plus mentors, associated makers and institutions gathered this week to share and network. Fab Foundation’s Sherry Lassiter estimated that Fab10 attendance doubled from last year’s Fab9.
Exciting for me (as Program Director for Maker Faire) was to meet FabLab-originated Maker Faire producers from Rome, Torino, Barcelona, Leon (Spain), San Diego plus applicants from Cairo and Madrid. I saw evidence of Fab Lab Tulsa, which puts on the Tulsa Mini Maker Faire, and I met also with interested parties from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nice and Grenoble.
Also part of the week was the culmination of the Global Fab Awards, a digital fabrication innovation contest organized by the Fab Foundation in collaboration with the World Bank and USAID. The goal was to assemble and promote the best and most life-changing projects that have been recently developed with then Fab Lab, MakerSpace and HackerSpace community. I like that the list of completion finalists includes links to source files for each project.
Slideshow of just some of the exhibiting Global Fab Awards projects and people of #Fab10:
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- Laser cut badges, of course
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- Poppy Project, and open source robot, by Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre-Yves Oudeyer
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- Next door, has to be the most amazing flea market architecture in the world
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- Gerard Rubio’s OpenKnit.org knitting machine
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- Ceclia Raspanti’s laser cut fashion
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- Emma Melin dress
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- Fab Mirror shoes at #Fab10 by Larisa and Lidia Ratoi + Ida Chiatante
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- Close up shot of the e-waste 3Dprinter from Togo
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- Super sexy vacuform machine by Global Vacuum Press
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- Arduino Project’s Massimo Banzi with a local BCN fan sporting a Barcelona Mini Maker Faire tshirt
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- The Maker Faire Rome team table – Massimo, Constantino, Cristina
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- Teja and Philipp of Mr. Beam – an open source, go anywhere laser cutter
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- The big thing just outside
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- FLONE workshop – DIY drone kit with on-board cell phone
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- Really cool magic cube switch by Thomas Amberg @tamberg http://bit.ly/1pYX9XT
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- Rootless – wooden bike by Enrico Bassi
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- Lasercutters all over the floor, making all day long
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- A scene of the scene
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- Naoki Fujimoto of FabLab Kamakura in Japan and his open slippers
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- Laser etching patterns on leather
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- Face scanner for custom 3dprinted eyewear prototype by indo
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- Afate Gnikou and Koffi leading a workshop on making a 3Dprinter out of trash
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- Start with takng it apart!
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- Gorgeous 3Dprinted light by Growthobjects: http://growthobjects.com
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- More nature-inspired 3Dprints by Growthobjects: http://growthobjects.com
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- Jin Shihui and the Stigmergic Fibers Team’s sprayed-felt tent
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- Jean’s machine that uses compressed air to spray strands of wool and white glue
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- New and old
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- Momo, a simple mobile sensor device to ensure reliable access to water in the developing world
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- HP DesignJet and Fab Lab Barcelona’s Fab Bee City Car
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- Spanish Maker Faire dream team: Ian / Barcelona, Cesar / Madrid, Cesar / Leon
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- Community Building panel: Peter Troxler, James Brazil / MADE, Sabrina Merlo (me) / Maker Faire, Pedro Pineda / Betahaus, Cecilia Tham/ MOB
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- In town: FabCafe – note the red laser cutter there in a cage near the espresso bar
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- In town: laser cut espresso experience at FabCafe
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- In town: Gaudi’s Park Guell
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- In town: Amazing Gaudi sidewalks
Today’s symposium on “The Fab City” has featured future-minded engineers and designers at the edge of materials science, design and architecture. Review the complete Fab10 program here.
Gershenfeld announced this morning that next year Fab11 will go home to Cambridge, MA, and in 2016, Fab12 will go to China.
