Two pioneering artists, Coral Lambert and Paul Higham, will soon be embarking on a tour with their Solar Airstream Fab Lab, equipped for both 3D printing and metal casting. This modified Airstream has solar panels, a 3D scanner, two 3D printers (MakerBot and Rostock), and equipment for casting objects in iron and bronze using environmental mold making techniques. The Solar […]
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 […]
The following excerpt is taken from Paulo Blikstein’s essay, “Digital Fabrication and ‘Making’ in Education: The Democratization of Invention.” The essay comes from the recently published FabLab: Of Machines, Makers, and Inventors edited bu Julia Walter-Herrmann and Corine Buching. Blikstein’s project concerns the role of fablabs in the future of engineering eduction. It is one of four “vignettes” from Blikstein’s own experiences in conducting digital fabrication workshops with secondary school students around the world.
The past decade has seen the sudden, dramatic appearance of community spaces offering public, shared access to high-end manufacturing equipment. These spaces are interchangeably referred to as hackerspaces, makerspaces, TechShops, and FabLabs. This can lead the intended audience to become incredibly confused as to why there might be so many names for a single concept. I’d like to take some time to untangle the mess, explain the concepts behind each title, and talk about why I now make significant distinctions between all of these types of spaces.
On a recent visit to Manchester to attend the Future Everything summit, I couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the UK’s first fab lab, housed in a striking, slab-like building in the waterside district of one of Britain’s great industrial cities. I spoke to Eddie Kirkby (of the Manufacturing Institute) and Haydn Insley (fab lab manager) to find out how the fab lab movement is spreading into the UK.
MIT student Matthew Keeter designed and built this sweet little portable music player for his final project in Neil Gershenfeld’s famous How to Make (almost) Anything class. The case, a union of three octagonal prisms, is laser-cut from 5.2mm plywood, and features a five-“button” capacitive touch-sensing control panel. The music is stored on an SD card, loaded in the back of the player. The PCB is two-sided, and was cut with a robot PCB mill. All source files are provided.
MIT’s Professor Neil Gershenfeld gave a fascinating and engaging talk at the Carnegie Institute of Washington on November 3rd. The event was a benefit for the emerging FabLabDC, which is intended to provide a high-tech fabrication laboratory within sight of the US Capitol.
