Fab Labs are the educational outreach component for the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2001 the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. funded MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, an ambitious interdisciplinary initiative that is looking beyond the end of the Digital Revolution to ask how a functional description of a system can be embodied in, and abstracted from, a physical form. CBA’s laboratory research on technologies for personal fabrication is complemented by the field “Fab Lab” program that brings prototyping capabilities to under-served communities that have been beyond the reach of conventional technology development and deployment. By making accessible engineering in space (down to microns, through precision machining) and time (down to microseconds, through RISC microcontrollers), these facilities have been uncovering what can be thought of as instrumentation and fabrication divides, and suggesting that they can be addressed by bringing IT development rather than just IT to the general public.

The engineering capability for design and fabrication at length and time scales described above opens up numerous possibilities for innovative solutions to common problems. Since local communities themselves foster this innovation, it can lead to sustainable solutions. High-end technological solutions have not been addressing problems faced on the local level as yet; therefore, we believe fab labs will provide a thriving incubator for local micro-businesses.

In the life of CBA Fab Labs have been opened in rural India, northern Norway, Ghana, Boston and Costa Rica. Fab Lab outreach projects are being explored with a growing group of institutional partners and countries including Panama, Trinidad, South Africa, the National Academies, the Indian Department of Science and Technology, and the Africa-America Institute.

What exactly is a Fab Lab? Fab Lab is an abbreviation for Fabrication Laboratory. It is a group of off-the-shelf, industrial-grade fabrication and electronics tools, wrapped in open source software and programs written by researchers at the Center for Bits and Atoms. Currently the labs include a laser cutter that makes 2D and 3D structures, a sign cutter that plots in copper to make antennas and flex circuits, a high-resolution milling machine that makes circuit boards and precision parts, a plasma cutter and welder for large metal objects, an NC embroidery sewing machine, and a suite of electronic components and programming tools for low-cost, high-speed microcontrollers.

MIT has additionally written a Computer-Aided Machinery (CAM) program that can read all of the different kinds of ways that people describe things digitally and turn them into tool paths for all of the different ways it’s possible to make them.

Researchers have written another program for Fab Labs which helps users share their files and experiences as they work, so that users can teach each other rather than relying on a fixed curriculum.

Fab Labs are evolving as our research evolves. A full Fab Lab currently costs about $25,000 – $50,000 in equipment and materials without MIT’s involvement. It is a rapid prototyping platform—and as such is meant to encourage local entrepreneurs to take their own ideas from the drawing board to prototypes to starting local micro businesses, Fab Lab also teaches users critical skills in computing, electronics, programming, and CAD/CAM fabrication techniques–a set of internationally recognized skills. It is additionally a platform from which a community’s technical challenges can be shared with an international roster of engineers, who can help problem solve and design solutions for the community. In return for the involvement of trained engineers with the community, engineers have an opportunity to work on real life design problems faced by large, under-served communities at the lower end of the consumer market.

A Fab Lab can give its users around the world the ability to locally conceptualize, design, develop, fabricate and test almost anything—for example a Fab Lab puts communication technologies within reach of almost anyone, anywhere. Currently Fab Lab partners are working on creating mesh wireless, ad hoc networks in the Lyngen Alps of Norway to allow shepherds to keep track of their flocks from afar, and to allow fishermen to keep track of their boats at sea. At the Ghana Fab Lab, situated at the Takoradi Technical Institute, students are working on low-cost designs for mobile refrigeration and TV antennas. In Pabal, India Fab Lab users are making replacement gears for out-of-date copying machines, reliable tools for testing milk content and for diagnostics on human blood. At the Costa Rica Fab Lab young people are learning basic electronics and fabrication—by making functional objects with an array of sensors and actuators. In Boston Fab Lab users make jewelry, toys and crafts using recycled materials from the community. The projects are picked by the community based on urgency of needs and/or group interests. All the labs have the same equipment and capabilities so it is possible to share digital designs and fabricated solutions between labs, forming a network of intellectual property and idea exchange.

Fab Labs have been highly acclaimed by the international press, with articles appearing in The Economist, Forbes Magazine, Wired Magazine, and NewsWeek International to name a few. Additionally the Fab Lab initiative was a high profile topic of discussion on the agenda of the 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos.

For more information about Fab Labs and how you can get involved, please contact:

Sherry Lasstier
Program Manager
Center for Bits and Atoms
MIT Media Lab
20 Ames Street, E15-404
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Tel#617-253-4651
Fax#617-253-7035
lass@cba.mit.edu
http://fab.cba.mit.edu
http://cba.mit.edu

Information re printed from Fab Lab Summary