If you could make (almost) anything...

Sheffield Meeting

Dr Eddie Kirkby of the Manufacturing Institute, a charitable organisation with the object of promoting manufacturing and innovation in the UK, came to Sheffield to meet a prospective group of fablabers. The Manufacturing Institute see the Fablab the ideal vehicle for their program and so are working with MIT's Fab Foundation to set up a network of fablabs accross the U.K. and link the U.K. into the global network.

Fab Foundation

Dr Eddie said that anyone can set up a fablab indeed many schools and colleges have this capability for their educational programs. What's different about fablabs is they enjoy the support of MIT and access a global network of fablabs through the Fab Foundation. http://www.fabfoundation.org/

The Fab Academy

The Fab Academy provides instruction and supervises investigation of mechanisms, applications, and implications of digital fabrication. It is a distributed campus, offering advanced technical education to people who can’t access this kind of education due to price, age, qualifications, quality, or location. It is anchored by the field Fab Lab program (http://fab.cba.mit.edu) , a global network of people who cooperate and share knowledge, and provide access to the tools and processes for invention, education, entrepreneurship and community empowerment.

Fab Academy will pilot its first courses in digital fabrication in the Fall of 2009. Fab Labs will serve as the distributed, global campus, and faculty will participate via videoconference from all over the world. Information and application procedures will be available in May, 2009. contact: Iaacresearch
Over time the Fab Academy will join with its hosting partners to co-sponsor specialized programs relating to their specific goals and missions. Subject matter will cover such diverse areas as architecture, environmental solutions, health care products, customized textiles and toys.

http://amsterdam.fablab.nl/content/fab-academy
The Fab Academy will initially focus on a vocational FAB diploma aimed at employment certification, then a Bologna-style Bachelors degree for specialized study, and finally post-graduate research leading to more advanced degrees.

The Fab Charter

Mission: fab labs are a global network of local labs, enabling invention by providing access for individuals to tools for digital fabrication.

Access: you can use the fab lab to make almost anything (that doesn't hurt anyone); you must learn to do it yourself, and you must share use of the lab with other uses and users

Education: training in the fab lab is based on doing projects and learning from peers; you're expected to contribute to documentation and instruction

Responsibility: you're responsible for:

safety: knowing how to work without hurting people or machines
cleaning up: leaving the lab cleaner than you found it
operations: assisting with maintaining, repairing, and reporting on tools, supplies, and incidents

Secrecy: designs and processes developed in fab labs must remain available for individual use although intellectual property can be protected however you choose

Business: commercial activities can be incubated in fab labs but they must not conflict with open access, they should grow beyond rather than within the lab, and they are expected to benefit the inventors, labs, and networks that contribute to their success.

Manchester Fab lab

Dr Eddie spoke about setting up the Manchester Fab lab, the funding for the initial 2 years of the Fab Lab project is £250,000 which includes the Capital costs, the rent on the premises (min 2000 sq ft), and the wages of a manager and assistant manager. The aim for Manchester is to be self sustaining by year 3, using various means to generate income, including charging commercial interests a daily rate to use the facility, corporate training days and the manufacture and sale of items manufactured in the lab.

Discussion

The following is my rational for setting up a fablab in Sheffield.

Peak Oil and Climate Change

Whether you believe in "business as usual" or the "we're doomed, don't panic!" responses to these two looming crises that face us, the fablab idea is still a good one because in the former, the fablab stimulates innovation creates new 'products', incubates new small and medium enterprises and prepares western consumers for the predicted 'personal fabrication' market. Personally I think we can't go one exploiting finite resources in a way that exponentially depletes those resources, it is a mathematical absurdity to say that this way forward is sustainable, so to me 'personal fabrication' is mythical.

If as we progress, it becomes more and more apparent that the 'business as usual' model is leading us to the brink of a mass extinction event on the planet, then the function of the fablab will change, innovation will concentrate on ways of greening the economy through the application of technology designed and manufactured locally using local raw materials and renewable energy resources. As we transition from a carbon economy the fablab will play a central role in stimulating local technological solutions to local problems. In my view this why we need a fablab. In a world where cheap carbon energy is no longer available, the emphasis on producing local solutions locally, becomes key to economic sustainability.

Costs

The Capital costs seem high, but can be reduced by recycling old machines, favourable rents, employing only one person to run the lab and relying on volunteers to help. Open source designs for machines can be used to build new machines, at lower cost, for example the 'ShopBot' milling machine is basically a sturdy table with some stepper motors used to position a router, designs for circuits to control such a configuration are available, so it is possible to reduce costs by designing and manufacturing this type of machine in the lab in collaboration with Open Source software developers producing software to run it. Indeed there is no reason to preclude open source stepper motor designs that can be manufactured in the lab as these devices often form the core functionality of the machines used in the lab.

Steering Group

The steering group will focus on potential users of the lab, Funding Applications and events to promote the lab to various funders such as the City Council, and quangos like Yorkshire Forward. Sheffield Hallam University are keen to be involved and see the fablab as a useful adjunct to their media and creative departments. Hallam also own 'Matilda' on Matilda Street which is ideally situated in the "Cultural Industries Quarter" (Culture is not an industry IMO) to provide a location for the lab.

If you want to participate in forming the core values of the Sheffield Fab Lab or in the Steering Group please join the Sheffield mailing list, and participate in this forum or contact us at website@fablabs.org.uk.

We are aiming at setting up the next meeting with the Fab Foundation in October 2009, It would be good to have the Steering Group set up by then, and to have put on an event to promote the idea.