A fab lab (''fabrication laboratory'') is a small-scale

workshop Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the only ...

offering (personal) digital fabrication. A fab lab is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything". This includes

prototyping A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...

and

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

-enabled products generally perceived as limited to

mass production Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...

. While fab labs have yet to compete with mass production and its associated

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of Productivity, output produced per unit of cost (production cost). A decrease in ...

in fabricating widely distributed products, they have already shown the potential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production. The fab lab movement is closely aligned with the DIY movement,

open-source hardware Open-source hardware (OSH, OSHW) consists of physical artifact (software development), artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by th ...

maker culture The maker culture is a contemporary subculture representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture that intersects with hardware-oriented parts of hacker culture and revels in the creation of new devices as well as tinkering with existing ...

, and the

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

movement, and shares philosophy as well as technology with them.

History

The fab lab program was initiated to broadly explore how the content of

information Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpretation (perhaps Interpretation (log ...

relates to its physical representation and how an under-served community can be powered by technology at the grassroots level. The program began as a collaboration between the Grassroots Invention Group and the

Center for Bits and Atoms The Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) was established in 2001 in the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is currently run by Neil Gershenfeld. This cross-disciplinary center broadly looks at the intersection of information ...

at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

in the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

with a grant from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

(NSF,

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

) in 2001. Vigyan Ashram in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

was the first fab lab to be set up outside MIT. It is established in 2002 and received capital equipment by NSF-USA and

IIT Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT- Kanpur or IIT-K) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. As an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), it was declared an Institute of National Importance by th ...

. While the Grassroots Invention Group is no longer in the MIT Media Lab, The Center for Bits and Atoms consortium is still actively involved in continuing research in areas related to description and fabrication but does not operate or maintain any of the labs worldwide (with the excmobile fab lab). The fab lab concept also grew out of a popular class at MIT (MAS.863) named "How To Make (Almost) Anything". The class is still offered in the fall semesters.

Popular equipment and projects

Flexible manufacturing equipment within a fab lab can include: * Mainly, a rapid prototyper: typically a

3D printer 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

of plastic or plaster parts * 3-axis CNC machines: 3 or more axes, computer-controlled subtractive milling or turning machines * Printed circuit board milling or etching: two-dimensional, high precision milling to create circuit traces in pre-clad copper boards *

Microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

and

digital electronics Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. It deals with the relationship between Binary number, binary inputs and outputs by passing electrical s ...

design, assembly, and test stations * Cutters, for sheet material: laser cutter,

plasma cutter Plasma cutting is a process that cuts through electrical conductor, electrically conductive materials by means of an accelerated jet of hot plasma (physics), plasma. Typical materials cut with a plasma torch include steel, stainless steel, alumin ...

water jet cutter A water jet cutter, also known as a water jet or waterjet, is an industrial tool capable of cutting a wide variety of materials using an extremely high-pressure jet of water, or a mixture of water and an abrasive substance. The term abrasive je ...

, knife cutter. Ciudadanos en FabLAB de LABNL

FabFi

One of the larger projects undertaken by fab labs include free community FabFi wireless networks (in Afghanistan, Kenya and US). The first city-scale FabFi network, set up in Afghanistan, has remained in place and active for three years under community supervision and with no special maintenance. The network in Kenya, (Based in the University of Nairobi (UoN)) building on that experience, started to experiment with controlling service quality and providing added services for a fee to make the network cost-neutral.

Fab Academy

Fab Academy leverages the Fab Lab network to teach hands-on, digital fabrication skills. Students convene at Fab Lab "Supernodes" for the 19 week course to earn a diploma and build a portfolio. In some cases, the diploma is accredited or offers academic credit. The curriculum is based on

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

's rapid prototyping course MAS 863: How to Make (Almost) Anything. The course is estimated to cost US$5000, but varies with location and available scholarship opportunities. All course materials are publicly archived onlin
here

Fab City

Fab City has been set up to explore innovative ways of creating the city of the future. It focuses on transforming and shaping the way how materials are sourced and used. This transformation should lead to a shift in the urban model from 'PITO to DIDO' that is, 'product-in, trash-out' to, data-in, data-out'. This can eventually transform cities into self-sufficient entities in 2054; in line with the pledge that

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

has made. The Fab City links to the fab lab movement, because they make use of the same

human capital Human capital or human assets is a concept used by economists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a subs ...

. The Fab cities make use of the innovative spirit of the users of the fab labs.

Green Fab Labs

''The Green Fab Lab Network,'' which started in

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

's Green Fablab, promotes environmental awareness through entrepreneurship. For example, they promote distributed recycling, where locals recycled their

plastic waste Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are cate ...

turning locally sourced shredded plastic into items of value with fused particle fabrication/ fused granular fabrication (FPF/FGF)

3D printing 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

, which not only is a good economic but also a good environmental option.

List of labs

Listing of all official Fab Labs is maintained by the community through website fablabs.io. As of November 2019, there existed 1830 Fab Labs in the world in total. Currently there are Fab Labs on every continent except

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

References

External links

FabFoundation
{{Authority control Digital manufacturing Hacker culture Massachusetts Institute of Technology