The mobile fab lab is a computer-controlled design and machining

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

housed in a trailer. The first was built in August 2007 by 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 informatio ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

. The mobile lab includes the same computer-controlled fabrication machines found in fab labs worldwide.

The MIT Center for Bits and Atoms Mobile Lab

The fab lab trailer is a 2007 Pace American Shadow GT Daytona dual axle (model SCX8528TA3). It is long, wide, and high. The tailgate opens to add a deck at the back of the trailer. The main entrance is a door on the passenger side towards the front. A tall custom steel box covers most of the tongue. The lab requires a space approximately long by wide for operation as a lab. The power requirements are 240 V single phase with minimum 40 A service. To run all the equipment in the lab at once (including AC and overhead lights) is about 20 kW; to run only the 120 V equipment is about 8 kW. Two

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

artists from the

South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Mott Haven, Melrose, and Port Morris. In the early 1900s, the South Bronx was or ...

were invited to design and paint the sides and top of the trailer in two weekends. This lab contains custom cabinetry which is an example of a lab producing a part of another lab. The cabinetry was CAD-designed and fabricated on a CNC wood router similar to the wood router in the trailer. The router in the trailer is capable of making another set of cabinets. The lab debuted in August 2007 in Chicago, Illinois during The Fourth International Fab Lab Forum and Symposium on Digital Fabrication. Its maiden road trip from Chicago to Nevada to Boston included short visits to

Black Rock City Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

, the

National Renewable Energy Laboratory The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US specializes in the research and development of renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy systems integration, and sustainable transportation. NREL is a federally funded research and ...

, the Nebraska State Fair, Gadgetoff at the

Liberty Science Center Liberty Science Center is an interactive science museum and learning center located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. At its opening it was the largest such planetarium in the Western Hemisphere and the world ...

. It is now loaned to organizations for months or longer, typically to help create a permanent lab in that location. These have included

Sustainable South Bronx Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx) is a non-profit organization which promotes environmental justice. SSBx was founded by Majora Carter in 2001.Cynthia E. Rockwell, "Breaking the Grip of Poverty", ''Wesleyan'' (Wesleyan University alumni magazin ...

;

Lorain, Ohio Lorain () is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Black River, about 30 miles west of Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of ...

;

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, Michigan; and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

List of equipment

The equipment included in mobile fab labs is typically a subset of the complete list of equipment for a regular fab lab, with the most common omissions being multiplications of general purpose items such as computer workstations. The original equipment list for the MIT CBA Mobile Fab Lab: *5

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

GX620 computers and 17"

LCD monitor A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a variant of a liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film-transistor technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in cont ...

s. All computers are

dual-boot Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a single computer, and being able to choose which one to boot. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of specifically two operating systems. Multi-booting m ...

Ubuntu Linux Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', '' Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

. *LG flat panel wide screen monitor 32" *1

Gbit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...

router,

802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer c ...

access point, 3G cellular modem *(1) Epilog 24" × 12" laser cutter *(1) Roland Modela MDX-20 Mini-mill *(1) Roland CAMM-1 GX-24 wide vinyl cutter *(1) Shopbot PRS 48" × 96" CNC wood router with high speed spindle *(1) Grizzly 4HP dust extraction system (for wood router dust removal) *(1) Purex

HEPA HEPA (, high-efficiency particulate air) filter, also known as high-efficiency particulate absorbing filter and high-efficiency particulate arrestance filter, is an efficiency standard of air filters. Filters meeting the HEPA standard must ...

filter (for laser cutter fume removal) *(1) HP OfficeJet 6210 All-In-One scanner,

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...

inkjet printer Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...

fax machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephone, telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a ...

*(1)

Dustbuster The Black & Decker DustBuster (now stylized as DUSTBUSTER) is a cordless vacuum cleaner that was introduced in January 1979. Mark Proett and Carroll Gantz are listed as the inventors on the utility and design patents, respectively, assigned to B ...

vacuum cleaner A vacuum cleaner, also known simply as a vacuum or a hoover, is a device that causes suction in order to remove dirt from floors, upholstery, draperies, and other surfaces. It is generally electrically driven. The dirt is collected by either a ...

*(1) 1

gallon The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use: *the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as , which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Aus ...

shop vac *(-)

hand tools A hand tool is any tool that is powered by hand rather than a motor. Categories of hand tools include wrenches, pliers, cutters, files, striking tools, struck or hammered tools, screwdrivers, vises, clamps, snips, hacksaws, drills, and kn ...

such as

screwdriver A screwdriver is a tool, manual or powered, used for turning screws. A typical simple screwdriver has a handle and a shaft, ending in a tip the user puts into the screw head before turning the handle. This form of the screwdriver has been repla ...

pliers Pliers are a hand tool used to hold objects firmly, possibly developed from tongs used to handle hot metal in Bronze Age Europe. They are also useful for bending and physically compressing a wide range of materials. Generally, pliers consi ...

, clamps, etc. *(1) Function Generator, 10

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one h ...

DDS with Counter *(1) Power Supply, Triple Output, DC, Digital, 30 V, 3 A *(1) Digital Storage Oscilloscope, 150 MHz, Color *(5) Digital

multimeter A multimeter is a measuring instrument that can measure multiple electrical properties. A typical multimeter can measure voltage, resistance, and current, in which case it is also known as a volt-ohm-milliammeter (VOM), as the unit is equipped w ...

*(2) 50 W

soldering Soldering (; ) is a process in which two or more items are joined by melting and putting a filler metal ( solder) into the joint, the filler metal having a lower melting point than the adjoining metal. Unlike welding, soldering does not in ...

stations * electronics parts:

resistor A resistor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element. In electronic circuits, resistors are used to reduce current flow, adjust signal levels, to divide voltages, bias activ ...

capacitors A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of a ...

, chokes, diodes,

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

s, regulators,

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...

photodetector Photodetectors, also called photosensors, are sensors of light or other electromagnetic radiation. There is a wide variety of photodetectors which may be classified by mechanism of detection, such as photoelectric or photochemical effects, or by ...

loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or ...

s and

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and pub ...

thermistor A thermistor is a type of resistor whose resistance is strongly dependent on temperature, more so than in standard resistors. The word thermistor is a portmanteau of ''thermal'' and ''resistor''. Thermistors are divided based on their conduction ...

s, op-amps,

microcontroller A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs ( processor cores) along with memory and programma ...

resonator A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior. That is, it naturally oscillates with greater amplitude at some frequencies, called resonant frequencies, than at other frequencies. The oscillations in a reson ...

s, buttons and switches,

magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nic ...

s, headers, jacks and plugs,

ribbon cable A ribbon cable (also known as multi-wire planar cable) is a cable with many conducting wires running parallel to each other on the same flat plane. As a result, the cable is wide and flat. Its name comes from its resemblance to a piece of ribb ...

and connectors, test clips, heat shrink tubing, solder/desolder, battery connections,

batteries Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

motors An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

transducer A transducer is a device that converts energy from one form to another. Usually a transducer converts a signal in one form of energy to a signal in another. Transducers are often employed at the boundaries of automation, measurement, and cont ...

s, bell wire, magnet wire, blank PCB substrate.

Other mobile labs

*2009: South Africa Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) operates a mobile lab based out of

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

, South Africa. * 2010: The MC2STEM school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District operates a mobile lab as part of CMSD Fab, primarily in the midwest USA area. * 2010: Amersfoort Fab Lab in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

operates a fab lab truck in Europe. In addition to several locations in the Netherlands, they have been to

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

. * 2014 STE(A)M Truck, a program of Community Guilds Inc., was launched to bring tools, talent, and technology to communities without access. * 2014: “TechShop Inside! — Powered by Fujitsu,” a mobile makerspace for students of all ages in the form of a 24-foot trailer equipped with some of TechShop's most popular building and prototyping technologies. *2014: North Central Michigan College's “Mobile Digital FAB LAB,” is a customized fab lab designed and built by Triune Specialty Trailers to serve as an educational outreach trailer that gives students hands-on training for highly specialized manufacturing jobs. *2014: The FryskLab, a mobile FabLab in The Netherlands. The FryskLab is the Europe's first library Fablab, initiate by Fers, the Service provider for public libraries in the Province of Friesland, in The Netherland. *2015 : L'Atelier's mobile Fab Lab, in France. This Fab Lab has been created by the local government of

Oise Oise ( ; ; pcd, Oése) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,419 ...

in France. (In French). *2015: Industrial designers from Madlab Chile develop the Aconcagua Fablab, the first in this class in Latin America. *2016: The Research Center for Innovation – VERITAS University from Costa Rica creates the First Mobile Fab Lab from Central America.

References

{{Reflist

External links

MIT Spotlight page on the mobile lab
* Tomas Diez'
weblog of the August 2007 Chicago-Nevada-Boston trip

Pace American User's Guide for Trailer
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The MIT Center for Bits and Atoms Mobile Lab

List of equipment

Other mobile labs

See also

References

External links