Fab Labs

Innovative User

Laure Morel, Serge Le Roux

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781848218727
• eBook ISBN: 9781119318408
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The digital economy is now expanding rapidly, and is starting to overturn the past achievements of the Industrial Revolution. Initially engaging in the world of services, it is now turning to the manufacture of objects. Just as microcomputing evolved from large scale computing to more personal use, and as the Internet left behind the world of armies and universities to become universal, industrial production is gradually becoming directly controlled by individuals. This appropriation is being done either on a personal level, or, more significantly, within local or planetary communities: Fab Labs.

These digital fabrication laboratories offer workshops to members of the public where all sorts of tools are available (including 3D printers, laser cutters and sanders) for the design and creation of personalized objects. The bringing together of various users (amateurs, designers, artists, "dabblers", etc.) and possibilities for collaboration lies at the heart of these open-access productive spaces.

This book covers a range of advances in this new personal fabrication and various issues that it has raised, especially in terms of the alternatives to salaried work, intellectual property, ecological openings and the hitherto unseen structuring of societies.

1
Fab Labs: Observations on a Topical Phenomenon

If today paralleling “democratization” and “three-dimensional (3D) printing” is possible, it is largely due to the emergence and the significant development of the Fab Lab concept. Not a day goes by without the media writing an article or reporting on this global phenomenon that is announced as the third industrial revolution. But before delving further into a discussion on the potential of these places to encourage creation and collective innovation, we consider that it is important to review the origins of this concept and its current state of diffusion worldwide, as well as to clarify the specifics to be recognized by the community as “real” Fab Labs. Finally, it is necessary to clarify the terms used and the nature of the users in order to understand the challenges that these knowledge and skill-sharing facilities introduce.

1.1. Origins and an attempt at a definition

1.1.1. The origins: a concept from MIT

The first Fab Lab appeared in the late 1990s at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at the instigation of Neil Gershenfeld [GER 07]. After obtaining funding for his research, Gershenfeld decided to gather high-technology machines in one place that would allow him to work and produce materials, and to design electronic circuits and microprocessors. However, faced with the challenge of training his students to use these machines, he conceived his famous course “How To Make (Almost) Anything”, which has become a full educational program within the MIT syllabus under the code 863.08. Students were encouraged to develop personal fabrications using the available equipment. Gershenfeld observed that the students did not hesitate to divert machines to fit their needs. In this context, in 2001 the MIT Media Lab set up the Fab Lab program whose principles are set out in a Charter (http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/Charter/) which aims to promote the creation of a global Fab Labs network.

As a genuine workshop with learning tools, the Fab Lab is thus a place where data and objects (Bits and Atoms) can be manipulated through special machines that can transform data from a computer into a tangible object [GER 06].

However, to be called a Fab Lab, a digital workshop has to respect the Fab Lab Charter established by MIT. With the development of the Charter came a form of empowerment of the concept, leading to consider that the new entrants did not necessarily follow the process to join the MIT Charter. Rather, they are referenced by the national networks of Fab Labs by demonstrating that they respect the initial prerequisites. Thus, adhering to the concept is easy: it is enough to fix a time for public opening of the Lab, providing a typical park of rapid prototyping machines, as mentioned in the Charter. The advantage is participation in the life of the network by sharing a logo (see Figure 1.1) and a wiki (http://wiki.fablab.is/wiki/Main_Page) on which both projects and practices can be discussed.

Although this freedom of action favors the network, it also constitutes one of its limitations. Indeed, faced with the popular and industrial craze for the Fab Lab, many spaces were then renamed using this term, leading to further drift and confusion between a Fab Lab, a rapid prototyping workshop, a TechShop, etc., which we will address in the next section.

Finally, note that “most of the labs are associative or owe their functioning to public funds. This policy marking openness and reappropriation is an essential point of all current labs” [COL 13b].

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Box 1.1. The Fab Labs Charter (source: Rennes Fab Lab)

In order to carry the title of “Fab Lab”, a structure must, inter alia, respect the Fab Labs Charter, as laid out by MIT. The Charter below was updated in November 2012, based on minor amendments addressed by the global network:

– What is a Fab Lab?

Fab Labs are a global network of local laboratories, which boost inventiveness by providing access to digital fabrication tools.

– What can we find in a Fab Lab?

Fab Labs share the evolving catalog of core capacities to make (almost) any object, allowing people and projects to be shared.

– What does the Fab Labs network provide?

Operational, education, technical, financial and logistical assistance beyond what is available in a single Lab.

– Who can use a Fab Lab?

Fab Labs are available as a community resource, offering free access to individuals as well as subscribers within the framework of specific programs.

– What are your responsibilities?

1. - Safety: do not hurt anyone and do not damage the equipment.
2. - Operation: help clean, maintain and improve the Lab.
3. - Knowledge: contribute to the documentation and knowledge of others.

– Who owns inventions made in a Fab Lab?

The designs and procedures developed in Fab Labs can be protected and sold as desired by their inventor, but must remain available so that individuals can use and learn from them.

– How can businesses use a Fab Lab?

Commercial activities can be prototyped and incubated in a Fab Lab, but they should not conflict with other uses; they must grow beyond the Lab rather than within it, and they are expected to benefit their inventors, Labs and networks that contributed to their success.

The original Charter in English is available at: http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/Charter.

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1.1.2. Definition of a Fab Lab

The global nature of Fab Labs complicates the standardization of the concept. However, a plethora of definitions can be found on the website http://fablabs.tumblr.com/, classified according to several points of view:

The Fab Lab is a place to do things (perhaps within the meaning of doing things for oneself, either physically or not):

1. – According to Frosti Gislason, from Iceland, it is a place where you can make almost anything.
2. – Lindi, from Pretoria, defines it as a place where everyone can write their own stories.
3. – Abubakar Adam, from Ghana, believes that it is a c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Fab Labs: Observations on a Topical Phenomenon
• 2 The Emergence of the New Production System of Personal Fabrication
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement