Tag Archives: fab lab
Fab Lab of the Week: Massey University Centre Hosts New Zealand Event
This week’s featured Fab Lab is Massey University’s College of Creative Arts and the Affect Research Centre, which is hosting a seminar in Wellington, New Zealand in collaboration with the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms.
Fab 8 NZ is the 2012 incarnation of the annual international Fab Lab meeting, bringing field practitioners and laboratory researchers from the international Fab Lab network and beyond, for a week of hands-on workshops and a one-day public symposium on the principles and applications of digital fabrication. For designers with some basic maker experience, there’s also a two-day “Fab Foo”, a chance to rub shoulders with the best in the world.
Expect talk on a mind-boggling array of subjects, from prototyping in outer space to 3D printing of human organs.
Among those attending the conference will be Fab Lab founder Professor Neil Gershenfeld, Director for the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT. Professor Gershenfeld has been named one of Scientific American’s 50 leaders in science and technology, has been selected as a CNN/Time/Fortune Principal Voice, and by Prospect/FP as one of the top 100 public intellectuals.
Fab Labs were originally initiated as an outreach project from MIT, and provide widespread access to a modern means for invention through 3D printers that can make almost anything, and can be put to use in communities, businesses and industries around the globe.
Fab Labs have spread around the world from inner city Boston to rural India, incubating projects like solar and wind-powered turbines, thin-client computers and wireless data networks, analytical instrumentation for agriculture and healthcare, custom housing, and rapid-prototyping of rapid-prototyping machines.
Via idealog.
Top 3D Printing Headlines Last Week: Leaders, Records Broken, Burritos
A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from June 18 to June 24.
Monday, June 18
- Profiling the Five Heavyweights Driving the 3D Printing Industry
- Fab Lab of the Week: Milwaukee Makerspace Adopts 3D Printing
Tuesday, June 19
- Objet Launches Versatile Objet30 Pro Desktop 3D Printer in Japan
- Shapeways Friday Finds: Cheshire Cat, Kaleidoscope Clock, Dragon Transformer
Wednesday, June 20
- 3D Printing Marketplace Shapeways Raises $6.2 Million Series B Funding
- Nano Rubik’s Cube: Shapeways Member 3D Prints Puzzles in Millimeters [Video]
Thursday, June 21
Friday, June 22
- Making 3D Printing Accessible: Interview with Tinkercad Founder
- Chipotle Beware: BurritoBot Will 3D Print Your Lunch to Order
Saturday, June 23
Fab Lab of the Week: Dickinson College Media Center Adopts 3D Printing
This week’s featured Fab Lab is the Dickinson College Media Center, located in Carlisle, PA.
In their own words:
The Media Center is your media mecca. We help you create multimedia projects from simple graphics to short films. Our equipment office is available for students, faculty and staff to check out cameras, mics, audio recorders, light kits, green screens, dollies & much much more. We help you along your way from novice to expert and the center helps not only students working on class projects but anyone who needs assistance starting a project.
Recently, the Media Center has added 3D printing equipment to their selection of tools that students can use. The first 3D printer to arrive was a MakerBot.
The Media Center’s newest member, The MakerBot Replicator, is finally available! After several weeks of troubleshooting and trials, it is now fine tuned and ready to print your designs! Here is a look at the phases of the tuning process, through the creation of a unique Media Center keychain designed in Google Sketchup 8.
The MakerBot uses an Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic, which is fed through the top of the extruder. The extruder is heated to ~220C or ~430F, which turns the ABS plastic into a viscous liquid. The extruder then positions itself just above the warm print surface and begins the expel the plastic in the formation designated by the 3D file. Each print begins with a “raft,” which is nothing more than a thick grid of ABS plastic, that allows for the MakerBot to ensure that the rest of the object is built upon a stable foundation. Below is a snapshot of the raft creation process.
It is great to see colleges embracing the future of 3D printing and giving their students a chance to innovate with the technology. Way to go Dickinson!
Fab Lab of the Week: Milwaukee Makerspace Adopts 3D Printing
Milwaukee Makerspace is part social club, part hackerspace. They held their grand opening party in April 2011 and have been growing ever since.
At its heart, [Milwaukee Makerspace] is a social club for people who like to build, invent, tinker and/or collect new skills and expand their minds. We have a wide range of skill sets in our membership and you’re likely to find someone who can talk about most any technical concept with you in a meaningful way. We are also a physical space where you can come, 24/7 as a full member, and have access to wide array of equipment you are not very likely to have at home. Plus, there are folks around the space that can give you tips and pointers on operating that equipment effectively. (About page)
The space is home to a variety of equipment and tools, from woodworking to electronics to robotics to metal working to photography. Unfortunately, their only 3D printing equipment, a MakerBot CupCake is not currently in the shop. But it looks like this is about to change.
In May, some members came together to showcase 3 different 3D printers: a MakerGear Prusa Mendel, a MakerGear Mosaic, and a Printrbot.
In June, they are expecting a visit from MakerBot to “show off their Replicator and talk about 3D printing.”
And in July, the Makerspace is hosting a 3D printing meetup:
3D Printing is getting more and more popular, and we’ve got a bunch of members who have built printers, or are building printers, or just know a heck of a lot about 3D Printing, so we figured we should meet up and discuss the topic.
So if you’ve ever wondered what in the world a MakerBot was, or heard of RepRap or Printrbot, or just wanted to see an actual 3D Printer laying down molten plastic to make a real-world object, well… we’ve got just the ticket.
We’re excited to see the Milwaukee Makerspace adopt 3D printing!
Want to learn more? Watch the video below to hear from the founding members of Milwaukee Makerspace.
Fab Lab of the Week: Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin
This week’s featured Fab Lab is at the Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin.
The FAB LAB (Fabrication Laboratory) is a unique Learning Center that enhances student classes and provides for an outreach program in the Fox Valley. Local schools join the fab lab in creating and constructing projects that relate to their curriculum and learn science, technology, engineering and math along the way. FAB LAB’s give students the opportunity to connect and collaborate with other fab labs around the world.
The FAB LAB concept was created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Dr. Neil Gershenfeld and documented in his book “FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop.” In the summer of 2007, the FAB LAB at FVTC became the 17th in the world.
The FVTC FAB LAB team researched Gershenfeld’s work at the Center for Bits and Atoms at MITand began planning how to set up a FAB LAB at the college. In 2005, the team developed a customized approach to adapting the FAB LAB concept for FVTC, which included global consultation and digital fabrication technology to create almost anything.
Thanks to the partnership with MIT, FVTC FAB LAB users have the ability to link with students and experts worldwide via Web video access to Norway, South Africa, India, Barcelona and other locations. Other partners also include Century College in Minnesota and Loraine County Community College near Cleveland. Inventors, students and businesses can share knowledge to collectively learn from successes and failures.
There is a critical need for Wisconsin manufacturers to become more innovative, efficient, and flexible and future employees will need the knowledge of digital fabrication, the FVTC FAB LAB is taking a leadership role in innovation. Our future economy in Wisconsin and beyond depends on leveraging the power and innovation of leading-edge technologies found in the FVTC FAB LAB. Wisconsin is home to 24 statewide manufacturing driver industries, many of which depend on some form of fabrication (per Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership-WMEP research).
This Fab Lab hosts an Alaris Objet 30 and Stratasys 3D printer, among other equipment.
You can see the FVTC Fab Lab in the video below.
