Father of the Fab Lab movement and MIT Professor Neil Gershenfeld speaks with RadioNZ about the current status of personal fabrication.

“It’s all a big accident,” Professor Gershenfeld starts out.

He goes on to say that we’re building micro-LEGOs to fabricate objects digitally. Listen to the full interview below.

Neil Gershenfeld photo by etech used under Creative Commons license.

Read more articles about Neil Gershenfeld.

Everything you wanted to know about setting up a Fab Lab is detailed in this document by Fabien Eychenne.

This broad overview covers these topics from a global perspective:

• History of Fab Labs
• Physical space configuration
• Services and pricing
• Fab Lab teams
• Prototypes
• Group projects
• Art projects
• Structure and organization
• Investment budget
• Machines and equipment

This week’s featured Fab Lab is Fab Lab Dublin in Ireland, your own personal factory in the city with all the equipment and expertise to make it easier, faster, cheaper and more fun to create things. 3D printing is one of the key technologies at Fab Lab Dublin.

From their website:

We are a collective of designers, entrepreneurs and makers who are setting up Fab Lab Dublin. A Fab Lab is a digital fabrication lab equipped with computer-controlled machines like 3d printers, laser cutters, 3d scanners and precision milling machines. The lab acts as a personal factory in the city where you can design and produce your own inventions, prototypes and designer products.

Design and manufacture is fundamentally changing. Designs (physibles) can be shared digitally and collaborated on at a global scale. Manufacturing is being reinvented by the ability to ship digital data more efficiently than products. Digital information is now at the forefront of manufacture and design. A fab lab is equipped with computer-controlled tools that take digital data to create physical products. The lab includes technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production – meaning individuals can now compete with large-scale manufacture.

We want to empower individual designers, entrepreneurs and makers with access to the tools of invention. Fab Lab Dublin is a space where you can share your passions, designs and ideas. It is a space where collaboration and invention take place. Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them. So come join us and share your passion.

Dublin recently hosted a mini Maker Faire. Here is a video showcasing some of the ideas at the faire.

Learn more about Fab Lab Dublin at their website, or follow them on Twitter @FabLabDublin.

See all of our featured Fab Labs in our weekly series.

Dublin at night photo by infomatique used under Creative Commons license.

This week’s featured Fab Lab is called Fab Lab Airedale. Located in Dalton Mills, Keighley, it is the UK’s second Fab Lab. The first Fab Lab in the UK was opened in Manchester in 2010.

About Fab Lab Airedale:

Fab Lab is the first stage of an ambitious project to create a Centre of Manufacturing Excellence within Airedale serving Bradford District and the surrounding parts of the Leeds City Region.  Fab Lab Airedale is a collaborative venture between the Airedale Partnership, Bradford Council and Leeds City College, with support from The Manufacturing Institute.  The Fab Lab Airedale will operate as a not for profit company limited by guarantee.  Any profits generated through the running of the Fab Lab will be reinvested in the aims of the project which are to promote innovation and excellence within the local manufacturing and related sectors.

Dalton Mills offers the perfect mix of old and new, blending the opulence of Victorian splendour with modern facilities ideal for today’s fast-paced working environment.

Dalton Mills is a former textile mill, located by the side of the River Worth, on Dalton Lane in Keighley, near Bradford. The majestic mill, which has been a landmark of the town for more than 140 years, was acquired by Magna Holdings Ltd in 2004.

It is now having a multi-million pound make-over to restore it to it’s former glory, and with massive regeneration taking place in Airedale over the next decade, there has never been a better time to relocate to Keighley.

Learn more about Fab Lab Airedale at their website, or follow them on Twitter @FabLabAiredale.

See all of our featured Fab Labs in our weekly series.

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.