Alumnos de la Universidad Europea de Madrid participaron este fin de semana en el WAW avanzado: estructuras. Los WAW (Weekend Architectural Workshops) son talleres en tecnologías avanzadas de fabricación digital. Están destinados a estudiantes y profesionales de la arquitectura, el diseño, las artes decorativas y otras disciplinas.
A través de ejercicios básicos como la fabricación de barcos, cometas, globos o instalaciones, los participantes reciben capacitación en el uso de máquinas de fabricación digital durante un fin de semana en Barcelona.
Equipo WAW UEM: Shane Salisbury, Daniel Ibañez, Francisca Aroso, Maciej Kasper, Rodrigo Toledo

El Fab Lab Kids es uno de los ámbitos de trabajo del Fab Lab Barcelona. Hemos abierto un programa de talleres de corta duración para pequeños inventores que quieran poner en práctica su creatividad, bien sea en la fabricación de objetos o en la creación de microchips. El Viernes 23, 3 inventores de 11 años nos visitaron para hacer sus primeras hello boards: pequeños circuitos que emiten sonidos o iliminan dependiendo de su programación.

Leon, Joan y Jordi imprimieron y soldaron sus primeras “hello boards” en menos de 4 horas de trabajo e introducción a electrónica básica.

Desde el 5 al 10 de Enero se llevo a cabo el “Boot Camp” Fab Lab en Noruega. Este taller se ha convertido en una tradicion dentro de la comunidad de Fab Labs. Este año ha contado con la participación de diferentes laboratorios como el de Amsterdam, Islandia, o Barcelona por nombrar algunos. Haakon Karlsen Jr. fue el anfitrion de un evento en cual ademas se discutieron varios proyectos como el Solar Decathlon 2010 (IaaC), o el lanzamiento de diferentes iniciativas dentro de la red mundial de Fab Labs, entre las cuales estan; el Fab Foundation (Soporte para los labs existentes y los nuevos por venir), Fab Fund (Plataforma comercial para los labs) o el Fab Academy (Programa de estudios en fabricación digital); con referencia a este ultimo, el Fab Lab Bcn anuncia que será una de las sedes en el año 1 del Fab Academy, conjuntamente con otros laboratorios del mundo.

Fab Academy será el primer campus educativo distribuido de manera global. Como parte del programa piloto de este proyecto, el Fab Lab Bcn participa en la clase How To Make Almost Anything (Como hacer casi todo?) que enseña el Prof. Neil Gershenfeld en el Massachusetts Institute of Technology, las presentaciones finales incluyeron proyectos de los alumnos del Prof. Gershenfeld en el MIT y Fab Labs a nivel global, el Fab Lab Bcn presento los proyectos de Victor Viña, Daniel Ibañez y Tomas Diez.
Siguiendo con la filosofía de los Fab Labs el programa de estudios Fab Lab Academy esta basado en las nuevas tecnologías de fabricación digital y su inclusión en la vida cotidiana de la sociedad en general, permitiendo personalizar elementos hasta ahora producidos por procesos industrializados.

IaaC hosted the launching meeting of the Fab Academy program together with the MIT CBA and different Fab Labs of the world. Fab Academy is a distributed educational program based on the digital and personal fabrication.

The Fab Academy will provide instruction and supervise investigation of mechanisms, applications, and implications of digital fabrication. Field “fab labs” are providing early access to these capabilities, through prototype tools for personal fabrication.
Instead of traveling to a distant campus, or connecting remote sites for distance learning from a central hub, a global network of local labs can itself become a distributed campus. This is the mission of the Fab Academy. The Fab Academy emerged from the experience of students who had exhausted local educational opportunities and came to fab labs for informal, peer-to-peer, project-based technical education, mentored by a growing group of faculty from around the world. Classes will be taught via networked video to students in fab labs around the world, with collaboratively developed online instructional material. Because there is no international accreditation, the Fab Academy will undertake applicable local and regional accreditation procedures; however the program content will be shared across these.

Fab Lab Bcn is compromised with this evolving and innovative educational project.

Fab Lab Pro is one of the programs of Fab Lab Bcn. The program consists on short courses for professionals, companies and architecture offices, this courses are about digital fabrication techniques such as laser cutter, 3d printer or, in this case, CNC milling machine.

The professional team from MAP Architects (Josep Lluis Mateo architecture office) accomplished the complete course of Fab Lab Pro program that includes all the fabrication techniques mentioned before.

This course was taught by Shane Salisbury and Tomas Diez

On Thursday IaaC and the Fab Lab BCN awoke to a truck delivering a new addition to the family…a Large Scale laser cutter.

The 400 watt machine can cut wood and plexi-glass up to 4cm thick and is also capable of cutting 2mm thick steel. The 3m x 1.5m cutting area will allow us to cut full scale prototypes. The machine will be first tested this summer for the IaaC Summer Workshop where it will be used to fabricate the installation for the Venice Biennale. The machine is a great addition to the Fab Lab, which already consists of a CNC Milling Machine, 3d-Printer, Laser Cutter, Vinyl Cutter, and Roland Modela Mill.

From IKEA republic to personal fabrication

The processes of industrialization during the last two centuries changed the channels of production and consumption in the modern society. Two extremes have been created from distant relations between production and consumption: on one hand we have the large chains of mass production that have been extended over Asia, Latin America and East Europe (cheap labor), and in the other we have a consumer first world located chiefly in North America and Europe. IKEA, McDonalds, Ford, Toyota, Sony, Nike, Zara, among others, represent the large forces that prompt a model that even seems not to be exhausted (?).

Nevertheless tendencies at the present aims to the personalization of consumption, customers are looking forward to originality and uniqueness, we observe the differentiation of needs between cultures, locations and situations. This phenomena creates new forms of production in which the client becomes the designer and the producer, supported by the advances of digital fabrication technologies and the development of internet through web 2.0 and 3.0. Nike, Adidas, Cannondale are some examples of the inclusion clients in the design of shoes, bicycles or clothes; the Fab Labs prompt the personal fabrication as a model that could radically change the processes and the
relations mentioned before.

This course this oriented to the design, generation and production of an open source and shared platform to promote the online exchange of knowledge, this will permit to prompt the customization and personalization of elements as furniture. The goal is to create an Internet based interface (web 3.0) that will allow to interchange, share, download and upload designs all over the world.

Fab Lab Pro is one of 3 fields of work of the Fab Lab Bcn. It serves as place for the manufacture of prototypes, mock-ups and small productions. It is open to professionals and companies of any field related to design, architecture or construction.

The first Fab Lab Pro course took place on Monday 14th of January, 2008, and was attended by the architecture and design team from MAP Architects BCN and RIERA Construction Company. The course was taught by Shane Salisbury and Tomas Diez, members of the IaaC Fab Lab Bcn.