Product category:
Rapid Prototyping
News Release from: FabLab
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 28 August 2007
Digital workroom eases prototype design
FabLabs are designed to be welcoming and accessible to as many people as possible, from university researchers to primary school children, from artists to entrepreneurs.
The FabLab concept, an easy to use digital workroom that enables anyone to design and prototype products themselves, is spreading rapidly in the Netherlands The concept originated in the US and has grown to become a worldwide phenomenon
FabLabs are designed for everyone, with a special appeal for professionals in the small and medium-sized enterprise sector, the creative sector, and in (technology) education.
The FabLab concept was developed by Professor Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the Centre for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and is part of the new, personal digital fabrication revolution that is sweeping the world.
FabLabs are designed to be welcoming and accessible to as many people as possible, from university researchers to primary school children, from artists to entrepreneurs.
No matter your skills, it takes virtually no time to learn what you need to put the FabLab equipment and software to work.
In Amsterdam, the first two FabLabs are now open, in Pakhuis de Zwijger and in the Mediamatic exhibition space, on the ground floor of the PostCS building.
More FabLabs will open soon in Utrecht, Dordrecht, Maastricht and on the island of Texel.
Picnic'07 is the international cross-media event in Amsterdam, at the end of September.
Picnic'07 will focus on new types of media and technology, and the guest speakers will include FabLab MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld, who will be talking about the developments in personal digital fabrication.
The first part of the Picnic'07 week will see the first public presentation of a FabLab involving students.
Thanks to the Waag Society, Mediamatic and Syntens, anyone who is curious canfind out more about self-design and creating prototypes.
FabLab.nl, the Dutch FabLab Stichting or foundation, exists to promote the FabLab concept in the Netherlands.
Its aim is to have as many innovation delivery rooms as possible in the Netherlands.
Hanne van Essen, board member of FabLab.nl: "In the Netherlands, we seem to have lost some of our feeling for making things".
"Even in primary school, reading, writing and arithmetic have a much higher status than manual skills".
"With a FabLab, we can once again be makers of things rather than just consumers".
"We can once again learn to understand the technology we use so easily, and then build on this further".
The first Dutch initiatives will be supported by the Amsterdamse Innovatie Motor (Amsterdam Innovation Motor), Regionaal Technocentrum Amsterdam (Regional Technocentre Amsterdam), Roland, Epilog, Syntens, Mediamatic, the Waag Society and FabLab.nl.
Through this, Amsterdam aims to form a link between FabLab and research and design-based education within the school system.
The first step is to make a FabLab available during the Picnic Jr workshops.
The goals for FabLab are to: make the practical application of technology as easy as possible; support creative and technical education based on just-in-time learning; simplify the development of prototypes and open this possibility to the public; promote individual expression for everyone; recognise talent and interest school pupils studying the sciences and technology; stimulate drive; and create an open-source knowledge and hardware platform.
By combining education, business, knowledge, ideas and creativity, every the FabLab concept will help to accelerate the Netherlands' ability to innovate.
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