Digital Manufacturing (FabLab)
Introduction
A Fab lab (acronym for the English Fabrication Laboratory) is a digital manufacturing workshop for personal use, that is, a space for the production of physical objects on a personal or local scale that brings together machines controlled by computers. Its particularity lies in its size and its strong connection with society rather than with the industry.
History
The Fab Lab concept appeared at the beginning of 2001 at the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), whose director at that time was Neil Gershenfeld. It was born from a collaboration between the Grassroots Invention Group and the CBA, within the MIT Media Lab, whose research revolves around the relationship between the content of information and its physical representation and the empowerment of communities thanks to basic technology.
As part of the development of its research, the CBA receives funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to acquire machines capable of “building almost anything.”[1] The Fab lab was born as a way to justify that funding, “doing what was done at MIT, instead of just talking about it.”[2] In 2002, the first Fab labs emerged in India, Costa Rica, Norway, Boston and Ghana, being a local production unit.
Characteristics
According to the definition of the Fab Foundation, a Fab lab is defined as follows:.
Equipment
The machines that a fab lab usually brings together are:
Operation
Fab labs are spaces for experimentation in the field of production that are integrated into the local contexts where they are located. Therefore, there is great diversity between the objectives, projects and achievements, business models and local articulations according to each Fab lab.
Some are explicitly aimed at artists and cross digital fabrication into the experiences and environments of hackerspaces, while others are oriented towards the solution of social and health problems; some are publicly financed, others are looking for the business models that will sustain them.