Fab 9 Newsletter

KONNICHIWA FABBERS!

Only 3.3 weeks until our annual gathering, FAB9 in Japan!  As reminder, the meeting will take place August 21-27 in Yokohama.  We’re expecting about 200 of you to attend this year’s conference, a world record for the network.
Hiro Tanaka and his dream organizing team have outfitted a super fab lab for the events and crafted an incredible week of learning and making. If you have not already registered please visit the FAB9 official website to do so and get info on all things FAB9: http://fab9jp.com 

Of course this also means you only have 3 weeks to learn Japanese!  Fortunately Fujitsu, one of our FAB9 sponsors,  has created an eBook guide to learning Japanese. Check it out – and study hard!  http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/computing/server/japanese/e-book/

For those of you unable to participate in person, we’d still like for you to participate remotely by presenting your fab lab in the morning review sessions with an Ignite format presentation. More information on the presentations and FAB9 below.

In the Network

Talks, Presentations, Events

Egypt Fab Lab, Nairobi Fab Lab, FabLab@School-Stanford and Fab Lab DC  participated, presented  and ran workshops at the international Interactive Technologies that Enhance Children’s Creativity workshop in New York in June: http://itecc.paragraphe.info/

Fablab Amersfoort held its second, successful FabFuse meeting on the topic of knowledge sharing in July: http://fabfuse.org/

The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES)  and The Fab Foundation hosted a group a FabEd workshop in July bringing  together digital fabrication educators to develop a framework for teacher professional development that will aid educators in bringing digital fabrication into formal education.  Please visit our FabEdFacebook and Twitter pages to get in on the conversation!  

On July 26 the Fab Lab Lima team hosted the first Fab LaT Fest, a gathering of Latin American digi-fab practitioners for knowledge exchange and celebration of digital fabrication.

August 8-9th, Fab Lab Cali-UAO is organizing the Seminar The FabLabs, a window to the future of innovation in design and manufacturing with national and international experts participating,  Peter Troxler will be a featured guest.

Sherry Lassiter and Peter Troxler will represent the fab lab network in Lima,  Peru on August 14 for the opening of a fab lab at the new Tecsup I+De , Tecsup’s Center of Innovation, Development and Entrepreneurship in Technology.

August 28, 29 following FAB9 Dan Sawada of MIT, is organizing
“Fab Camp for Kids” in the same venue. Visit   http://life-is-tech.com/fabcamp/ as the agenda evolves.

FabLabCon 2013: Aachen Fabbers are convening a European Fab Lab Conference Sept. 9 in conjunction with Makerfaire Kerkrade.  Please visit: http://hci.rwth-aachen.de/fablabcon2013

October 27-28 Stanford will host the third annual FabLearn conference. FabLearn is a venue for educators, policy-makers, students, designers, researchers, and makers to present, discuss, and learn about digital fabrication in education, the “makers” movement, and hands-on learning. Please see: http://fablearn.stanford.edu 

In the Press

Dhananjay Gadre pilots an educational outreach project in Delhi: http://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/designproject/archive/2013/06/26/a-summer-of-learning-in-new-delhi.aspx

Fab Lab Tulsa inspires young engineers: http://www.newson6.com/story/22869346/tulsa-kids-design-own-skateboards-in-engineering-camp

Neil Gershenfeld discusses the third digital revolution with Robin Young on NPR: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/06/19/gershenfeld-digital-revolution

CNNs Fareed Zakaria interviews Neil Gershenfeld on the future of digital fabrication:  http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/07/17/exp-gps-gershenfeld-3d-printing.cnn.html

What’s new and different?

There is a new study by Brent Stephens of the  Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA, and colleagues (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013005086) which finds that 3D printers extruding PLA and ABS produce some potentially nasty ultra-fine particles; so for health and safety reasons we might want to recommend proper ventilation and/or using respiratory masks (class FFP2) at least for prolonged exposure.

Congratulation to our new fab labs and fab lab efforts across the world!

Australia

Fab Lab Adelaide  

Canada

DèmosLab in Saguenay, Quebec

France

etoLab, Amiens

Italy

We Do Fablab, Fontaneto D’Agogna 

Suriname

Fab Lab Paramaribo

Turkey

FabLab Instanbul

UAE

Dubai FabLab

UK

Fab Lab Airedale

(This is a partial list of the newer labs and efforts which will grow in the coming weeks as we catch up with all of you. Some say there are more than 400 fab labs in the world now! We’re estimating 200.)

FAB9

Tick tick tick… the time is at hand! FAB9 is rapidly approaching.  To that end, please review the items below to help guide you through your homework the meeting and your assignments.

Agendas and events:

Hiro directs us to FAB9 special content:  http://www.fab9jp.com/special.html

The evolving agenda can be found here: http://www.fab9jp.com/program.html

and will be updated this week so check it regularly.

Fab9 Research

The deadline for FAB9 Research Contributions has been extended to Saturday, August 3, 2013. Please see

Fab9 Research Presentations 
Call for Contributions

The conference Research Session will be held on Saturday, August 24 , 14:00-18:00.

Travel Advice:

The FAB9 team has provided a handy map to help you get from the airport to your hotel in Yokohama:  http://www.fab9jp.com/accomodation.html

Japan power is 100 V, 50/60Hz with type A & B plugs, identical to the US plug configuration.

98 Japanese Yen = 1 US dollar = .65 BGP = .75 Euro, etc.

FAB T-shirts:  

August is a very hot month in Japan. Fab9 will be a hot affair. While there is air conditioning, it will still be hot and humid. Moreover, you will move from one conference venue to another by foot. So we strongly recommend that you bring cool T-Shirts from your country to wear in ours…. http://www.fab9jp.com/fab9shirts.pdf

FAB9 Assignments:

Fab Lab Presentations:

The mornings will start with an academic or topical presentation by someone in the digital fabrication field followed by fab lab presentations.   We want everyone to participate in the morning lab presentations, whether you are participating in person or remotely.  The schedule for lab presentations is as follows:

Wed, August 21 (North and South America)

Thurs, Aug 22 (Europe and Africa)

Fri, Aug 23 (Asia and Pacific)

Sat, Aug 24 (The Rest of the World!)

We’re requiring that all presentations for fab labs be in Ignite format (http://igniteshow.com/howto).  For FAB9 the format is 12 slides that auto-forward every 15 seconds for a total presentation time of exactly 3 minutes.  So remember you have only 15 seconds to present each slide, and then your time is up.  The presentations can be about a special project you’ve done this year, something great happening at your fab lab, your mission, or even just about a day in the life of your fab lab.   They can be funny, serious, informative, whatever you like.  But they will be done in 3 minutes.   The slides keep going, even if the presenter talks too long. So you’d better practice! If you are not going to be present, you can send us the presentation and participate by videoconference.   We will be using the MCU to broadcast sessions during the week. Send Lass your presentation by end of day Tuesday, August 20.

Fab Camp: 

Over the weekend of  August 24 & 25 there will be open-ended, self-curated workshops at FAB8. We’ve got a few sessions planned, but really this is your time to invest in what interests you.  The FAB9 super fab lab will be open for your fabbing pleasure. This is an opportunity to make things, to make progress on a collaborative project, to learn about something new, or to meet with a group that has been hard to nail down. 

The conference Research Session will be held on Saturday, August 24 , 14:00-18:00.

There will be a special workshop on Fab Education, covering formal and informal education initiatives, on Sunday, August 25, 14:00-18:00.

Fab Lab Exhibition:

On Monday morning, August 26 from 9:30AM – Noon we will hold a Fab Expo in advance of the afternoon network presentations and Fab Academy graduation.   This will be an exhibition of work from the different fab labs around the world open to the Japanese public, and we expect this to be well-attended.  Please bring with you items and innovations from your lab that you want to show and demonstrate to the public. Please also send us (sherry.lassiter@fabfoundation.org, htanaka@imrf.or.jp ) in advance of the meeting your needs for exhibiting; that is, let us know if  you need a power cord, Internet connection, extra space, etc

FAB9 World Cup Contest:

The Fab Lab World Cup challenge this year is “The Open (Re)Source Jazz Orchestra”, a contest to build open source musical instruments with recycled materials using digital fabrication. “Open (Re)Source” is coined from “Open Source” and “Open Resource” (meaning wasted materials). Yokohama is famous for its annual Jazz Festival, which is part of the inspiration for the competition. The rest of our inspiration comes from the “Landfill Harmonic project” in Paraguay.
(Please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXynrsrTKbI).

Your challenge is to create a musical instrument by recycling waste materials, and then to perform a piece of music using your instrument. On the last day of the conference (27th), you will perform in a live concert (don’t worry, no solos required!). Proceeds from this public performance would be donated to the “Landfill Harmonic project”. http://www.fab9jp.com/FabLabWorldCupContest2013.pdf

You do not need to be at the conference in person to compete!

Can’t wait to see you all in YOKOHAMA! REGISTER NOW!!!!

This is an occasional newsletter from Lass at Fab Lab Central.  Please email me if you have announcements to make to the community, or if you want to be added or removed from this list (sherry.lassiter@fabfoundation.org).