FabLab.nl

Yesterday saw a great turnout at the FabTable (held every 6 weeks). Our hosts were Thuur, Bart and Peter at the brand new FabLab Groningen.

They opened their doors March 1st (official opening on the 31st). With delegations from The Hague, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Enschede, Leuven (Belgium) and even Iceland, it was a great afternoon that stretched well into the evening over dinner in the ‘Het Paleis’ venue where the FabLab is located as well.

FabLab Groningen, Smari McArthy and Thuur Caris in conversation

The beautifully renovated 19th century former chemistry lab of the local University is a fitting environment for the newest FabLab in the Netherlands. The building is populated with lots of different companies and artists, making it into a major hub for the creative industry in the north of the Netherlands. A theater and conference venue, hotel accommodation, rooftop apartments as well as a restaurant make it a great spot in a quickly redeveloping area just a few minutes walk north of Groningen’s city center.

FabLab Groningen has a Trotec 60W laser cutter, a Zcorp 3D powder printer and a 3D full color scanner to go with it, a Modela CNC router, a vinyl cutter, as well as a home built vacuum-form (at 50 Euro!), a t-shirt press, and a rotary engraver. Of course they are also connected to the Polycom video-conferencing system (using a software based solution, not the expensive Polycom hardware). The big screen providing a window on the other labs is mounted on a wall that is painted with a world map showing the various locations of FabLabs from around the world.

Conversations, and Polycom screen and cam mounted on wall with FabLab world map

Discussions during the FabTable ranged from business models to our shared efforts around the different websites we run, legal aspects and creative commons for product development, and organizing the Fab6 conference in August. Elmine did a whole range of video interviews for both the FabLab documentary she is making, as well as the FabLab video channel the good people of 23Video provided us with. Over dinner we swapped more stories, enjoying the beer, food and hospitality of the restaurant two doors down from the FabLab in the inner court yard of this amazing facility ‘Het Paleis’.

More pictures in this photoset, and FabLab Groningen’s own photo stream.

Last Saturday Karsten Joost and Axel Grischow organized the first meet-up in Germany of people interested in FabLab. There was room for 40 people in the venue, and that number quickly filled up. In fact there was a waiting list for people who would have liked to attend as well. People came from different cities, apart von Bremen, there were people from Berlin, Hamburg, Aachen, Nürnberg and Düsseldorf, as well as from other places.

Creating the programme on the spot

Karsten and Axel had invited several of us from the Netherlands. Peter Troxler (to talk about business development), Bart Kempinga (FabLab Groningen, and how to get from idea to product), Petra Koonstra (creating a venue for the creative industry at Het Paleis in Groningen) and me (Dutch FabLabs as a network, and community building)

In true barcamp style the program of sessions was decided collectively at the start of the day. It was a good an varied programme. Talking both about organizational aspects of starting a FabLab as well hands-on topics, as well as a demo-space where different equipment was available to give a try.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day as well as the cool people. I hope that this may be the start of the emergence of a range of FabLabs in Germany.

My slides on the network effect of FabLabs and community building (partly in German, but mostly in English) can be seen below, as well as the pictures I took.

English version below.

FabTafel in Groningen
Op woensdag 10 maart is de volgende FabTafel. We gaan naar Groningen. Het FabLab Groningen gaat officieel op 31 maart open, en dat is een geweldige mijlpaal. Alle reden dus om op 10 maart alvast naar Groningen te gaan om het FabLab te bewonderen en Bart, Peter, Thuur en andere betrokkenen van harte te feliciteren.

FabTafels beginnen altijd om 15:00 uur. Laat tevoren even weten of je komt (mail ton@fablab.nl).

FabTafels gaan altijd door, ongeacht wie er komt of niet. De volgende data, na 10 maart, zijn op 21 april, 2 juni, 14 juli, 25 augustus, 6 oktober, 17 november, 5 januari (2011). Telkens vanaf 15:00 uur.

Tot ziens in Groningen!

Sneak preview, photos by Lykle de Vries.

FabTable in Groningen
Wednesday March 10th will see a new edition of the FabTable. This time we will be meeting up in Groningen. The brand new FabLab Groningen will officially open its doors on March 31st, which is a great milestone for the Dutch FabLab community. This is an excellent reason to come to Groningen on March 10th, to get your first glimpse of the new FabLab Groningen, and congratulate Bart, Peter, Thuur and others who made it happen.

FabTables always start at 15:00hrs. Let me know if you will be attending (mail ton@fablab.nl).

FabTables always take place regardless of who is able to attend or not. The next FabTables, after March 10th will be on April 21st, June 2nd, July 14th, August 25th, October 6th, November 17th and January 5th (2011).

See you in Groningen!

Elmine Wijnia recently made a short promo-video for Protospace. During the filming she also interviewed lab-managers Joris van Tubergen and Siert Wijnia.

Today she published a first fragment from those interviews, about how open innovation works in a FabLab like Protospace.

Joris van Tubergen talks on open innovation and FabLab from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

The video is in Dutch with English subtitles.

We, the Dutch FabLab community just released a year book for the FabLab community. The first ever year book actually. Consistent with FabLab principles the release was printing the book physically in the CabFabLab in the Hague, and sharing the digital files online so you can make your own copy. Download the FabYearBook 2010 and instructions on how to put it together.

This post is about how the year book came about, and some of the rationale behind it.

FabYearBook 2010
The idea for the FabYearBook came from two things. First, when visiting the then still very empty space that now is becoming the FabLab Groningen, I saw how Bart Kempinga had put together a reader with print-outs from different FabLab websites from around the world. He had placed that reader on a table in the middle of that big white empty room. Visitors and potential partners leafed through it, and it helped them paint with their imagination a vision of what the FabLab Groningen could be on the bare walls around them.

Bart Kempinga with his ‘scrapbook’ in a still empty FabLab Groningen

Second, I worked with a group of students at the local university in my home town in the spring of 2009. I gave a few guest lectures on knowledge management and community building. As part of their assignment I asked them to generate ideas on how to stimulate community building in the FabLab network, as well as knowledge sharing. In a bigger list of ideas, the students also came up with the FabYearBook. Marloes Wilmink, Anne Heesink, Eva Rennen and Karlein Sanders were the students that planted the year book idea firmly with me.

Presentation slide by my students

We put forward the idea for a year book at the global Fab5 Conference in India last August, and sent out calls for contributions in November. Actual contributions started coming in around January 15th, with the latest arriving this week Monday. Now, Wednesday we’ve printed the first FabYearBook 2010. More than 50 pages, from mostly ‘close by’ sources, but already with interesting variety and diversity.

Networks, nodes, visibility
In a network all nodes are distributed. That makes it often hard to see the breadth, depth and potential of a network from your perspective as a single node in it. For you and me to perceive the network from our individual position in it, we need to be visible to others and the others need to be visible to us. You probably know a sizable number of the contacts of your own direct contacts, but after that visibility of people/nodes brakes down quickly. To look further, over that ‘2 degrees out’-horizon from your own position, we need tools. Network visualizations are helpful. Sharing stories from the network in the network is helpful too. All this is true for the global FabLab Network as well. Some nodes are highly visible and see a lot, others are mostly dark nodes in the overall network fabric. The FabYearBook 2010 is a first attempt to share stories in a more persistent way, a beacon as it were in the FabLab landscape. So that visibility can improve, and new connections can be made.

Community, rhythm, predictability
Functioning communities show a number of characteristics that can be also purposefully used to create circumstances for community to grow and blossom. Community creates these characteristics, but the characteristics also help create community.

Rhythm is such a characteristic of community. Our society has rhythms on larger and smaller scales. They help us to feel as part of a whole, and give us predictability where there actually is none. Christmas is such a macro-rhythm in the western world. Even if you haven’t seen your family for a full year, you’ll be welcomed at Christmas. Weekends are a rhythm like that too. Morning coffees as well. For the Dutch FabLab community we’ve set a rhythm through FabTables, regular meet-ups at 6 weeks intervals with a fixed date and time. Anyone is welcome, and they always take place no matter what. I’ve done the same with my wife Elmine to get our local GeekLounges going, at a 2 month interval. Even if you have to miss out on one or two, you know you’ll be welcome at the next get-together, and when it takes place. An existing macro-rhythm for the FabLab community is the yearly Fab Conference. It’s FabLab’s Christmas so to speak. You have to travel for it, and meet up with the extended family as it were. The year book hopefully will serve as a new macro-rhythm, about half way (January) between two Fab conferences (August), and it comes to you.

Looking forward to when next year January sees the next FabYearBook coming out.

Yesterday saw the first FabTable (a 6-weekly informal and open get-together of the Dutch FabLab network) of 2010. We kicked off the new year at the CabFabLab in The Hague, with Xander and Gertjan being great hosts again.

During the FabTable we printed and released the first ever FabYearBook! With contributions from different labs, lots of photos and stories of projects made in a FabLab and some good articles on open design, the meaning of FabLab, and how to get one started, this first edition comes in at 53 pages. Mark Kizelshteyn, at home at CabFabLab, designed the cover that is created with a laser cutter.

Laser cut the cover, then connect the dots

Mark also wrote the instructable that you can use to figure out how to download and print your copy of the FabYearBook 2010, and put it together.

The FabYearBook 2010, have fun reading!

We’re counting on you to contribute to the FabYearBook 2011, which will appear in January next year. Watch your e-mail inbox in the fall for the call for contributions.

(Nederlandse versie verder beneden / Dutch version below)

January 27th is the date for the first FabTable in 2010. You are all invited to join us at CabFabLab in the Hague from 15:00.

We will be welcoming everybody to what surely will be a new fabulous fabrication year. A year that brings the Fab6 Conference to our shores in August (16th-20th). A year that also starts with a first in the global FabLab network: we will print the first ever FabYearBook.

The FabYearBook 2010 is a collection of stories and impressions from around the FabLab network. This first edition contains material from the Netherlands mostly, but we hope it will start a tradition, and that the 2nd edition in January 2011 will see contributions from around the globe.

At the FabTable we will print the first FabYearBook live in the CabFabLab. Afterwards we will publish the entire FabYearBook on-line for everybody to download and print as they like.

Come join us on January 27th! At CabFabLab in the Hague, starting 15:00 hrs. Please let us know if you intend to be there (so we can arrange catering): e-mail ton@fablab.nl.

A sparkling 2010, starting at the CabFabLab

Nederlandse versie:

Op 27 januari vindt de eerste FabTafel van 2010 plaats. Iedereen is van harte uitgenodigd in het CabFabLab in Den Haag vanaf 15:00 uur.

Met elkaar luiden we een nieuw jaar in. Een jaar dat belooft bijzonder te worden. In augustus (16 t/m 20) vindt namelijke de Fab6 Conferentie in Nederland plaats, en komt het wereldwijde FabLab netwerk hier samen. Als Nederlandse FabLabs zijn we trots gastland te mogen zijn dit jaar. We beginnen het jaar meteen ook al met een primeur: tijdens de FabTafel drukken we het eerste FabYearBook.

Het FabYearBook 2010 is een verzameling verhalen en impressies uit het FabLab netwerk. Deze eerste editie bevat vooral bijdragen uit Nederland, maar we hopen hiermee een traditie te starten, en dat de tweede editie begin 2011 bijdragen van over de hele wereld bevat.

Tijdens de FabTafel drukken we het eerste exemplaar van dit eerste jaarboek. Daarna komt het jaarboek on-line beschikbaar zodat iedereen het zelf kan downloaden en afdrukken.

Kom ook naar de FabTafel op 27 januari. We beginnen om 15:00 uur in het CabFabLab in Den Haag. Laat even weten of je erbij zult zijn (zodat we de catering kunnen regelen): e-mail ton@fablab.nl.

FabYearBook 2010
first printed on January 27th

(English version below)

Op maandag 7 december opent Jan Borchers, hoofd van de Media Computing Group het eerste Fablab in Duitsland. In een Fablab kan iedereen snel van een idee tot een prototype komen. Zo krijg je een glimp van wat straks heel gewoon is in personal fabrication.
Het Fablab wordt gehost door de RWTH Aachen Universiteit mogelijk gemaakt door de stichting B-IT.

Klik voor meer informatie

ENGLISH:
On Monday, Dec 7, Prof. Jan Borchers, head of the B-IT-endowed Media Computing Group, will open Germany’s first Fab Lab. These labs let anybody get from an idea for a new device to a prototype quickly, offering a glimpse of the future of personal fabrication in which, for example, 3d printers will let you print out your personal plastic cell phone cover at home – greatly impacting how we will think about mobile devices in the future.

Fab Labs recently started at the MIT Media Lab, and are being set up in many countries – thanks to RWTH Aachen University and the B-IT Foundation now also in Germany. From soldering stations and Arduino microcontroller boards, to a PCB mill, 3D printer and laser cutter, the Media Computing Group’s Fab Lab offers a set of tools to turn ideas into prototypes in new ways. The opening ceremony begins at 6 pm; for more information see the Fab Lab page at http://fablab.rwth-aachen.de.

English text below.

FabTafel bij Waag Society
Op woensdag 16 december vindt er weer een FabTafel plaats. Vanaf 15:00 ben je welkom in Waag Society, Nieuwmarkt 4, in Amsterdam.

Op 16 december viert Stichting Waag Society, waarvan het Amsterdamse FabLab deel uit maakt, haar 15-jarig bestaan. We kunnen dus rondom de FabTafel het een en ander meekrijgen van de festiviteiten. Meld je even aan bij klaas@fablab.nl als je komt.

FabTafels gaan altijd door en beginnen om 15:00 uur, ongeacht het aantal deelnemers. De volgende FabTafels zijn op 27 januari, 10 maart, 21 april, 2 juni, 14 juli, 25 augustus, 6 oktober, 17 november, 5 januari (2011).

FabTable at Waag Society
Wednesday, December 16th, will see another edition of the FabTable, the informal meet-up of the FabLab network in the Netherlands. From 15:00 hrs on you’re welcome to join us at Waag Society, Nieuwmarkt 4, in Amsterdam.

On this day Waag Society is also celebrating its 15th anniversary. If you join us for the FabTable you will be able to also take part in some of the celebratory events taking place that day. Please let klaas@fablab.nl know if you plan to join us at the FabTable.

FabTable always take place as planned, starting at 15:00 hrs, regardless of the number of people attending. De next FabTables take place on January 27th, March 10th, April 21st, June 2nd, July 14th, August 25th, October 6th, November 17th and January 5th (2011).

photo Waag by Peter Honeyman

January 2010 will see the release of the first FabYearBook ever. The FabYearBook won’t be a regular book of course, but a book consistent with the FabLab concept: every FabLab that wants to can contribute a part of the whole, and the resulting design file for the complete book will be distributed. Every FabLab then can print the FabYearBook in the way it sees fit, using the materials they have at hand. It is entirely imaginable that the FabYearBook will be a salon table glossy in the Netherlands, a wooden etching in Costa Rica, or a calendar in Afghanistan.

With the FabYearBook we want to highlight the diversity, inventivity and creativity of the worldwide FabLab network, and make our unity more tangible at the same time.

We invite all of you to contribute to the FabYearBook. Would you like to add a page (text, images, lasercut design, instructable etc.) or more to the FabYearBook? Let us know (ton@fablab.nl)! Contributions can be in English, Dutch or any other language (as long as you state in which language it is, and adding an English summary would be great!)

The date the FabYearBook will first be issued is January 27th, at the New Years Meetup of FabLab Netherlands. We will print the first hardcopy live at the event, and will send out the digital files to all contributors and FabLabs worldwide. The printing of the first hard copy will be streamed live on the FabLab video conferencing system, as well as on Qik/Youtube.

Please make sure your contribution, in any shape or form, reaches us before December 25th 2009 at ton@fablab.nl