Background reading: Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution by Neil Gershenfeld, Alan Gershenfeld and Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld.
Some write their stories in words. Some write their stories in code; some with materials; some with machines. My current story is a wobbly exploration through all these media to understand the Fab Lab.
Neil Gershenfeld has articulated his Fab Lab vision now for 2 decades: “How to make (almost) anything”. After a brief revisit of what a Fab Lab is this article outlines some of the hurdles that have to be overcome to achieve that vision.
Digital computation has led to the smart phone. Digital communication has led to the Internet. These first two digital revolutions have created new jobs and transformed traditional jobs. Will digital fabrication continue this trend. Is it correct to claim, as the Gershenfelds do, that digital fabrication is the third digital revolution? See Footnote.
What is a fab lab? Digital fabrication is often misunderstood in that people think of it as being just 3D printing. It actually involves a wide range of additive and subtractive technologies, as well as computer-aided design and embedded electronics
The five types of machines found in a conventional fab lab are:
- Vinyl cutter
- Laser cutter
- 3D printer
- CNC machines
- Digital Embroidery machines
The MIT course that Neil Gershenfeld initiated in 2003 named “How to make (almost) anything” was a huge hit which led to the creation of Fab Labs around the world. An inspirational slogan!
What sort of things can we make? Well in theory the list goes food, furniture, and crafts to computers, houses, and cars.
What is the overall goal here? The short term killer app is personal fabrication, the ability to make or modify what you can't or can buy in a store. Personal fabrication can take many forms since it depends on each person. My 3D printed personal favourite so far is the Sierpinski Pyramid Lamp.
One possible social goal is to transform consumers into producers. The Gershenfelds approve the Blair Evans vision:
A potential vision for this new blend is represented in the inspiring work of Blair Evans, an accomplished automotive engineer and educational leader who is now developing a local ecosystem of fab labs in an economically distressed part of Detroit. His vision is about what he calls “thirds”— building out the digital fabrication capability to the point that people might spend one-third of their time in paid labor to buy what they can’t make, one-third of their time using digital fabrication facilities to make what they can (with a focus on furniture, housing, aquaponic food production, and other practical things), and one-third of their time to follow their passions in whatever way they choose
- Digital Fabrication and the Future of Work
However, in practice, what you can presently make depends on whether your local Fab Lab has million dollar machines or thousand dollar machines. In practice many fab labs can make very cool small things (eg. an articulated dragon on a 3D printer) but are not making big things. To make the bigger things you would need the big machines, like a CNC milling machine. Yes, the price will drop and access will improve over time. But for now it depends on where you live.
Not every Fab Lab or project ends in success. Neil’s brothers, Alan and Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld sometimes play the devils advocate in their book. When things don’t turn out the inspirational slogan “How to make (almost) anything” transforms into “How to (almost) make anything”
A case in point. I tried for 3 years to initiate a Fab Lab in Alice Springs. See my 2021 article Your town needs a community Fab Lab
I lobbied government, industry leaders, education leaders and citizens there. But to no avail. My calls were sometimes not returned and in the instances where interest was initially shown it never led anywhere significant.
I did have more success in introducing new innovative subjects and 3D printer technology at the school where I taught. The admin could see the need for a more engaging STEM or STEAM curriculum. But at no stage was I offered the opportunity to explain Neil Gershenfeld’s full Bits to Atoms vision. It felt like being at a banquet but only allowed to eat the grapes.
My failure to kick start a community Fab Lab in Alice Springs could be put down to my poor persuasive powers. However, it might also have been due to deficiencies of the local ecosystem, a troubled town of 25,000 people, to nurture innovation. Neil Gershenfeld points out that MIT isn’t an isolated technology park but is embedded in an ecosystem or environment “that mixes long-term research, short-term development, small start-ups and large corporation, along with cafes, clubs and parks” (p.49)
Furthermore, I notice that Fab Labs are not growing exponentially in Australia, unlike some other countries. On the contrary, if you look at the map some Australian Fab Labs have become inactive (Perth, Ballarat, Sydney). As the two sometimes critical brothers point out, “Digital Fabrication is hard” (p.64)
So, in this article, I want to discuss the hurdles as well as the tremendous potential of setting up a Fab Lab. In 2024, I moved back to Adelaide so will reference the Maker Spaces here.
A Fab Lab needs machines, software, spaces and people who understand (mentors, volunteers)
Space is a huge issue. There are two maker spaces in Adelaide. The Adelaide Maker Space has a huge space in the basement of the WEA Building. The Parks Library Maker Space is part of the library system and has only a smallish room, which does restrict things.
Machines: I listed the 5 types of machines above. An important issue here is enough commonality to allow for interoperability between different Labs around the world. From my reading the most popular machine is the laser cutter. The problem with 3D printers is that they are slow. I noted with interest that Neil Gershenfeld’s favourite machine is the CNC miller. The Fab Foundation site has a page where they specify how to get started and their ideal Fab Lab. For those interested in starting or understanding a Fab Lab there are lots of important details on that page.
Software: Free and Open Source Softwar (FOSS, eg. Inkscape for 2D vector graphics design) lowers the barrier to interoperability but this is not always possible. I’ve noticed some comments in the book (eg. from Nadya Peek, p. 73) about the need to improve CAD / CAM software to make it more intuitive for users
Network effects aka Metcalfes law: the value of a computer connected to the Internet is proportional to the square of the number of computers in the network.
When the digital fabrication hardware and software is interoperable across locations, it enables network effects, greatly accelerating the innovation in a way that is not possible with analog fabrication. I'm wondering if the Maker Spaces in Adelaide could exploit this more. For example, one thing that has surprised me is that although it is very easy to find free 3D print designs online (thingiverse etc.) it is not easy to find laser cut designs. If this global sharing of designs which is embedded in the Fab Lab charter is a reality then why are laser cut designs hard to find?
In this sense digital fabrication is revolutionary but only when linked to the earlier digital revolutions of computation and communication. I have a sense that the Australian Fab Labs are operating too much in isolation from each other and the world global movement.
People: The Adelaide maker space in the WEA basement is staffed entirely by volunteers. This surprised me but it seems to be working. There are induction sessions to get started on particular machines, projects or rooms. There isn’t a formal ongoing mentoring system. If people are stuck then they can ask a volunteer for help. This often works but not always. eg. I had a problem where the laser cutter simply stalled at the start which neither I nor the volunteer could solve.
The Parks library is staffed by a couple of paid workers who are expert makers. They have an induction system and you can make appointments if you need to skill up in a particular area.
Community: I spoke above about killer apps and how I made a Sierpinski Pyramid Lamp. Another way to look at this is about "must haves". What "must haves" do Fab Labs offer? The Blair vision of making one third of your consumables in a Fab Lab may be achievable in the futue but not in the present. The Gershenfelds argue a strong point here: that one of the "must haves" is the sense of community attained through the meeting and making process (p. 77 and 81)
Fab literacy and the Fab Academy: Given that expert people are the main limiting factor for Fab Lab expansion the Fab Academy runs a 24 week course to train people. I’ve had a look at this course and find it quite daunting. There are only two places in Australia where you can complete this course:
Course details (look here to understand why I find it daunting):
Neil Gershenfeld calls this a distributed learning model (a hybrid between F2F and online learning, since part of the learning is done socially at a FabLab). Online MOOCs are notorious for their high drop out rates so it’s an improvement on that model.
Money: Sherry Lassiter from the Fab Foundation estimates that the average budget for launching a community fab lab and running it for 2 years is $250,000. (p. 76)
The Adelaide maker space has various sponsors, scroll down to the bottom of their home page. They have membership fees and fees for visits, inductions and workshops for those who aren’t members.
Neil Gershenfeld has some interesting discussion about who pays on page 42 of the book. He says that selling things made in the lab doesn't work partly because Fab Labs are not setup to make things at scale. He goes on to point out that enlightened government can utilise Fab Labs to help disadvantaged youth stay out of trouble, that is a better option than what happened in Alice Springs (lock 'em up and get more police).
Philosophy: The how, what and why all need to be addressed. "How to make (almost) anything" implies that users have open slather on the what. But in practice that depends on their expertise. Learning works best when the users make something that is personally or socially meaningful, the why. The how is mastery of all the hardware and software which is a big task. But to focus only on that would be a mistake.
Conclusions:- How to make many interesting things is not as inspirational as How to make (almost) anything but is more realistic at this stage
- Third digital revolution and turning consumers into producers are probably over hyping the case
- Fab Labs / Maker Spaces can have many great outcomes: rapid prototyping, training ground in useful skills for all and joyful community development for starters
- The future is bright since the technology will continue to improve, become more user friendly and cheaper
- Australian Fab Labs / Maker Spaces need to tap more into the global movement by sharing their designs (open source philosophy)
I tend to agree with this amazon reviewer that all the Gershenfelds are wearing rose coloured glasses with their "third digital revolution" rhetoric. Note, however, that in a 2018 article they said that exponential growth of Fab Labs would die out by 2025:
If you want to be proselytized about fab labs, this is the book for you. A key premise is that an analogy of Moore's law will (or should?) apply to digital fabrication. This is based on a few years of doubling of the number of fab labs out there. Moore's original paper was based on 10 years of data but the trend there has continued for 50 years. If that holds for fabbing, yeah, it'll change the world bigtime. But the case has yet to be made. I liked that the Gershenfeld brothers wrote different chapters of the book, with quite different life experiences they bring different perspectives. But it's all based on that exponential premise, one that I'm quite skeptical about. The last of Neil's chapters envisions how fabbing might eventually get to assembling very tiny parts so you could really make anything, but this is almost laughably sketchy and technically infeasible. There's something called chemistry that Neil doesn't seem to be paying attention to. Still, fabbing is a fascinating new technology with lots of possibilities and this book will give you a good feel for how it's affecting some people's lives. There are some good stories mixed in with the questionable extrapolation of trends.
1 comment:
What got me into this stuff was games programming. It was virtually zero cost to enter and met a real need in the kids, playable games and a place to showcase them. It was really successful. Then came the OLPC where things were a little more muddled. The program had significant costs, a few million overall or $200 per child. It was unclear what need it was filling. Me and others were attracted by a widespread adoption of constructivist learning but its target market was looking at job ready skills in Microsoft Office. Maker labs might (just guessing numbers) cost $1M to set up and support 100 kids, that's around $10k per child. And the unmet need that a maker lab supports. I'm not sure. Some would thrive but its not obvious to me who would use it to do what.
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