Somerville mayor Joseph A. Curtatone extolled the virtues of Fab Lab, emphasizing its positive environmental impact.
— Photos by Douglas Yu

By Douglas Yu

Fab11, Fab Lab Annual meeting, will take place this year in the Boston metro area, including the City of Somerville, the Fab Foundation and the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) announced during their latest news conference.

A Fab Lab is a platform that encourages research into digital fabrication and computation. It is also set up to stimulate local entrepreneurship, and to connect a global community of makers and innovators.

Sherry Lassiter, Director of Fab Foundation, said the foundation started in 2001 as a community outreach project. “What we did was to put these tools into the hands of communities, and asked them a question: if you could make almost anything technical or creative, what would you do with that capability?” she said.

After nearly 15 years, a simple question back then has now generated a wave of entrepreneurship across the country, such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter. “That kind of crowd funding for prototypes you make in the lab turns out to be a nice incubator,” Lassiter said.

Currently, there are about 500 labs around the world in the Fab Foundation’s network, and most of them are located in community centers or educational institutions. Somerville’s Artisan’s Asylum is an example. Artisan’s Asylum is a non-profit community craft studio that supports and promotes the teaching, learning and practice of various crafts.

The South End Technology Center’s Mel King presented a sticker to Professor Gershenfeld at last week’s Fab 11 press conference.

Last summer, Artisan’s Asylum won a free 3D carving machine in a contest from Inventibles, a Chicago-based hardware store for designers.

Professor Neil Gershenfeld explained that Fab Lab is for more than merely making things convenient in people’s lives. It creates a lot of jobs as well.

Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone said the Fab Lab is good for the environment, economy and the community. “What’s happening is when we provide the means to producing environment, these innovators are bumping into those working in the green tech and other fields,” he said of Somerville. “Local production is part of our history, and in some ways, digital production has returned to our roots.”

Mel King, the founder and current director of the South End Technology Center, also presented at the conference. He brought sheets of stickers to convey a simple message: learn to teach and teach to learn. One of the stickers reads, “I can build with alternative energy! I made a ‘squishy circuit’ with a solar panel.”

This year, Fab Foundation will bring Fab Festival to the Boston metro area on August 8 and 9. The festival will also be an opportunity for local makers to network and to share knowledge.

When it comes to making an effort to bring more renewable energies to the general public, Lassiter said there are a few pioneering labs, such as a lab in Kisumu, Kenya, that use solar power to run their labs. “Many labs around the world are making sustainable practices in fabrication,” she said, citing Barcelona as an example. “Barcelona’s commitment of being a fab city means that they’re only importing and exporting data, and they are able to use the local materials instead of materials across the globe.”

In the next 10 years, Fab Lab Foundation’s vision will be enabling more young people to access various kinds of tools, Lassiter told The Somerville Times. “I’d like to see a little disruption in the manufacturing and production model,” she said. “We try to democratize access not only in the tools, but also the ability to design and the ability to manufacture.”

Watch the full presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaAPUl32eHg&feature=youtu.be