Name:Fab Labs
Acronym:FL
Description:
Fab labs ... began as an outreach project from MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA). CBA assembled millions of dollars in
machines for research in digital fabrication, ultimately aiming at developing programmable molecular assemblers that will
be able to make almost anything. Fab labs fall between these extremes, comprising roughly fifty thousand dollars in equipment
and materials that can be used today to do what will be possible with tomorrow's personal fabricators. Fab labs have spread
from inner-city Boston to rural India, from South Africa to the North of Norway. Activities in fab labs range from technological
empowerment to peer-to-peer project-based technical training to local problem-solving to small-scale high-tech business incubation
to grass-roots research. Projects being developed and produced in fab labs include solar and wind-powered turbines, thin-client
computers and wireless data networks, analytical instrumentation for agriculture and healthcare, custom housing, and rapid-prototyping
of rapid-prototyping machines.
Stakeholder(s):
- MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA)
