The People

A. Champion

This is the local community leader who believes in and is passionate about the fab lab concept and
what it can do for the community. This is a person who is closely connected to the community base in
order to bring resources (financial and otherwise) and commitment to the fab lab from within. This
person may already be running a NGO or community center, and has a personal commitment to and
community mission for that center, rather than performing merely an administrative role. Mel King
here in Boston is that person. Haakon Karlsen in Norway is their Champion. The Bright Youth Council (see
FORM lab description) in South Africa performs that function. When times are tough, these champions
find the commitment and resources to sustain the operation, and have enough vision to keep the
community excited about it. Champions are critical to the success of the fab lab. This person does
not need to be technical, just committed and passionate about the idea, and well connected within the
community to sustain the operation. This person may or may not serve as administrative/managerial
support for the lab.

B. Technical Guru

This is the person that makes the lab operate on a day to day basis. They must like to make things.
That’s far and above the most distinguishing factor for a fab lab guru, they must love to make things. It
helps a lot if they have either a mechanical or electrical engineering background, OR a background
making things professionally. Electronics and programming are good skills to have as well. In the US,
high school teachers who lead robotics competition design classes are terrific for this kind of job, as are
those with arts or architecture training, or training in industrial arts. This person is always multi-
tasking, between maintaining the equipment and supplies, to helping mentor people through projects,
and training users on the design software and the fabrication hardware. It’s a big job, and if you have a
big lab, you need two of them. Below is a job description from one of the fab labs in the network that’s
a pretty good model. Most of all this person has to be open to new ideas, have a passion for making
things, and patience and capability to teach users

Fab Lab Director description:

The Fab Lab @ XXX is a place where ideas and concepts are realized by embracing computerized
manufacturing technology, computer science, electrical/electronics engineering, mechanical engineering
and other disciplines. The Fab Lab was designed around the emerging possibility for ordinary people to
not just learn about science and engineering but actually design machines and make measurements that
are relevant to improving the quality of their lives and the communities around them. The Fab Lab
director is responsible for {insert specific responsibilities here}.

A technical degree (ME,EE,CS,IT) and/or similar job experience is required.

Strong interpersonal and communication skills are required.

Desire to seek and pass on knowledge to others is a must. Previous teaching experience is preferred.

Proficiency in common desktop applications (web browsing, word processing, image editing etc)
required. Familiarity with CAD/CAM and/or PCB Design software preferred.

Must have experience running and maintaining PCs and LANs (your home PC and LAN may be sufficient).
Familiarity or expertise in Linux preferred.

The Fab Lab Director and the Fab Lab itself will cross the boundary of multiple disciplines including
education, arts, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science and manufacturing
engineering. The ideal candidate will likely have a background that is just as diverse and will be eager to
embrace new concepts and technologies when appropriate.

Below is a recent description for personnel needed to manage a permanent fab lab faciliy, with the
possible addition of a mobile fab lab as well to the program. In this instance the fab lab is a large lab
that will have a lot of people coming through, with one on-site manager, 4 gurus (2 work morning shift,
2 work evening shift), and plans for one guru to run a mobile fab lab as well.

For a permanent stationary lab in a building, we’d suggest you start out with the following staff:

1. Manager/Champion: the person who promotes the fab lab, gives tours of the fab lab and hadles
press, manages the finances of the fab lab, raises funds for fab lab, develops community programs for
fab lab, schedules the fab lab… that sort of thing. (This position could also possibly handle scheduling
and programming for the Mobile fab lab as well. In fact, it might be a good idea for the permanent
location to be “home base” for the Mobile Fab Lab–that way supplies and repairs and operational
capacity of the permanent fab lab facility can be leveraged for both labs.)
2. Fab Lab guru/technical expert: This person ideally has a background in mechanical engineering or
design or possibly architecture, with some experience with electronics and/or computer
programming. This is the person who will work directly with users and students in the fab lab. He/She
will teach people how to use the software, the machines, and safety, as well as help people make and
design their projects. This person will also handle the maintenance of the lab machines and insure that
inventory of materials and parts is up to date and available. This person would also help design
programs for community. If you plan to handle a lot of schools and groups, you probably want to hire
two (2) experts for the permanent facility. If you plan to participate in Fab Academy, you will probably
want to have two gurus on staff.

3. Part time technical support person: This person maintains the computers in the lab, maintains the
networking and internet access. And other technical needs that come up in the lab. This is a 1/3 to 1/2
time position. Again, you could leverage this person to handle the needs of both the Mobile fab lab and
the Jeddah fab lab– which could be 1/2 to 2/3rds of a full time job, or possibly full time job.

If the permanent (brick and mortar) fab lab facility is going to be part of a business incubator or have a
self-sustaining entrepreneurial focus to it, you may need a full time designer/engineer to help
entrepreneurs and small business innovators design and prototype their ideas.

A Mobile fab lab should also have at least one full time guru/technical expert on staff, and depending on
how you schedule the lab (that it, lots of schools, or lots of community centers, very close together in
time) you may want two gurus, or one guru and one person to help with crowd flow/control.

The lab we’ve been using as an example of the perfect space is the Chicago Fab Lab at the Museum of
Science and Industry (MSI)—here is the pdf of the blueprint for you to refer to. The Chicago lab has
two of each of the machines in it and is about 1900 square feet (approximately 177 square meters). For a
laboratory with one of each machine, 1500 square feet, or 140 square meters should be sufficient.
This lab is designed to accommodate larger groups (about 20-30 users at a time), so it includes double
the number of machines and tools—therefore more expensive that the usual Fab Lab . Depending on the
focus and community of your Fab Lab you might want to design your lab similarly. We can talk through
the design together, but even if you want to maintain the standard Fab Lab (one of each machine and
tool) it would be good to use this layout as a model.

Looking at the blueprint, you will see a large circular shape entitled Business Enterprise—this is a
museum exhibit just outside of the Fab Lab so ignore it. Adjacent to the circle is a semi-circle entitled
“design center”. As 90% of a student or user’s time is spent designing on the computer, MSI invested in
a design space for 12 users, plus a teacher/guru who can demonstrate using a projector and a
powerful laptop computer on the screen at the front of the design center. This is also where
videoconferencing for Fab Academy or meetings happens as well.

Behind the design center/screen wall is a computer room for IT purposes.

To the left of the design center there is another semicircular space. This is display space for the best or
most interesting projects in the Fab Lab at the time.

To the left and behind the design center is the electronics workbench. That includes one set of bench
test equipment, but two soldering stations and two programming stations (2 computers) and of course,
electronic components and tools for two labs.

Along the back wall are two Modelas for making circuits and molds for casting. There is a computer
designated for each Modela. (2 computers total here). Also along the back wall are two laser cutters,
attached to 1 computer, and attached to an outside, roof ventilation system.

Toward the end of the back wall is a counter and sink with running water to handle casting projects and
other projects that require water for processing or clean up. There are two long, empty counters along
the back wall as well for work space and for use with some of the other kinds of tools, like a drill press
and a scroll saw.

The right end of the lab, in the center of the lab there is a large open space for the ShopBot (large wood
router) and the associated computer and filter/blower. This is the one item that has special electrical
power needs.

And finally you will see 2 or 3 large rectangles spanning the center of the room. These are purely
workspace, places where students and users can spread out their projects as they work on them.
Incredibly useful.

The one aspect of the space that all Fab Labs underestimate is the need for material and project storage.
You need some significant space devoted to storing large pieces of wood and other materials, as well as
cubby holes or shelving for student/user individual projects.

The Fab Lab Inventory (the hardware and materials)

The Software

2D design, raster picture, scan

GIMP

Photoshop

MyPaint

vector

lodraw

Inkscape

Illustrator

Scribus

LibreCAD
QCAD

FreeCAD

Layout

CorelDraw

3D design

programs

fab modules

alien.png alien.svg alien.cad alien.fab alien.math

SketchUp

AutoDesk-123D: http://usa.autodesk.com/autodesk-123d/

123D

Tinkercad

Blender

Art of Illusion

FreeCAD

OpenSCAD

Rhino

Grasshopper

SolidWorks
Inventor

AutoCAD

Maya

Alias

3ds Max

Catia

Pro/ENGINEER

I-DEAS NX

AC3D

audio, video

Audacity

Kdenlive

FFmpeg

MEncoder

VLC

simulation

Elmer

COMSOL

COSMOS

ANSYS

Nastran

Research at MIT’s Center for Bits & Atoms:

http://dma.cba.mit.edu – digital materials and assemblers

http://bio.cba.mit.edu – biobits

http://mtm.cba.mit.edu – machines that make machines

http://kokompe.cba.mit.edu – fab modules

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/faq – fab labs

http://surf.cba.mit.edu – programmable surfaces

http://milli.cba.mit.edu – programmable matter

http://rala.cba.mit.edu – aligning hardware and software

http://mmp.cba.mit.edu – mind machines

http://i0.cba.mit.edu – internet of things

Emerging Research and Applications from the global network:

Tomas Diez, Smart Citizen Project

IAAC’s Green Fab Lab Project

IAAC’s Sustainable City Project

http://www.fabacademy.org/

http://www.fabfoundation.org/