The mini FabLab explores affordable desk-top fabbing machines.The focus is on their potential for home, artists, smaller schools, libraries and even mobile. We look at their possibilities, limitations and ease of use.
Of course they are no match at all for the MIT standard fablab machines, but for a more modest ambition they can be quite useful. Programming tools for electronics are omitted at as they do not scale.
And we help people setting up a fablab or a Makerspace.
The mini FabLab originated when at PROTOSPACE we noticed that most people wanted to use the lasercutter. There is always a queue on front of the Epilog.We also noticed that most folks do not want “to make almost anything” (MIT’s adagium), but want to make almost any small thing. So we looked for additional capacity by small laser cutters and that was the start of the mini FabLab as a makerspace.
Note: extra attention is given to the LaOS open source initiative, where a low cost lasercutter can be complemented with an open hardware driver board and open source software. A stable version of the driver board is available now! We are currently (mar2013) exploring an affordable 400 x 300 size lasercutter, which looks very promising at a price under € 3000.
This simple blog is updated almost daily, as we consider ourselves at the wheel amidst technology …
Bart Bakker at museum ‘de Pont’, Tilburg bart [at] minifablab [dot] nl