Talk given at Open Knowledge Festival in Helsinki, Finland, September 2012

1. Fablab Project Documentation
Open Knowledge Festival
19.9.2012
Anu Määttä / @narnua
@AaltoFablab

2. http://tiny.cc/okconpaper

3. Why?
● Experts of Open Knowledge gathered
● Recap Fablab documentation issues so far
● Invitation for discussion (and hacking?)

4. OUTLINE
● FABLAB NETWORK
● NOW
● PROBLEMS
● SOLUTIONS?
● GOAL
● DISCUSSION
● INVITATION

5. What is a Fablab?
● Started by MIT Center for Bits and Atoms
● Book: Fab – the coming revolution on your desktop by Neil Gerschenfeld
● Open access workspace
● Standard inventory of digital manufacturing machines
● Principle: make here → make anywhere
● Free (as in beer ;) to use – at least part of the time, for everyone
● Fab charter: as long as you share (what was made and knowledge on
working with the machines)
Helsingin Sanomat 18.9.2012: http://tiny.cc/hesari

6. Network of labs
http://wiki.fablab.is/wiki/Portal:Labs

7. NOW

8. Example: Check-in, check-out
(ProtoSpace Fablab Utrecht)
● “automatic documentation”
● Part of lab visit workflow
● Check in, check out:
http://fablab.nl/articles/2011/04/12/

9. Example: FabPublications
(Fablab Amersfoort)
● Drupal 7-based
template for
facilitating
documentation
● “Document or pay”

10. Example: Hosted sites
(Fablab Amsterdam, Waag society)
● Hosted instances of Fablab Amsterdam website
● Small payment
● Not offered
as open
source

11. Examples: MIT
● Version control: Mercurial
● FabAcademy 2012 commits visualized
http://vimeo.com/47110711 (@openp2pdesign)
● Instructables

12. Examples: Other Maker
Communities
● Thingiverse
● Instructables
● GitHub
● imaterialize, Ponoko, Tinkercad, ...

13. PROBLEMS

14. Practical solutions for Fablabs
● Version control systems are too heavy (for
workaday lab users)
● ...and not necessarily the easiest way to digest
“making of” information
● Lab staff generally too busy to assist with
documentation
● Diverse culture
● Adverse to centralization

15. Why Not Instructables?
● Thriving community of makers but...
● Fablab machines are being opened up,
documentation closed down
● Outside, also commercial interests
● Not open, hackable, available to install on your
own web server
● Localization (Finnish? Dutch? Swahili?)
● Windows vs. Linux, Facebook vs. Diaspora

16. SOLUTIONS?

17. Centralize?
● One size fits all
● Let me do that for you != DIY

18. Distribute?
● What we are doing (and being) anyway
● Managing diversity
● = Open Knowledge

19. GOAL
● Project sharing between Fablabs!
● Collaborative development (of physical objects,
à la open source software)
● I want to find what you made, and share with
you what I made
● “Glue” to put all the pieces together
● “Easy as Apple,
Open as Linux,
Widespread as Windows”

20. (my) Visions
Open hardware + open software =>
● Machines that Document
● Machines are smart, people are lazy
● Relaying the making-of contextual
information to assist with documentation
– Eye-Fi-camera, timestamps, files used,
machine settings...
● Open Source Objects
● Retrievable “source code” of physical objects
protospace.nl/fabmoment/open-source-objects
● Made near you
● Layar.com/protospacegallery
● Also: “What our lasercutter made today”
● FabML
● Simple XML definition to describe projects
● To enable sharing between platforms

21. DISCUSSION

22. INVITATION
●
When: Friday September 21st, 16.00-18.30
● Where: Aalto Media Factory room 1
● Planned: winter/spring hackathon