Feature

FABLab allows you to create the gadget of your dreams

Fiona Milanese

CAPE TOWN (WCN) - A unique Centre for Innovation, apparently the first of it's kind in the world, has got Cape Town crafters and designers abuzz with excitement since it's official opening at the Cape Craft and Design Institute (CCDI) last month.

One of the centre's major attractions is that it contains a Fabrication Laboratory (FabLab) which allows designers to develop and perfect a prototype of almost any imaginable product before taking it in to mass production.

What's really got designers in a froth is that access to the FabLab and its cutting edge equipment is absolutely free, including the training.

One of only nine FabLabs in the world and the third one to be placed in South Africa (the other two are in Pretoria and Shoshanguve), the FabLab is sponsored by the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where it was originally developed by Neil Gershenfeld.

What makes the Cape Town FabLab so unique, however, is that it is housed within the Centre for Innovation which also boasts a product development clinic for individual product development support; an open studio for creative workshops; a FabLab resource centre and training/seminar room for up to 20 people.

"Basically anything you can think of you can manufacture," said FabLab technical manager Chris Wills.

But besides mad inventors getting to create the gadget of their dreams, the Centre for Innovation aims to develop local skills and products as well as research and develop new materials, technologies and applications, said manager Mano Reddy.

The transfer of knowledge, a "philosopy" integral to the FabLab concept, as well as increasing access to resources, was also part of the centre's objectives, said Reddy.

Collaborating in the venture with the CCDI is the Department of Science and Technology's Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy (AMTS) and the Provincial Government, both of which had contributed the lion's share of funding, resulting in R1million worth of equipment to be installed in the FabLab.

This equipment included eight workstations, connected to open source design software and linked to a number of hi-tech manufacturing machines.
Although the centre had only been open for two weeks, the FabLab was already full of jewellers, crafters and design students discovering what they could do on the machines.

Doing just that was George Hugo, an industrial design student at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).

Hugo said the FabLab was a boon for him as there was lack of new equipment and technology at the university.

Working at the FabLab meant he was in complete control of every aspect of his product and was currently working on a energy efficient ambient light which he wanted to enter into an Eskom competition.

"Without this centre I'd have to outsource someone and pay them to produce my designs. That (outsourcing) is a very disconnected learning process but at Fablab I participate in the entire process."

Although technology training was provided, said Reddy, the "infosharing" structure of the lab meant the computer literate would pass on their knowledge to others and ideas would flow freely.

At the moment Wills was offering technological demonstrations at 10am and 2pm daily but "the plan", said Wills, was to get masters students to work as interns, offering assistance to crafters or students who were not very computer literate.

But at the end of the day, he said, "you have to help yourself". --West Cape News

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