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What is Fab Academy

  • Distributed education

  • Personal Research

  • No roads

  • Free your mind (forget what you already know)
  • Be brave, Take risks (not physical risks)
  • The nine principles. MIT Media Lab
  • Stress control. Can you handle it?

What it is not - Is not a traditional education - Tutors vs teachers

How it works

  • 1 week cycle. Why is it important. Time x effort = constant
  • 19-20weeks, 1 week break
  • Wednesdays 9am in Boston. Global Assignment reviews and Lecture (small bits of info)
  • Assignment
  • Documentation
  • Learn + make + share. Every week different topic.
  • Graduation: Diploma vs Learning

Mindset preparation

  • Onus is on the student, not the instructor.
  • Use this as an opportunity to practice on the machines.
  • Manage your resources and time appropriately.
  • Iterate as many times as possible.
  • Progress gradually in the resources you use. Prototype smartly.
  • Questions are always ok!
  • Not knowing how to do something doesn’t mean you can’t do it. The key is to know how to find out.
  • Something personal is always a better starting point you already know a lot about yourself. Market of one.

Gitlab Issue tracker. Do’s and don’ts

  • The lists: class, alumni, instruct
  • Create you local lab communication service
  • Workflow: Research yourself Local
  • Issue on your lab or globally.
  • How to ask properly. Going beyond “It does not work. It gives me error”
  • Read and look for others documentation The key to success!

People and entities you should know in the Fab Academy. Their tasks

  • Neil
  • Sherry
  • Coordination
  • Evaluation
  • Regional Reviewer
  • Remote guru

The final project

  • Remember: it is a 1 week project (production time).
  • Your research may take the whole semester.
  • The Zen of Python https://www.python.org/doc/humor/#thezenofpython
  • Remember: Fab academy will not convert you into a (you name it)
  • Think about you. Your hobbies and interests
  • Propose what you want to do. Forget how to do it
  • Must be sellable
  • Make meaning. Guy Kawasaki video
  • Increase the quality of life
  • Right a wrong
  • To prevent the end of something good

The three types of final projects

  • The good. Simple, well crafted
  • The bad. Overcomplicated, does not solve any problem
  • The ugly. Bad documented, horrible aspect

One last thing

  • Design for long lasting http://www.core77.com/posts/24649/WhenWeBuiltThingsSolidly
  • Use digital fabrication to fix things and give trash a new life
  • Find the treasures in electronic waste: Bearings, motors, shafts, encoders. Use the heatgun to recover those.
  • Please, stop 3D printing, there is world way beyond that technique.

General preparations for the academy!

What to write down - Date - Machine used - Material (thickness, type, color…) - Settings (speeds, feed rates…) - Results (what worked, what didn’t) - Debugging

Assignment: Document what you do every day. - Don´t expect to remember everything after 1 or 2 days. - If you document as long as you move on it will not be that annoying/time consuming.

Install list of software

  • fab modules html5 version (current version)
  • Nodejs https://nodejs.org/en/download/packagemanager/
  • inkscape
  • openscad
  • gimp
  • cura
  • arduino IDE (not the ubuntu software center version)
  • attiny addon for arduino IDE (Instructions in tutorial section of Hi Lo Tech MIT Media Lab )
  • processing
  • qcad
  • git
  • eagle
  • kicad
  • wine
  • partworks in wine
  • Text editor of your choice(atom/brackets/note++,etc)
  • Rhino+grasshopper
  • Fusion360

Creating accounts

It is recommended that students create the following online accounts

  • Fablabs.io account
  • git.fabcloud.io account for fab academy archive
  • Google account
  • Youtube and/or Vimeo account for storing large videos
  • Github/gitlab account for your personal code projects
  • Dropbox account for sharing files
  • Sketchfab.com account for embedding and storing STL files