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!

Alway Links to previous years archives and important docs (manual, grading sheets etc.)¶

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

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

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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 and 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!¶

Recommended that each student uses a A4 paper notebook with no detachable sheets. Do not use sheets. Reason is that you WILL loose the sheets.¶

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
• Youtube and/or Vimeo account for storing large videos
• Github/gitlab account for your personal code projects
• Sketchfab.com account for embedding and storing STL files