week01 | principle and practice & project management

My Fab Academy journey finally begins, a path not of exploration, but of learning and developing the skills to create almost anything.

This week’s target

Plan and sketch a potential final project
Read, sign (add your name to) the student agreement and commit it to your repo
Work through a git tutorial
Build a personal website

Student Agreement

I downloaded, read, and signed the student agreement and using git added, committed, and pushed it in Gitlab Repo.

Git & Gitlab Setting up

Git is a distributed version-control system for tracking changes to files and coordinating work between developers (local repositories, branches, commits, history). GitLab is an open source end-to-end software development platform with built-in version control, issue tracking, code review, CI/CD, and more (Ref).

Git

As I did not have any previous experience working with Git, I did some basic pre-study before starting the course. I reviewed all the topics at a general level to become familiar with the course. I installed Git on my laptop, which was easy and only required two clicks, as I installed it from the software center of our university. I used this git tutorial to get familiar with what Git is and how it works.

Some primary and basic syntax getting start with git:

git status Git status shows the current state of files in the working directory.

git clone <repository-url> Git clone copies a remote repository to your local machine.

git add <file or folder> Git add stages file changes for the next commit.

git add . Update all your changes.

git commit -m "message" Git commit saves staged changes to the local repository.

git push origin main Git push uploads local commits to the remote repository.

git pull origin main Git pull downloads and merges changes from the remote repository.

Before starting first week of Fabacademy on 21 January 2026, I did cloning (with HTTPS) and followed the tutorial how to clone:

While doing this, I faced the following error:

What was the error and how did I solve it? My access token was not activated, so I activated it and then tried again. I opened the Command Prompt and repeated all the steps. This time, the process was successful, and I received the following message, which means everything went correctly:

Some of important notes from Neil's presentation (21.01.2026 ):

What is a FabLab? What is FabAcademy? How can I make almost anything in Fab Academy?
The history of FabAcademy and the history of CNC machining.
Things from the meter scale down to nanometers can be made in a FabLab.
Transitioning things from the physical world to the digital world and back again.
We go to a FabLab to make machines, not just to see or access them.
Each week's topics could take a year to fully master, but that is not the aim of FabAcademy.
How to complete and manage the weekly assignments? Do documentation as progressing.
How to create documentation which is one of my personal goals in participating in Fabacademy.
What should be included in the final project.
In Fabacademy try do things, do not try just thinking, don't hesitate doing mistake
Discuss ideas for your own FabLab

On 22 January 2026, we had a productive two hour class with Ivan, who suggested using Git Bash instead of PowerShell. He also recommended cloning the GitLab repository using SSH, as SSH provides a more secure authentication method based on key pairs. This approach enables seamless, password-less access when pushing and pulling changes between the local and remote repositories during the Fab Academy course. So, I deleted my local repository and cloned it again using SSH.

Since I had no prior experience with Git Bash, I spent sometimes after class practicing with it to become more familiar. My local repository after installing MkDocs, which I will explain later:

And here is main directory of my Fabacademy in the local computer:

VScode

I use VS Code as my code editor for working with MkDocs to create and manage assignments and documentation. Its features like syntax highlighting, extensions, and integrated terminal make it convenient for development and documentation tasks.

Creating Fab Academy website

For the webpage, I decided to use Markdown (MkDocs) to start building the site, as I think it is straightforward for those who are not very experienced in programming.

Mkdocs is a fast, simple and downright gorgeous static site generator that's geared towards building project documentation. Documentation source files are written in Markdown, and configured with a single YAML configuration file (reference). I installed mkdocs by following official MKDocs Installation and verified it.

I did not go and create a wheel from zero again, so I started using the Fabacademy Oulu template to speed setup Fabacademy Oulu students template and I will modify it based on my needs during the course.

Some basic syntaxes to start with markdown languages:

For headings, add numbers of # signs before title:

# heading level 1
## heading level 2
...
###### heading level 6

For bolding, add two ** before and after word, phrase, or sentence without space:

**this is a part of first week Fabacademy course**

If you need list, put number dot, and space: 1. similar as word office

Code blocks, as I did in all above: surround your code or syntax inside three backticks without indent

To link images:

![image caption or leave it empty](image-irectory-in-Repo)
this is an example of mine
![](../images/week01/mkdocs_installing_1.jpg)

To link video, you may have problem with this, as I had and it took almost 4 hours for me to fix it. There is a small different between images and video. This is an example based on my Repo structure:

<video controls style="width:480px; height:480px;">
  <source src="../../files/week04/microp-2.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>

Here, you can find complete list of syntaxes for MKDocs language.

How website built and published

I keep all my Markdown files and mkdocs.yml in my local repository. When I push to the project, GitLab runs a CI pipeline defined in .gitlab-ci.yml. That pipeline:

Installs Python and MkDocs
Runs mkdocs build, which converts the .md files into HTML pages (the MkDocs Markdown parser + theme templates turn Markdown into HTML files)
Puts the built static site into a folder (public)
A pages job publishes the public folder to GitLab Pages, so the site becomes available on the web.

The following file that must be in Repo root tells to Gitlab how build and published the site:

.gitlab-ci.yml

What is mkdocs.yml:

mkdocs.yml is MkDocs’ single configuration file. It sets the site name, theme, navigation order, where your Markdown files are, and where the build output goes. Make sure site_dir in mkdocs.yml matches the folder your CI writes to (public above). I watched this video and mkdocs website to slightly modify Fabacademy Oulu students template, based on my needs and favorite:

Here is a tree structure in repo, so MKdocs can find everything:

├───.vscode
├───docs
│   ├───about
│   ├───assignments
│   ├───css
│   ├───files
│   │   └───week04
│   ├───images
│   │   ├───final_project
│   │   ├───week01
│   │   ├───week02
│   └───projects
├───path
│   └───to
│       └───man
│           └───pages
├───public
│   ├───about
│   │   ├───about-me
│   │   └───agreement
│   ├───assets
│   │   ├───images
│   │   ├───javascripts
│   │   │   ├───lunr
│   │   │   │   └───min
│   │   │   └───workers
│   │   └───stylesheets
│   ├───assignments
│   │   ├───week01
│   │   ├───week02
│   │   ├───...
│   ├───css
│   ├───files
│   │   └───week01
│   ├───images
│   │   ├───final_project
│   │   ├───week01
│   ├───projects
│   │   ├───final-project
│   │   └───sample-project
│   └───search
└───site
    ├───about
    │   └───agreement
    ├───assets
    │   ├───images
    │   ├───javascripts
    │   │   ├───lunr
    │   │   │   └───min
    │   │   └───workers
    │   └───stylesheets
    ├───assignments
    │   ├───week01
    │   ├───week02
    │   ├───...
    │   └───week20
    ├───css
    ├───images
    │   ├───final_project
    │   ├───week01
    ├───projects
    │   ├───final-project
    │   └───sample-project
   └───search

Before performing a Git push, I checked the website locally using local-ip to preview how it would appear. During this process, several warnings were displayed, which were caused by incorrect image file paths while configuring and preparing the MkDocs setup:

After correcting the navigation paths, everything worked as expected, as shown in the message below:

I used AI for grammar correction.

What I built this week

How to make documentation, thanks to Fabacademy
Getting know what the Version Control System (VCS) is.
What Git and Gitlab are and how to use and interact with them.
Working with Git bash and installing: python, Git, pip, MKDocs.
Creating website using markdown languages.