FabCensus - No option to NOT chose Activities

Site Feedback
#1

fablab_census

I am forced to chose one of the options… but we are not attending any of these activities…

#2

Resolve,

Thanks, Please try again.

#3

well if you at least don’t collaborate with other labs, you should! You cannot be a Fab Lab just by working alone :slight_smile:

1 Like
#4

Well, in some sense you are right. We should collaborate more. Do you have a suggestion for such a project?

1 Like
#5

If you are not able to attend the annual conference or participate in Fab Academy, the other two options are quite open.

Collaboration could mean visiting neighboring labs within a 20 km radius.

Instructions for the public “Fab Lab” channel are here: http://video.cba.mit.edu

1 Like
#6

The census is a first step for us to find out how we can better support and promote these local and regional networking and collaboration opportunities.

Thank you for responding and for letting us know of this issue, we will get back in touch soon with more news regarding this initiative we are calling Fab Foundation Forums.

#7

Thanks everyone for the valuable feedback. I want to give some details about our situation and the “problem” of collaboration:
Our fablab has been founded as a part of the university. We have two and a half major problems:

  1. The fablab is somewhat off campus. It’s a 15 min walk and it seems to be quite a hurdle for the students to come here.
  2. The lab is mainly run by a staff member, who decides to work from 9 to 5, which is absolutely fine and legal. But it does somehow act against the formation of a real “community” that hangs out, has some drinks and get’s to work in the mean time.
    and 3. we are a German University with basically free education and no tuition. The budgets are tight and we cannot give much material free to work to the students.

There is another lab on campus, which has a bunch of metal and wood working capabilities but is not part of the fablab. We, however, have a big laser cutter a bunch of 3D printers and some electronic components.
This seems not to be sufficient incentive for the students and other people to come.

We need some kind of project, that brings some participants to the lab and KEEPS them there.

I am happy for any suggestions.

#8

@nicolajbaramsky It’s completely understandable, a lot of labs are in a similar situation! The suggestion is just: being part of the network is not something that happens automatically, it’s up to each lab to connect with the other labs (even just by talking at first, even in this Discuss section!), find common problems / projects and build initiatives. It takes time of course!

… and if anybody in your lab knows Ruby on Rails, you can help us in improving Fablabs.io :wink:

1 Like