Letters from Fab Academy

The MIT Fab Lab has a distributed learning component (Fab Academy) where people located at other Fab Labs around the world can connect in via video conferencing systems for class lectures, etc. The remote participants then use their local equipment to do the lab exercises.  The academy basically followed the MIT course “How To build (almost) Anything)” over the last 9 months.  Students earned Certificates as they completed the 1-2wk segments on various digital fabrication tech, which combine to form the Diploma at the end of class. The first academy just completed with participants from

Barcelona

Amsterdam,

India

Ohio

COEP India

Iceland

Kenya

Rhode Island.

Shawn Wallace, member of AS220, the Providence, RI location (a community space like Maui Makers) has been posting “Letters From Fab Academy” to the Make Magazine blog.  They make very interesting and inspiring reading.  It is my hope that someday we can have a Maui Fab Lab participating in the Fab Academy.  Here are links to the 6 letters on Make:

Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 1 Make a Press-fit Construction Kit

Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 2 Making and programming circuit boards

Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 3 Mold making and casting

Letters from the Fab Academy, Part 4 3D Scanning

Letters from the Fab Academy, Part 5 Interfacing microcontrollers and applications

Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 6 Machine Design (DIY CNC bot)