Fab Lab: A Powerful Element towards Afghan Self-Reliance
Lieutenant Colonel Lee H., US Army
AFPAK Hand
13 May 2012

As an Army Signal Officer, I was drawn immediately to the Fab Lab concept “make anything out of anything” – offering accessible low cost solutions to hi-tech requirements. Drawing from years of deployments, operations in denied areas, and humanitarian relief efforts, I immediately recognized the enormous potential this project could bring. Beginning with a relatively insignificant investment, a Fab Lab will empower local populations to seize opportunities through innovation and imagination. The possible result is mind-boggling; developing commerce and economies, changing communities, and ultimately contributing to stability.

In my more recent capacity as an ‘Afghan Hand’, I have been specifically trained and tasked to immerse at the highest levels of Afghan government, directly assisting in self reliance, capacity building, and governance development. During my recent tour while travelling, I had seen many creations locals devised to make life more comfortable or convenient. No material seemed to ever be wasted. Generators were attached to old trailers turning them into tractors, discarded wheel rims and sheet metal became high-capacity bread ovens. The constant ingenuity never ceased. However, I was absolutely impressed at what the Jalalabad Fab Lab projects produced. These dedicated teams developed, constructed, and implemented broadband internet solutions from recycled materials – essentially from trash. For just a few hundred dollars and some intense creativity, they provided internet access to areas that had never seen it. As a communications planner and developer, I would have spent thousands of dollars building the same capability using imported commercial off-the-shelf equipment. However, they developed this solution on their own – Made in Afghanistan!

The US mission in Afghanistan is rapidly shifting away from direct action to advisory and support. We have been investing billions of dollars into training, equipment, sustainment, and infrastructure. Capacity building and self governance are the reigning concepts and buzz-words. I know extensively well that it has been a slow and frustrating process, with sometimes mixed results. Part of the issue is the reliance on organizations contracted to help ‘build’. Due to security, logistics, and imported expertise, many of these organizations retain outrageous overhead expenses, driving ever increasing costs. As a result, the ratio of funds reaching the intended recipients versus operating costs is way out of balance. It is simply the price of conducting business in Afghanistan.

Standing up a Fab Lab is relatively inexpensive; therefore the operating expense to beneficiary ratio is very small. It is also based on openness and transparency and is not designed to enrich a particular organization. This can be very compelling in a country like Afghanistan where knowledge is jealously guarded. However, once implemented, the potential results are limitless: Bringing people together, and empowering them to develop their own solutions, demonstrating their capacity for innovation, has the very real potential to change lives and enrich the society. The knowledge gained and innovations realized, will reinvigorate an entrepreneurial spirit, driving the train towards economic development and self reliance. It is possible!

This is something of a month’s round-up I thought was worth sharing. Omissions are a lack of googling prowess! Please send me any links or updates you know about.

The Fayetteville Free Library in New York state recently announced its plans to build a Fab Lab within their library. (Fayetteville is a suburb of Syracuse.) I’ve long described Fab Lab’s as similar to libraries for their access to knowledge and literacy and how a lab would complement a real library for technical literacy. If you have ever gone through the process of fundraising and planning for a lab, you know how much work this took. Send them a note; congratulations and welcome FFL!

If you’ve been to any of the Global Fab Conferences you’ll probably remember Abu from the fab lab in Takoradi, Ghana. Long time fab lab assistant, guru, champion, ambassador… he was just accepted to Century College in Minnesota! Yeah, they have a fab lab too (you might also remember Fab Lab Director Scott Simenson who’s been at most of the global conferences, too). In fact, Century College is one of the founding members of the US Fab Lab Network (USFLN) though back then it was called the Midwest FLN. And since the Takoradi Fab Lab was the very first lab in the African continent it would seem they are going to get along marvelously. Actually, I’m a little jealous. Well done, Abu!

You lucky folks in the UK are about to be swimming in Fab Labs. The Manchester Fab Lab is doing so well that the Manufacturing Institute which runs the lab plans on rolling out THIRTY (30!) fablabs across the UK over the next 8 years. Hmm, I wonder if they’re hiring…

A nice bit in Arabnews.com on the fablab in Jeddah and upcoming plans for Riyadh and Cairo. There’s a couple of photos of their big space, if you want to peek in! Makes me reach for kayak.com and check on flight prices. Oh, sigh.

Closer to home, an English professor named Chris Weyandt credits the Century College Fab Lab (yes, where Abu is off to) for turning him into a camping stove entrepreneur. Read this lovely story about how the fab lab was a critical part to his journey to create a new American small business.

I’ve been busy pulling together loads of stuff from the near past and after a circuitous path wound up reviewing the 2010 Photography Classes in the Jalalabad Fab Lab. High school rising senior Logan L. patiently led three classes of students through weeks of photography and digital editing lessons. In usual Afghanistan Fab Lab scheme, the intent was that some of those students would become teachers for the next set of students. Logan wrote about the frustrations and rewards in a blog where he also posted a subset of the photos. Anyone who has ever worked in similar conditions will be rolling the floor, though I don’t think Logan thought it was very funny at the time. Perseverance pays off, though. (His blog stops when he left Afghanistan but the classes did continue on; I have photos from a few of the continuing classes somewhere…)

Afghans are pretty used to being among masses of people. Their names tend to be long and difficult for American ears to parse and you need a giant whiteboard to keep track of their familial or neighborhood relationships. In short, it’s sometimes hard to remember that the class of 100 or 200 are composed of individuals with unique points of view.

The resources in Fab Labs have so many avenues to bring out that individuality. The photography class brought an unexpected glimpse into the students’ viewport in the world. After basic mechanics of various types of photography, Logan would ask them to photograph more esoteric things. Wind, sunset, shadows. It’s here that a student named Zarif gives us a series of “shadow” pictures like this one,

"Shadow" by Zarif

Logan had to wade through a whole lot of photos of, literally, things with shadows. Most of them you wouldn’t “get” if you didn’t know the assignment was to take photos of shadows. Plenty are lackluster except for the insight it gives you to these individuals. But Zarif captured a globally recognizable moment of Life and his medium happened to be a shadow. I’ll wager most of you reading this saw something along the lines of returning home at the end of a day and being happy to see your loved ones.

That’s the funny thing about mediums of expression. As I watch my friends’ kindergarteners and elementary school kids growing up in America, their school days are filled with experiencing lots of different paths of expression. Paints, clay, wooden blocks and construction kits, drawing, writing, gluing stuff to stuff… When you stumble onto the right medium a kid who was once otherwise a mysterious nondescript block suddenly blossoms into a contributing part of humanity’s collective genius.

Over the years I’ve fielded lots and lots of questions about why Fab Labs are relevant in difficult or disadvantaged places. Digital literacy is a both a required “liberating art” of the modern world as well as a valuable medium of expression to unlock individuals. No one function in the lab is more liberating than another and the force multiplier comes from all these paths of expression being available and accessible at the same time.

Yesterday Fab Lab Tulsa announced a Mothers Day project at their lab. “For a Fab Lab Tulsa cameo, we’ll cast a shadow of your head against the wall, take a picture of the shadow, then cut-out the image with the laser cutter!” (I sort of remember doing this project in grade school using colored construction paper and scissors.) Capturing a person’s silhouette and keeping it close comes from pretty much the same place as Zarif’s photo, rooted in our shared humanity. Isn’t it strange that just the “outline” of an image can be so meaningful?

If you know me at all, you know I put emphasis on finding and illuminating those things that we have in common, to strive for maximum inclusiveness and shared experiences. It’s our individual experiences bound together that will make enduring connections. So if anyone is actually reading this, I have a request for the next several weeks – keep on a lookout for “shadows” of life and when you can, share it with us. Let’s see how many countries and continents we can span.

Tulsa Fab Lab —
Part 1: A Walk Through

The lab is a huge building in downtown Tulsa. Although they were very fortunate to get the building, don’t think it was easy. Apparently having a board member whose day job is commercial real estate sure helps.

This is the middle third of the lab. It’s a “pretty much won’t hurt you” space, with electronics, minimills, 3D printers (an Objet is just out of the picture to the left), and laser cutter… and lots of horizontal space for design time. Behind me is a large conference table (food and drinks welcome) and projector screens, small kitchen and bathrooms, and locking storage area. The separation of space is pleasing in part for noise and dust considerations but also factors in to the classification of the spaces for insurance purposes.

The safer space is separated from the machine room which pretty much features the shopbot and everything that feeds it. You have to pass through an alcove with a wall full of safety equipment – glasses, ear protection, etc. You just can’t miss it on the way in or out.

I don’t know if the Shopbot Desktop is a permanent feature in this lab. It was my first time seeing it in action along with the 123D to Shopbot process chain (future post on that). And just so you don’t get the wrong idea, they have a 4×8 Alpha too. I’m told that Shopbot Bill is not a permanent fixture in the lab, which is really kind of too bad. Notice the roll-up door in the back right? There’s a small ramp/dock there; off camera to the right is yet more room space and the manual power tools that that sun-drenched pocket.

I’m completely thinking out loud here so don’t take this as any kind of promise or suggestion. My current lack of access to a full fab lab keeps me pondering how to help people get access to machines earlier. I daydream about ways to acquire the more expensive machines, like a laser cutter or shopbot, and on musing that a laser cutter is more or less the cost of a sedan car I wondered if the auto lease-to-own model might work to help get machines to people sooner as well as spawn a larger used market.

I did a quick search and found that generally speaking, you can lease a $20k car for about $300-400/month. After 2 years you generally have the option of giving back the car or purchasing it for $14k. If you buy the car at that point, your total cost is $21.2k which comes out to 6% interest (if 300/month). If you don’t buy the car, it is sold for about $16k (and the leasee doesn’t get any money back). The leasee is responsible for insurance and any repairs over standard use. One free servicing after a year is common. Outright loss would be the responsibility of the leasee by virtue of the insurance.

Applied to laser cutters, we’d have to figure out the insurance against substantial damage or loss. Otherwise the finances kind of work. The system would also bring “used” but serviced laser cutters into the market.

The key question is, and I really need you to tell me, would the option of be able to lease a laser cutter “now” for $300/month be better than somehow saving $300/month for 5.5 years?

The other question is, given the choice, would you rather lease an Epilog at the above terms or the other brand (I forgot the name again) at 1/3 to 1/4 the numbers (same length of time, just reduce starting capital).

Does your answer change if the amount is $500/month?

Does your answer change if an incentive is that a replacement laser tube is free during the 2 year lease if the leasee has some dedicated open access time? (i.e., trying to offset a reasonable complaint that allowing someone to use your laser cutter diminishes the life of the laser tube).

The crux to this seems to be the insurance component. But I don’t know anything about insurance; do you?

In previous decades of my life I traveled far and wide so I  have a soft spot for those who want to get out in the world and see it for themselves.   Before (fake) reality TV, this was the only way to glimpse other lives and ways of living.  I’d sometimes wonder about the people who allowed me into their homes or donated their homes to be used as youth hostels.  I’d wondered if I would ever have the resources to invite others to share my life and if it would be a life worth sharing.

Ever want to visit sunny California and build a house? Ok, not an actual house (that’s been done) but all the stuff that goes inside and out.  This home in the American West is about independence through making and fixing,  by getting your hands dirty to  figuring out how things work.  It’s about appreciating all the things that make a house comfortable (because someone, maybe you, had to make that chair, that table, that light).  You, fab friends, are invited to visit.   I stubbornly intend to make all the furniture and furnishings, spending money on tools, machines, and stock materials rather than finished product.

Twin sized air mattress - a leftover from the 2009 mobile fab lab trip across the country. A step up from sleeping in the office! By night 3 on the floor, I was ready to reconsider my intent to build everything... perhaps purchasing upholstered goods is ok...

I’m not crazy.  Ok, I am, but not that crazy.  This is a modern DIY home, meaning Home Depot exists, light bulbs and batch fabricated raw materials (such as cloth yardage) is perfectly acceptable, and hand made things are welcome even if they weren’t made here.  (Also, because I’m a wuss, anything to do with plumbing is modern and store bought.)  Also, this a tech home so wirelessly controlled gadgets, robots — all welcome.  While I’m sure the home grown vegetables and herbs, fertilized by homemade compost, will be extra delicious, we’ll be augmenting groceries from the product of commercial scale farms.  (No Keith, we cannot have chickens for eggs).  See, not totally off-the-deep-end insane.

The Lakehaven house has a tiny main house with three tiny bedrooms.  But it gets better from here, there’s a 600 sq ft detached garage (aka indoor shop), a 800 sq ft or so concrete patio extending out from the garage (aka outdoor shop), and around 6000 sq ft of grassy yard with a large shed (w/electricity) and even larger raised vegetable garden. Opportunities abound.   (There are also 4 or 5 lemon trees and one orange tree, so apparently there will be a lot of lemonade, too.)

FabFi Keith in the (growing) outdoor woodshop. Keith grew up working with his grandpa, who spent a lifetime honing his wood skills literally building his house around him. (Thanks, Google, for flying Keith to California for an interview.)

I’m currently lacking a laser cutter and a Shopbot, not to mention a handful of other bigger metal working machines that aren’t usually in Fab Labs. I come from a metal working background so it’s a little weird to be without a lathe, mill, and waterjet.  I do have a Torchmate 3 (someone needs to come set it up).  I’ll add new capabilities each month or two so it’ll never get boring.

Keith's built-in bookshelf. Tools required: telescoping chopsaw, table saw, electric drill, drill press. Oh, if only I had a Shopbot, thought Keith, while drilling mind-numbingly endless peg-holes on the vertical pieces)

If you’re not allergic to dogs, this is heaven. Come on down, admire the stuff others have made, watch a movie in the outdoor kitchen / living room when the sun goes down.  Experiment with materials and machines (small mistakes add character!)  There’s always going to be room to sleep over.  (Someone should probably build a bunk bed).  Your creation will be your “signature” for your visit as we make our Lakehaven house.

Fab 8 New Zealand… coming oh so quickly in August 2012.  At each conference we have the opportunity to simultaneously seed things at multiple labs to support interlab community building throughout the year.  What should we do this year?

At Fab 6 Netherlands, FabFolk handed out brand new digital cameras with EyeFi cards that automagically upload photos as they are taken. The idea was for lab managers to take these cameras home to their labs and allow users to casually grab the cameras to take photos of everything. All the photos would aggregate in a single, sortable, somewhat searchable online stream. (Thanks to Christine Phipps from Manchester Fab Lab.)

The results were mixed, with only a few lab managers keeping their promise to configure their cards to connect to their lab wireless, and several of them deciding to create separate online streams rather than contribute to the group stream. More importantly they didn’t announce the new location or post a reference so that the photos were findable. We’ve always kind of believed that you have to put accessibility into the hands of users – in the way that you don’t have students share pencils – so maybe you can’t have users sharing cameras and input devices.

So at Fab 7 Peru we outfitted three users with laptops and cameras with EyeFi cards (and helped get them to the conference) with instructions to share their experience of the conference with the world. And since we’re giving them the laptops and cameras to keep forever I’m hoping that we’ll continue to see their contributions through the year. (Massive thanks to Ryan Tam.)

Those results were mixed also.  While we know that these users are still active within their fablabs, only 1 of 3 continues to post regularly.  No judgement on them individually, but not really contributing to the goal of providing viewports into a lab and building a broader community.

At Fab 7 we also held the first Fab Sparkle, designed to encourage people to share their dreams, and provide a little real cash to help get there.  Over twenty people submitted one-page ideas and conference goers voted on the top three.  Everyone who made a submission got a little something and the top three got a little more.  Again the hope is to hear from those fabbers through the year and maybe see their progress at Fab 8.   (Thanks to Mercedes Lane from Urbana Fab Lab).

Perhaps the biggest outcome from Fab Sparkle was that people found that others were interested in similar things and we heard plenty of buzz around the big poster board. Though Mercedes set up an online resource for the Sparkle folks (Sparketts? Sparklers?  Sparkfolk?) there’s little virtual, online evidence of activity as the year progresses.

Mercedes has some ideas in mind for another Fab Sparkle event at Fab 8 (and she wants to hear from you if you have thoughts are are willing to help).  I’m still looking for ideas for other ways we can help build our community.  If you have an idea, write me!

ps — Are you already fundraising for travel to New Zealand?  If you haven’t, better get started!!

If you haven’t heard by now, yes it’s true, I’m Dr. Amy now.  And one of the very first things I realized as Dr. Amy is life is rough when you abruptly lose access to a fab lab.  It reminds me a little of when I don’t have access to anything electrically powered (from Internet to a calculator) but I’m trying to build something I’ve never done before with a bit of a time limit.  Just when I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and wondering how on earth I’m going to buy myself a laser cutter and waterjet, this story comes out of Afghanistan.

Sabir Shah (left), from the dicey province of Ghazni in Afghanistan, with his homemade microlight. Photograph: Jon Boone for the Guardian

This 25 year old Hazara (one of the ethnic minorities in Afghanistan) who didn’t get the chance to go to college, constructed and flew a microlight with instructions from the Internet and scavenged parts from rickshaws and old cars.

Like, wow, right?  I go weak in the knees when I hear about stuff like this.   Read the entire article at The Guardian.  I commiserated and smiled at his description of the multiple trial-and-error attempts at various parts, and even his honest description of the flights being less “elation” and more “abject terror”.   Then Shah says,

“My father never supported me,” he said. “They asked why I was wasting all this money and not getting a job.”

 

How many of you have heard this from people around you?  (I’ll bet FabFi Keith’s mom probably just murmured “when are you going to get a real job” in her sleep.)  How anxious do you get sometimes, how much self-doubt creeps in before you’re vindicated with a few minutes of abject terror, I mean, self-satisfaction.  What happens to your self-confidence when the accolades and recognition don’t come?

My agony is thinking about all the people who have the courage and curiosity to tackle big dreams that can really change things, but who are beat down by successive hurdles of resources and support.  I’ll never forget the day I saw the once bright eyes of our first Ghanian fablabbers after a few years of working as entry-level laborers in the kokompe, the mechanical / spare parts / machining shops region of a city.  It was both happy to visit with them after a few years and incredibly sad when they asked “is this all there is for us? Why did you tease us and teach us those things with the computers.”  Is this also the fate of Sabir Shah, to go from actually building and flying a plane (a whole plane!) then take a job as a baker because that’s the only real option?

Fab Lab Shopbots have the high speed spindle and over the years I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the parts that come with it and how to replace them.

Here's the spindle kit from Shopbot.

The important components (that you might have damaged or lost) are,

collet nut MSC#81733131 $43.26

collet wrench (toothed) MSC#87683470 $47.90

chuck wrench (flat) MSC#09693987 $27.45

collet for 1/4-inch shank bits MSC#00156885 $25.14

collet for 1/8-inch shank bits MSC#79690376 $25.90

These parts are available from a variety of sources (see also Grainger, Enco, and even Amazon). Use the part numbers from MSC as a starting point.  Shopbot will also sell you replacements.

There are many more collet sizes available, but the most fab lab uses only require 1/8″ or 1/4″ inch diameter shanks. Because this series clamps down as much as 1mm, you can also hold metric bits with these, or entirely replace your collets with metric. The key parameter is “ER-25 series” collets and accessories.

If you got here because your collet or nut have been damaged, be sure to check out Shopbot Bill’s video on properly installing the collet into the nut (before threading the assembly on to the spindle).  Thanks Bill!

These are the tiniest zip ties I’ve found. 0.070″ width. They come in black and white, outdoor and indoor.

Made by Panduit, available from Digikey part number:

298-1038-ND (black outdoor)
298-1037-ND (black indoor)
298-1016-ND (white outdoor)
298-1017-ND (white indoor)

Industry term for these are “cable tie” or “wire tie”.