I’ll be home in Cambridge, Massachusetts for Thanksgiving this year. For me it will be strange as I have spent the last 12 or so Thanksgivings living out of a back pack in the southwest USA.

For anyone out there given to last minute adventure, let me invite you to stay with me in Cambridge and play at the South End Fab Lab in Boston. A day, a weekend, a week, or more - show up and we’ll give you a place to sleep and possibly edible turkey.

Everett dog is ready to go and impatiently awaits the humans. We assemble one FabFi antenna at the base of Mt. Wachussetts and Jonathan Ward straps it to his back. Jon and Kerry Lynn set off for the summit. Keith Berkoben and I drive to the first test site 6km from the summit but a ridge occludes the view of the mountain. We drive on to the Sterling Airport, a small airfield with a great, clear view of the Mt. Wachussetts. We assemble the second FabFi antenna and point by eye. By phone we give a bearing to the summit team and they point their antenna by compass. It was almost too easy, just like that both routers were talking to each other. We continue to make measurements after the sun set until the summit team’s battery runs out.

Technical details will be available at the FabFi blog sometime this week.

Full res photos available at (beta) Thalia site: http://fab.thalia.mit.edu/?type=album&id=d1c9624a-c7fe-11de-8bd4-3597f7dac090 (someone please let me know how this works for you!)

The India fab lab shipments went out the door last week - these are for two new labs at COEP and NIF and equipment refreshing at Vigyan Ashram.  We can now walk, more or less, through the hallway outside our office again.

another late night session, checking and preparing computers before they ship

Those of us going early from MIT are making our final travel arrangements now and filling the hallway again with project materials to take with us.  Kenny’s making all sorts of composites, including prosthetic springs and molds.  Ilan and Max are building yet another desktop mill.  Keith and I are FabFi-ing, and Kerry and David are filling their pockets with thinner clients.  Our lab in 023 is busy 24 hours a day now and it’s common to catch us on the polycom at all hours of the day and night.

assembling a shopbot installation kit

Amon and I agree that CAPS has done a great job here - Both sites could definitely be successful labs. (Sorry, check back for pics in a couple days).

0) Weather in Chicago fouled travel plans; Amon and I arrived 5:30AM.

1) visited Eugene Field site, in particular with Cindi and Clark.  Awesome people. Tight community and space.  Key finding is the “art space” is available which is a change since Colin visited.  Very comfortable with this site as a successful fablab, however, the Spirit payoff is unclear.

2) visited Kendall Whittier site and related projects, in particular with Trinna.  Visited several KWI projects including food bank and youth literacy program.   Proposed space is awesome - 12,000 sq ft former hardware store.  Many details are currently unclear - there is no “Mel” (but believed that they can ID one), they do not have fund for rent (well outside of Spirit support), no clear idea what goals of entire space will be.

3) talk with Tulsa Engineering Society about FabLab in Tulsa with Diama and Mark.  Mark gave presentation to audience of aprox 12.

4) missed Spirit tour (not enough time)

5) dinner CAPS/Spirit/MIT debrief.  Amon/Amy will make a list of traits & parameters for lab evaluation.  Diama/CAPS will score the two sites against those parameters. Independently,  Mark/Colin/Spirit will determine multiplier weights for parameters based on importance to Spirit’s goals. We’re expecting this to reveal Spirit’s sensitivity to time, outcome preferences, etc.  This isn’t meant as a final and binding decision.

Amon and I are headed to Tulsa, Oklahoma next week to scout for Spirit Aero and CAP’s new Fab Lab.  CAP’s Tulsa Initiative “helps families in economic need achieve self-sufficiency … [and] improve the prospects for the long-term economic success of very young, low-income children, their families and the communities in which they live.”

In a nutshell, Spirit is providing the start up funds, CAP will “run” the lab administratively an an integral part of it’s many programs.  It’s still early and there’s much to discuss about all the rest of the details (for example, Spirit is hoping to have technical mentoring and help come from their ranks).

If you’re in the Tulsa area and interested in Fab Lab discussions drop me a line.

It’s a little uncanny - despite being so incredibly different, there are these surreal moments where the labs strongly echo each other and you wonder if there’s something buried in our DNA. Each implementation is creatively unique, and I think it’s so cool, so cool. The same, but different.

AFGHANISTAN:
Today Todd and Kate proudly posted pictures from the chess sets made in Jalalabad, 9 months after the lab equipment hit the ground. (Photos by Todd H.)

PRETORIA HUB, SOUTH AFRICA:
Which reminded me of the chess set that Lindiwe made in South Africa in March 2006, 9 months after that lab was installed was installed in June 2005.

SOUTH BRONX, NEW YORK, USA:
and the recycling themed chess sets that Michael made in the South Bronx, New York, 8 months after the mobile lab arrived there in November 2007. (Photos by Michael S.)

Each of these groups made their projects independent of each other, none of them wrote to say “I saw the chess set that this other lab made and I thought I’d make one too”. They spontaneously got to chess on their own. If that wasn’t weird enough, the gestation period is the same across labs too. I’ll have to troll through my pics to see if there are hidden chess sets from other labs around the world too.

I snuck up on Nadya working late one night on her HTMAA RFID circuit…

MIT UROP Wanted : Thinner Client to support TC and FabFi deployment in South Africa

We’re nearly done with the development work on a $10-ish thinner client and thin server system with a FabFi long-haul backend.  UROP wanted to debug, test, and help define the protocol for many meshed nodes and sub-systems and make a finished product for deployment in mid-summer.  The first field deploy will be local users in Soshanguve (near Pretoria) South Africa during July, then in early fall we’ll integrate lessons and changes and deploy a Pashto-native text only client in Jalalabad Afghanistan.  Additionally the UROP will make and maintain a website/blog/wiki similar to the FabFi project [site|blog|wiki].

This is a collaboration among the South African CSIR, Cisco, Schneider, FabLabs and more.  UROP will be guided by professionals in their fields and be expected to be able to teach  workshop users on making, installing, and using the final products.

Candidate should have some background in microcontroller programming and networking protocols.  UROP can begin now - 1/4 time or more in the spring, full time in the summer, with continuation in the fall if desired.

East Cleveland MC2STEM school, 18-20 February 2009

This rocking horse is named "Cleveland"... because he rocks.

Cleveland negatives - can figure out how to design your own?

Principal Jeff and his first Shopbot project: a projector stand

The ugliest chair Kenny has ever made.

but, it does technically work as something that can be sat on.

hey, we should make something that actually says "FAB"...

plywood sheet accessible building design

Composite of half of the lab. Lots of space!

Ready for some gossip on possible new labs?   Some upcoming labs coming on line within the year

Providence, Rhode Island, USA - run by AS220.  Moving into a renovated giant fabulous artists’ loft space as we speak!

South Bronx, New York, USA - SSBX will be moving into their new permanent fab lab by May. They’re not technically a new lab because they’ve been operating out of the mobile lab for the last year. But their new space is finally ready for them, and the mobile lab will be refurbished and move on.

Bilbao Spain - opening late May, early June. Run by the Innovalabs.

Guang Dong, China - opening in May. Sponsored by the Chinese government and run by an industry-government education initiative. First of an expected many all over China.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA - site scouting late March, opening around August through October. Sponsored by Spirit Aero and run by CAPS.

University of Nairobi, Kenya - currently unpacking, opening sometime late this summer

Manchester, UK - finalizing in March, opening TBD

Michigan, USA - finalizing details now, opening soon!

Champaign Urbana, Illinois - working out details now and finding a location.  A community services oriented center run by the University.

Nairobi, Kenya (off university grounds) - under works, expected to come online around late fall

Cripes, that’s a lot of new labs!