Fab Lab Barcelona wants to inspire talents by offering 4 scholarships to attend its Fab Academy course. Students interested in applying to this Scholarship Program will have to present a Project Proposal aligned to our main Fab City topics (detailed in section 3.2), to be developed during the Fab Academy program as Final Project. The applicant will have to describe the project he/she will like to develop and how does this proposal aligns to the Fab City agenda proposed by Fab Lab Barcelona.

2.1 Audience
The competition is open anyone interested in taking the course that has a solid background on the following skills: 2D and 3D modeling, Digital fabrication, Electronics programming, Web design and development.

2.2 Eligibility
Jury (the Fab Lab Barcelona Team) will focus on the following criteria: -The feasibility of the project within the constraints of Fab Academy Final Project;
-It’s potential future development;
-It’s Social impact;
-The alignment with the Fab City principles;
-It’s Originality;
-The applicant’s background and technical skills.

2.3 Material required
-Detailed Curriculum vitae of the participant;
-Portfolio of projects and works (if you have one);
-Letter of intent or Statement of Purpose - Why are you eligible for this Scholarship and why should we consider your application;
-Fab Academy Barcelona Competition application FORM;
-Project Submission (name, description and purpose), within the application form.

2.4 Deadlines
The works must be submitted by and no later than December 15th 2017.
Candidate will be informed about the results of the competition by e-mail on December 22nd 2017.
After the communication of the scholarship, the awarded students must secure the Scholarship by paying the Tuition Fee Deposit (2000€) in a period no longer than 17 days (by Jan 9th, 2018). The rest of the tuition fees, depending on the amount of the scholarship can be paid in 1 or 2 installments, before Jan 15th and March 15th 2018.
Students must apply first to Fab Academy course, choose Barcelona as their Node, and then submit the proposal for the FAB ACADEMY BARCELONA COMPETITION.

2.5 Prizes
TWO (2) 50% and TWO (2) 25% SCHOLARSHIPS for Fab Academy course in Fab Lab Barcelona.

3.1 Introduction
Fab Labs and advanced manufacturing infrastructure are making accessible for any citizen to make anything anywhere, while sharing it with global networks of knowledge, which allows to accelerate design, development and deployment processes for new products to be born. Traditional planning and urbanism are being disrupted by the acceleration of technology and the dynamic transformation of society during the last half century; it is important to rethink how we make things and why, and generate active and practical conversations through projects and prototypes that become manifests itself. The Fab City wants to explore new opportunities and methods to transform the city.

3.2 Fab City: the concept
A Fab City is a new urban model for locally productive and globally connected self sufficient cities.It is a new urban model of transforming and shaping cities that shifts how they source and use materials from ‘Products In Trash Out’ (PITO) to ‘Data In Data Out’ (DIDO). This means that more production occurs inside the city, along with recycling materials and meeting local needs through local inventiveness. A city’s imports and exports would mostly be found in the form of data (information, knowledge, design, code).In this way, the citizens and the city are empowered to be the masters of their own destiny, their resilience is increased and a more ecological system is developed because the movements of materials and the associated energy consumption and carbon emissions typical of the current economy are drastically reduced. In order for this to be possible, the city must be locally productive and globally connected to knowledge, economic and social networks, making cooperation between cities, citizens and knowledge centers the basis of the scientific knowledge.
The Fab City has been initiated by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, the MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms and the Fab Foundation; it operates within the Fab Lab network, using it as a global infrastructure and knowledge source for the radical transformation on how we work, live and play in cities.

3.3 Main topics for the Contest:
The contest aims at developing new approaches and technological solutions, for:

ENERGY
Intro: With the advent of domestic batteries and efficiency improvements in solar and other means of clean power generation, energy distribution itself will face enormous changes. Distributed grids will change the role of households and businesses in power, water and resources distribution. Scope: Projects pointing to improve sustainable energy production and distribution, in different scales (urban, neighborhoods, houses and buildings, things). Examples: Fab Energy , Tarpunometre , Moss Voltaics , Hydroceramic , Electric Water Heater , Precious plastic

FOOD
Intro: Urban farming will scale up from experimental practice to large scale infrastructure. Local production of foods at domestic, neighbourhood and city scales, will create a closed loop system for food production and harvesting. Scope: Projects focused on food production, harvesting and distribution in urban environments. Examples: Aquapioneers , Farmbot , Open Grow, Mykonos , Mamotok , Open Source Beehives, Open Hydroponics , GIY , My Biosphere

EDUCATION
Intro: Educating for the future: incorporate a stronger emphasis on learning-by-doing in education systems, and engage all levels of education in finding solutions for local needs, through digital fabrication technologies, and sharing them with global networks. Scope: Projects focused on Active Learning tools and devices Examples: The Maze , Disorder , Craft Book , The FrankensToy, Rec KIDS, Escornabot

COMMUNITY
Intro: Exploring how open source software and hardware, digital fabrication and open design can be used by local communities to design solutions to their local problems. By empowering citizens and engaging them in civic action, these technologies provide new ways of building social movements, delivering public services and creating social impact in fields as diverse as healthcare, education, democracy, environment, transport and housing. Scope: Devices and tools for sustainable solutions in decentralized communities. Examples: Making Sense , Open Source Beehives, Smart Citizen , Precious plastic , Precious PLastic Extruder , W.Afate 3D printer

The Fab Academy Program teaches principles and applications of digital fabrication. It’s a fast paced, hands-on learning experience where students learn how to envision, prototype and document their ideas through many hours of practical experience with digital fabrication tools. Fab Academy is based on MIT’s popular rapid-prototyping course How To Make (almost) Anything, taught by Prof. Neil Gershenfeld. It offers Certificates on relevant technical topics, and a Diploma aimed at vocational and technical training for employment and investment. Each requires, and is evaluated by, developing and documenting projects, and typically requires one week. Progress is evaluated by skills and projects rather than time or credits.

Organised by: Fab Lab Barcelona, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia - IAAC.

Tutors: Santiago Fuentemilla, Xavier Dominguez, Fab Lab Barcelona team of experts.

Duration: 6 months - 17 Jan (TBC) to late-July, 25-35 hours a week

Participants: 20-25 students

Requirements: Digital design skills, basic coding skills, web platforms, digital fabrication notions.

Costs: 6000€ per participant. Including: tutorials, assignments materials, access to Fab Lab Barcelona and lectures.

- Students with scholarships must have full dedication to the program, not being able to combine it with other programs or activities.
- Students with scholarships must attend to 80% of classes and recitations and assist to all the Reviews
- Students with scholarships must finish the course in the 1st Evaluation Round (July 2018)
- Students with scholarships must comply with all payment deadlines. If this condition is not met, Central Coordination may require the payment of full fees.
- Students with scholarships must comply with the program rules and procedures
- Students with scholarships cannot defer their grant for following years. If students discontinue the course, the scholarship will be terminated, and Central Coordination may require payment of full fees.
- Project design and files, as a rule of Fab Academy, will be open source.
- The submission must be done completely online, no physical material will be accepted.
- Fab Lab Barcelona is entitled not to award the scholarship if the projects are deemed not to meet the suitable standards defined by the call. The jury will judge at its own discretion and its decision is final.
- The scholarship presented in this public announcement cannot be combined with other economic reductions offered by IAAC - Fab Lab Barcelona - Fab Academy.
- The assigned scholarship which will not be confirmed could be transferred to the next candidate in the ranking list.
- Participants that will be selected accept that part of their work will be published on Websites and/or Social Media channels of the institutions involved.

What is the scope of this call?

We want you to submit a proposal for a Fab Academy Final Project covering the first step of a research process. The description of the Project must have these questions into account:

1) Identify Needs – What's the problem?
2) Identify Stakeholders – What's needed ? And who needs it?
3) Short non-exhaustive background description - What exists already? Who's done what beforehand?
4) Hypothesis description

The essay/proposal should be 500 words minimum and 1000 words maximum, and may be supported with imagery (drawings, 3D designs, etc.)

IMPORTANT
The project will be developed under the rules, scope and constraints of the Fab Academy Final Project.

FORM