FAB11 - Boston, August 2015

by Luciana Asinari     Posted on September 14, 2015

Last August, Fab Lab Barcelona participated of Fab11: the 11th Fab Lab Conference and Symposium, in Boston.
Throughout a whole week, the conference gathered hundreds of attendees from all around the world coming from Fab Labs, Hacker and Maker spaces, Schools and Universities, Community Colleges, private and public Institutions, Companies, etc.
During the Morning Meetings, we learned How to make Robots, Movies, Life, Policy and Cities. We learned and shared knowledge during the afternoon workshops and catched up with some good all friends.

Making Robots

Workshops

We honoured the Fab Lab nº001: the SETC, and the amazing soul behind it: Mel King.

Haakon Karlsen, Mel King & Simone Amber

Mel King & Walter!

We saw some of our alumni grow old and present their labs…and even a candidacy for Fab13!

MAA graduate Robert Garita

During the Symposium we got the chance to see the these amazing sessions: How To Make Design, in which Vicente Guallart presented his visions for the future Barcelona, next to speakers such as Hiroya Tanaka, Skylar Tibbits, J. Meejin Yoon, Markus Kayser and Kelly Dobson; How To Make Business, with Kamau Gachigi, Ed Baafi, Max Lobovsky, Ayah Beir and Raffi Krikorian; How To Make Tools, in which Tomas Diez presented his experience as Smart Citizen developer next to speakers such as Fiore Basile, Matt Keeter, Ara Knaian, Nadya Peek and Amon Millner; How To Make Research, with Will Langford, Kenny Cheung, Manu Prakash, Rehmi Post, Rich DeVaul and Yael Maguire; How To Make Community with Ted Hung, Heloisa Neves, Ohad Meyuhas, Blair Evans, Reginald Bryant and Eric Wilhelm; and How to Make Education with Paulo Blikstein, Abubakari Adam, David Sengeh, Makeda Stephenson, Dina El Zanfaly and Sherry Lassiter.

IaaC Founder Vicente Guallart

Fab Lab Director Tomas Diez

During the Symposium the Fab Awards Ceremony also took place, in which 4 out of 66 projects were awarded: In3-A low cost Incubator (by Alejandro Escario, a Fab Academy 2015 graduate) won the MedxMakers medical application; 3rd prize went for Circular Knitic (by Marc Canet and Varvara Guljajeva); 2nd prize was given to Risha Laser Cutter (won by a IaaC Alumni, Moushira El) and the 1st prize was for EMOsilla – Fab Lat Kids (a project by Ilaria la Manna – IaaC Alumni -, Alex García and another IaaC and Fab Academy Bcn alumni Alejandra Diaz de Leon). The ceremony closed with the FAB12 handoff to Shenzhen and a Celebration of the last edition of Fab Academy.

EmoSilla prize, accepted by IAAC Alumni Alejandra Diaz de Leon and Illaria Lamanna

Shenzhen Fab16

Friday closed the week with talks about the state of the Fab lab Network, a report on tools, businesses, education community; the announcement of the Fab13 host: Fab Lab Santiago, in Chile; and the Fab Academy Graduation Ceremony.

Fab Academy 2015 Graduation

We celebrated an amazing week in the amazing JFK library.

And for the weekend, the Fab Festival offered us a taste of what the rest of the community is doing in the maker scene in Boston and around the area. We also had the chance to enjoy the Fab Textiles show, curated by Anastasia Pistofidou with pieces from all over the world; and the mayor’s panel on “Making Cities”.

Fab Textiles showcase

The cherry? the crazy race to design and build a Fab Submarine in 48 hours!

Fab Submarine

Once at home, and after all we’ve learned and seen during this amazing days, we still believe in Neil Gershenfeld’s statement: “The power of Digital Fabrication is social, not technical”.

More pictures and videos HERE