MIT FabAcademy Week1 Note - Introduction
HOW TO MAKE (ALMOST) ANYTHING
The Fab Academy teaches principles and applications of digital fabrication. It was developed to teach hands-on skills in fab labs, which began as an outreach project from MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, and has grown into a global network of more than 500 labs.
Fab Academy instruction is based on MIT’s popular rapid-prototyping course How To Make (almost) Anything, both taught by Prof. Neil Gershenfeld.
Introduction
3D printting was inventing in 1980s :
Computers controlling machine dates back to the 50s :
Digital fabrication
- Casual meaning: a computer controls a machine and makes stuff. I give you data and you make a thing
- Deeper meaning: digitizing the fabrication processes; digitizing the materials themselves. I give you data and data becomes the thing
The road map:
- 1.0: computers control machines
- 2.0: use machines to make machines (we're here)
- 3.0: put codes in materials
- 4.0: put programs in materials
Modular machines that Make Project.
So, the goal is to make machine that makes machine!
Usually, we have different tools for the whole process. Prof. Gershenfeld are writing a bowser-based tool to merge all of those.
Today we are at the birth of internet of real things. Digitizing fabrication with codes and construction.
The goal of a Fab lab is to make itself obsolete.
Week1 lecture - Project management
Project management principles:
demand- vs supply-side time management
Supply-side is you decide in advance how you going to spend your time. Plan your time in advance.
serial vs parallel development
spiral development
MVP. Build the minimum viable prototype at the very beginning. Then make spiral improvement
bottom-up vs top-down debugging
hierarchy, modularity
Start from a little thing that works and then add parts. Develop parts separately and then aggregate them.
Git
Assignments
- Pick a potential final project
- Go through different web development tools
- Learn git and push to your website
All FabAcademy Notes (to be continue):
- FabAcademy Week1 Note - Introduction
- FabAcademy Week1 Assignment - Build a website and use Git
- FabAcademy Week2 Note - CAD
- FabAcademy Week2 Assignment - 3D Modeling
- FabAcademy Week3 Note - Computer-Controlled Cutting
Art x Code . Thanks for Upvote!