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 The FAB LAB is a unique innovation center that provides inventors/entrepreneurs/businesses the knowledge base to take an idea to a prototype product. For the first time, you can use off-the-shelf industrial-grade fabrication and electronics tools with open source software to create a product prototype.
The FAB LAB concept was created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Dr. Neil Gershenfeld and documented in his book “FAB: The Coming Revolution on your Desktop.” As of summer 2007, The FAB LAB at Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) is the 16th in the world and is the first production FAB LAB in the USA outside of MIT focusing on entrepreneurs and developing businesses.
The FVTC FAB LAB team researched Gershenfeld’s work at the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT and began planning how to set up a FAB LAB at the college. In 2005, the team developed a customized approach to adapting the FAB LAB concept for FVTC, which included global consultation and benchtop technology to create rapid, proof-of-concept prototyping.
Photo Credit: Marketplace Magazine
Thanks to the partnership with MIT, FVTC FAB LAB users have the ability to link with inventors and experts world-wide via web video access to Norway, South Africa, India, Barcelona and other locations. Other partners also include Century College in Minnesota and Loraine County Community College near Cleveland. Inventors, students and businesses can share knowledge to collectively learn from successes and failures.
By linking technical expertise with business know-how, the FAB LAB can provide inventors with a “take it to market” approach to innovation. The FAB LAB at FVTC resources includes industry professionals and faculty members in Mechanical Design, Applied Engineering Technology, Electrical & Electronics-based Programs, and Information Technologies. The FAB LAB also links inventors and innovators with business resources in the FVTC Venture Center, the region’s top entrepreneur training and support center.
There is a critical need for Wisconsin manufacturers to become more innovative, efficient, and flexible and the FVTC FAB LAB is taking a leadership role in innovation. Our future economy in Wisconsin and beyond depends on leveraging the power and innovation of leading-edge technologies found in the FVTC FAB LAB. Wisconsin is home to 24 statewide manufacturing driver industries, many of which depend on some form of fabrication (per Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership-WMEP research).
FVTC offers degrees in Mechanical Design, Applied Engineering Technology, Electrical & Electronics-based Programs, and Information Technologies and you can find out more here.
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