"A Fab Lab (fabrication laboratory) is a fully kitted fabrication workshop which gives everyone in the community from small children through to entrepreneurs and businesses, the capability to turn their ideas and concepts into reality."

The aim is to make almost anything!

Manchester has been chosen as the first city in the UK to host a Fab Lab, a community inventors' workshop where new products can be built by both businesses and individuals. It was born out of Massachusetts Insitute of Technology.

FabLabs are fully-fitted digital fabrication workshops which give everyone in the community from small children through to entrepreneurs and businesses, the capability to turn their ideas and concepts into reality. Born from an outreach project by MIT in inner-city Boston, FabLabs have exploded around the world, from inner cities to the villages of Africa – reversing the top down approach to technological advancement by empowering everyone to invent.

Shepherds in Norway have used their FabLab to create mobile phones to track sheep, while children in Ghana are making circuit boards for the sheer sense of achievement. In Afghanistan, people are fashioning customised prosthetic limbs, while in South Africa a government and business backed project is creating simple internet connected computers that hook up to televisions and cost just ten dollars each.

What are we doing?

Embracing the enthusiasm of the communities in the North West of the UK, The Manufacturing Institute has opened the UK’s first Fab Lab in Manchester this year. Once the first UK Fab Lab is up and running, we hope to support the opening of several Fab Labs across the UK.

Why are we doing it?

The Northwest, home to the industrial revolution, is still one of the most important centres for manufacturing in the UK. The region’s history of innovation and creative thinking makes Manchester the ideal place to lead the next revolution in personal fabrication. The Manufacturing Institute believes that Fab Labs is a fantastic opportunity to encourage learning in the community and to show how manufacturing can be both creative and rewarding.

How did it all start?

Whilst jetting around the world and keeping in touch with the latest happenings Manufacturing Insitute trustee, Chris Wilkinson stumbled across Fab Labs. After cutting a deal to meet Professor Gerschenfeld the Fab Labs creator, he then told the team at the Manufacturing Institute. Who have since been working away for a year to bring the UK's first Fab Lab right here to Manchester in the fabulous Chips building.

The video below describes what a Fab Lab is from Prof Neil Gerschenfeld himself here in Manchester

If there are any questions, please get in contact with Fab Labs at:

Fab Lab Manchester
Chips
2 Lampwick Lane
New Islington
Manchester
M4 6BU

Tel: 07854 960958
http://www.fablabmanchester.org/