Talk:Fab lab

VFD
On 5 April 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep. See Votes for deletion/Fab lab for a record of the discussion. – ABCD 00:05, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Place or concept?

 * The article reads like a description of a concept, but near the end it says it is a place at MIT. Could someone clean up the article to clarify this?  --GargoyleMT 13:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Without further cleanup, I changed the initial wording "The Fab Lab is..." to "A Fab Lab is..." to address this confusion. --User:Olleolleolle 12:56, 10 December 2008
 * aim to clean up and add refs anytime soon, pls bear with me Ptroxler (talk) 23:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Anything?
"The tools to make almost anything" -- what does this mean? Can you make beer? Gold? This page does nothing to explain what a fab lab truly is. –King Bee (&tau; • &gamma;) 15:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent point. as I understand it - from the talks Gershenfeld gives about it - 'tools to construct things at almost any size scale, from almost any substrate'.  this would include beer but not necessarily gold; fablabs don't have tools for transmuting elements afaik. – SJ +  14:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Quote from norway
There was a quote from the norway fab lab, which currently calls itself an 'MIT fab lab' though it's not directly affiliated with MIT. That seems misleading to me, though they do have it on their site. I checked with a friend who works at the Center for Bits and Atoms to see if it's true as they say that their group is a subsidiary of the CBA in Cambridge. If not, then we don't need to repeat the claims on that site. If so, that's pretty cool and unusual and we should update the CBA article as well. – SJ + 14:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * afaik "MIT Fab Lab" is more a branding issue, there are several labs at community colleges (!) in the US that call themselves "MIT Fab Lab" -- e.g. the Baltimore, MD, Lab (http://www.ccbcmd.edu/news/media/2011_releases/jan11/Fab_Lab.html) in the announcement of their opening at http://www.meetup.com/CCBC-MIT-Fabrication-Lab/events/15661825/
 * A reason could be that "fablab" in biotech has a different connotation (which is not reflected in the fablab article as it currently stands, see my blogpost on "FabLab in the un-true sense of the word at http://square-1.eu/fablab/fab-lab-in-the-un-true-sense-of-the-word) --Ptroxler (talk) 19:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Question about what it means to be Active
How are we defining active, the San Diego Fab is teaching classes, but does not have a set place or many tools.

Moved linkfarm/examplefarm from article: Fab Labs around the world
If anyone wants to find independent sources and summarize this information accordingly, I'm happy to help: --Ronz (talk) 14:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Fab Labs around the world
Fab Labs subsequently opened abroad. As of June 2011, there were 53 labs in 17 countries on a list kept by the original MIT fab lab team, and over 110 labs on a Google Map maintained by the global fab lab community. Some of the more active fab labs include:


 * New Islington, Manchester, UK
 * Lyngen, Norway
 * Barcelona, Spain
 * Chicago, USA: Fab Lab at MSI
 * San Diego, USA
 * Mobile fab lab, USA

Needs Differentiation
Needs differentiation from Hackerspace, especially in opening paragraph. 85.64.44.106 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

List of FabLabs
I've removed this list

It's far from a complete list (Europe is scant) and it's mostly unsourced. This sort of list is always a problem for POV and WP:UNDUE. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:16, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * And they're back again...  Still unsourced.  Andy Dingley (talk) 16:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The way we dealt with the (previously gigantic) list at Hackerspace should work here, too: If any fab lab has specific Reliable sources for a claim to notability within the field, or an entire article dedicated to it, then we list it. If not, then we point towards the complete-list that the other site maintains. –Quiddity (talk) 03:49, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Hackerspace was a screw-up in the usual WP manner, as it turned into the inevitable list of "My favourite Hackspace". Their inclusion criteria become having a defender for their popularity, not RS as required, with that old favourite "having an article proves notability, not having an article proves non-notability". Andy Dingley (talk) 09:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The list over there, has now been trimmed back down to where it should be. I.e. Items with a specific/legitimate claim to notability, whether they have an article or not.
 * I've added a when tag for the History section here (I couldn't find any dates from a quick glance in the linked sources), and I shall remove the list of WP:Overlinked countries/cities, and improve the note that points to the official MIT listing. HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 16:06, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

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Fab Lab versus Maker Spaces and School Facilities or Office Space
Either the concept of FabLab has changed or it lost its distinction from Maker Spaces and high school tech classes, at least for "patient zero" and its immediate vicinity. FabFoundation says one essential criteria of a FabLab (versus maker spaces or school facilities) is that it required to be open to the public at least one day a week. Not only are the majority of "FabLabs" in the MIT list of fab labs in Massachusetts not open to the public, neither is the MIT's lab. ??? If this is common, then FabLab is a concept that died because it has no distinction from maker spaces or high school modern tech shop classes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.181.70.68 (talk) 19:02, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Add Lass' Law
A section on Lass's Law should be added, if Reliable sources can be found. — Lentower (talk) 00:57, 17 February 2023 (UTC)