The Fab Lab on campus is a unique space. It is not quite a studio, nor is a completely open and available for students to freely use, similar to a library. The presence of the technology presents a challenge when trying to provide access to students, and requires a lot of intensive training and technical support to make sure everything goes well.

<aside> ⚠️ Unless you have been signed off by a Fab Lab Studio Assistant or the Fab Lab Coordinator, then you will need to make a reservation and appointment when someone is available to assist you.

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How do students get access to the lab?

A simple flowchart of how the lab works for a student. Click on the image to expand.

A simple flowchart of how the lab works for a student. Click on the image to expand.

✅ Scenario 1: Faculty Initiated

Haystack asks all faculty to indicate whether or not they would like to utilize the Fab Lab during their workshop. If they plan to use the Fab Lab, then you likely do not need to do anything outside of showing up when your instructor tells you to. This is the preferable path towards the Fab Lab, as it avoids scheduling conflicts with the demo schedule in the studios and avoids having disjointed projects that are similar and could be batched together at the same time in the lab.

⚠️ Scenario 2: Student Initiated

Even if your instructor has no plans to use the Fab Lab, you may still be able to use the Fab Lab during your time at Haystack. Here is what you can do:

  1. Request that your studio get an orientation in the Fab Lab on Monday afternoon. This can be a brief, 30-minute tour of the lab that is tailored to the topic of your workshop. This should be coordinated with your Faculty or Studio Assistant
  2. Identify blocks of time that do not conflict with your instructor’s teaching schedule and reserve a block of time in the Fab Lab.

A hypothetical schedule for week one (two-week session). Click on the image to expand.

A hypothetical schedule for week one (two-week session). Click on the image to expand.

<aside> ⚠️ The Fab Lab can support up to 5 students actively working on projects. If there are more than 5 students looking to use the lab, then please organize smaller groups to come and work in the lab at dedicated times. This allows us to provide the necessary technical support and space for happy and success projects.

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Types of Reservations

  1. Orientations — These are 30-60 minute high-level overviews of the Fab Lab. These sessions can be tailored to be most relevant to the particular discipline or topic of the workshop. Faculty or Studio Assistants should coordinate these with the Fab Lab and provide any context for what to cover and talk about.
  2. Trainings — These are more technical sessions, spanning up to 2 hours of instruction where a particular machine or process is taught to a group of students. Capacity is generally set to 5 students, but could be expanded depending on the particulars of the training. These should be coordinated by the Instructor or Studio Assistant, and ideally an SA or Instructor is present for the training. We generally avoid doing one-on-one instruction or trainings, but we will do these as long as other students from the studio have at least been invited to join. Doing
  3. Project Support — These are the catch all general purpose reservations in the lab. Usually best blocked for a particular studio or process so that multiple people can receive support in parallel. These project support reservations can be made at the individual level so long as its done in coordination with the studio to avoid the redundant instruction.
    1. 1 hour for individuals and 2 hours for individuals

👌 Good Applications & Correct ways to use the Fab Lab

Below are just some general recommendations and examples of projects that work well in the Fab Lab during a Haystack program. Remember that time is limited and most workshops are not centered around learning “digital fabrication”.

  1. Using the Fab Lab will save you time on your project: This might be due to the tedious, repetitive nature of the task (e.g., cutting many tiny circles out). If you find yourself doing something repetitive, ask yourself if its time to visit the Fab Lab.
  2. Impossible or Impractical to do by hand: Some projects require a level of precision or working at a fine scale that is challenging to do with analog tools. This is where the Fab Lab really shines. Burning a detailed image into a piece of fabric or wood is a great example that comes up frequently.