Week 7: Fab Lab – A Fabulous Place for Ideation and Fabrication

Fab Lab Tour

Before this week’s class, I heard the word “fab lab” multiple times during this course. I was always wondering what it looks like in the Fab Lab and what kind of tools in the fab lab we can use. As a student who has visited the IMPACT LABS in Israel, I expected the Fab Lab to look a lot more like the IMPACT LABS. The actual tour gave me a perception that the tools we have access in the Fab Lab are very similar to the IMPACT LABS, including 3D printers, sewing machines, 3D scanners, laser cutters, electronic cutters, and the milling machine, etc. The IMPACT LABS may have some more technologies available like the digital CNC, but then there are a lot more computers with necessary design software installed in the computers for the community to use. In this lab, I discovered software that I have never seen and used before. With a combination of so many amazing tools, I believe that our creation stage will not be as hard as I previously expected.

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During the training session in Fab Lab, we were separated into two groups. The group I went with learned how to use Inkspace to design for laser cutting of the surface. This activity prompts us to design a watch face for a motion detector watch. The instructors led us through the basic process of using Inkspace to draw out the watch face step by step. Afterward, we were prompted to design the watch ourselves for our selected specific user. When I design the watch face, I decided to design the watch for elders. Elders have the ability to read words, but they may not see it very clearly. Therefore, I decided to use an image for curl arm movement. When I wanted to find an image for the twisting, I felt that the images I found were kind of confusing, so I decided to use large bolded words TWIST instead of an image.

During this activity, I realized that when we need to design a product, we need to consider how different user groups will have different requirements or needs for the product. It is really important to consider their need in order to design a product that can be useful for these user groups. This is also something we need to take in consideration when we are designing our product for this project.

Ideation Phase

In the latter part of the course, we went back to working on our group project. In this week’s class, we move forward from our inspiration phase to the ideation phase. We brainstormed the different possible solutions for different user groups. In this case, we were able to consider what we might do differently for different users. We diverged first when we are trying to brainstorm the different solutions, but at the end, we converged to a few solutions that we believe are possible to work on due to the time-constraint, functional requirements and the affordability constraint. As a result, we came up with two solutions to work our initial prototype on. I am excited to continue with the project and see how our ideas come to actual product that fits our target users’ needs.

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