Diana Wildschut - Fab Lab / Transition Lab
Friday 10 aug 10:00 - 10:45
How can Fablabs contribute to the sustainable transition
It's going to be more like a brainstorm. Diana introduces the subject
Transition Towns. About the idea that a town should at least be a little bit self-reliant / resilient.
There was a Transition Town in Amersfoort, but it was mostly about talking, but doing nothing.
So we started Transition Lab. For people who wanted to make their own solutions for sustainability.
Rule #1: No talking before lunch.
So we start working, and at lunch we talk. Making sure we don't just talk.
Example projects:
-
pyrolysis (but can't test the exhaust gases for "bad stuff")
- Diana made the box with the lasercutter, making the walls hollow so it's easy to lift.
- our own bee wax? because there is to much pesticides in wax (especially from prof. bee ceepers)
- work compost is the best you can get
- A little garden made from a milk can (more for publicity)
What the Fablab could do
- But the Fablab can help by making manuals so that everybody can make it.
- It's also a workshop for people.
- We hope to made chemical analysing machines
But it's mainly important to not wait (for subsidy)
Thierry
We try to get people repairing machines. This is just in the beginning.
Pieter
Teaching people farming. This needed a Fablab to get objects for automation.
Alex
Making in the Fablab a transportation bike
Made out of alhuminium pipes, materials that are always available.
made sure that the gardens that people had fit in the bike
...
Huge waste problems
Community run waste processing machines (made by Fablabs techniques)
In: ?
They had no waste processing themselves so they make it.
Harmen
If we get away from central production to more local production we could be more resilient
Lightweight, to distribute little surplusses. Like extra produced food, energy.
Our energy system is very one way. Could we get into peer to peer distribution.
But we could do this in a Fablab on a small scale, checking ad
Ronen: Do FabLabs need to develop weapons to defend their "transition" achievements in a collapse scenario?
Answer 1: Sharing is the best defence aganist stealing
Answert 2: The collapse will most probably be a serioes of partial failures (at least in the beginning)
Hans-Peter:
FabLabs as a "collection of special brain power" -- but most FabLab
users are not like that but rather just consuming the facilities
"The global village consumption set", use the FabLab as a tool where it is useful.
Bring the lab to the right people instead of bringing the right people to the lab.
Ronen Kadushin on FabLab design aesthetics: "FabLab is like eating Müsli without the milk"
(From backup:)
Ronen:
But following this train of though, that we're going to have a
collapse, shouldn't we create weapons in Fablabs? For the people who
don't have acces?
Diana:
It's important that we get a threshold amount of people who understand
what we should do when this happens, how to take take of themselves. So
the transition isn't so hard.
Harmen: it's more about making sure you can handle, be resilient for system shocks. Making the community shock proof.
This movement is not about thinking about dooms day, it's about what we can do to prevent this.
Hanspeter:
It's a place with special people, very creative and open minded. It's a
resource for brain power. This is where it starts, by analysing
problems, having an idea.
Example:
big problem: shortage of clean water. We fill fill water in transparent
peck? water containers you can place on your roof and put it on the
roof so it can be cleaned by the sun?
Diana:
a lot of times it's just someone who comes from a art school that just
want to print their thing and they go away. So I'm a bit dissapointed.
Peter Troxler: Fablabs are not the right vericle, it's visitors are "simple" makers.
"Global village consimption set"
Thierry: we are experimenting with taking the lab to the right people.
Ronen: Fablabs might be a place where it can be made into something that is more consumable.
Harmen: won't this change? because where more going into the direction of prosumers.
Ronen: Forget the shiny, give it a estatic message.
Harmen: won't a finished looking product won't convey that it can't be improved.
Ronen: give a little bit to the heart, don't just cut it round, try a flower. Don't make it ugly.
it's usually just very functional. it's like eating muesly without the milk.
...
Do we need the fancy labs? Growing for example we have bin doing this for years.
Diana: but space is very limited, so we need for example to be able to do this in very small places.
Pieter: questions awnsered?
Diana:
I'm probably going to use the TransitionLab flag more and just use the
tools of the Fablab. And look for the right people. Also finding the
people that are interested in the design.
How do you find people that are intered in both?