Grasshopper and Trotec Laser - Live webinar

 

This week, Trotec Laser Canada will be hosting a webinar with Andres Gonzalez from McNeel Miami - RhinoFabStudio, on Rhino and Grasshopper for the laser cutter!

The webinar is set for Thursday, October 1, at 12 pm (noon) EST (Miami time). 

To register...

What is RhinoFabStudio? A RhinoFabStudio™ (fabrication studio) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer-controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.

Face Shield 3D model

Controlmad has been kind enough to share its face shield design (3DM and DXF) with the community.

You can manufacture up to 10 units per hour with a laser cutter. Details here.

Also, check the Coronavirus Makers web site for many other free designs of medical devices and protection systems.

Form2fab at Fab14 Conference in Toulouse (France) - July 16-22

Each year members of the more than 1,200 worldwide Fab Labs gather to share, discuss, collaborate and create communities around the different local and global interests of digital manufacturing, innovation, and technology.

This year, the FAB14+ conference takes place in Toulouse, France, July 16-22 at the Pierre Baudis Convention Center with “Fabricating Resilience” as its central topic.

Form2fab, Authorized Rhino Reseller and Trainer, will be exhibiting (stand CH13) and holding a series of workshops on Digital Design and Fabrication with Grasshopper. Don't miss this opportunity to learn more about generative design and digital fabrication!

Check the details (in French)...

Fab Lab Berlin Parametric Design Workshops - May 2018

Parametric Design Workshops

For Beginners & Intermediates

Fab Lab Berlin, Germany

 May 5-6, 12-13, 2018 

Are you ready to push your design skills a little further? To take your ideas to a whole new realm?

These Parametric Design Workshops will provide you with the necessary tools, knowledge, and ability to use Grasshopper and gain parametric competencies.

There are two options taught in English, one for beginners and one for intermediates who already know Grasshopper.

Option1: General Workshop for Beginners - 16 hours: Start May 5, 2018 

Option2: Intensive Workshop for Intermediates - 8 hours: Start May 12, 2018 

All participants will be given a certificate at the end of the workshop.

Questions about the workshop? Please email: wassefdabboucy@gmail.com

Prices, registration, tickets, and more information... 

Fab Lab now at Bering Strait

Unalakleet Fab Lab students hold up stickers they designed and made. Left to right: Genesis Blatchford, David Johnson, Kadyn Erickson, Taylor Harvey, Robert Gilley, Siku Johnson, John Henry, Jayden Wilson. (Photo from BSSD Strait Talk)

Fab Lab is spreading in Alaska. The Bering Strait School District now has its first Fab Lab course: the Fab Lab for Fabrication Laboratory at Unalakleet.

The Fab Lab's goal is to work on skills, not just repetitive tasks. This semester, thirteen students are implementing problem solving, critical thinking, entrepreneurship, and creative skills. One popular tool is the vinyl cutter, which the students use to make vinyl stickers, signs, and garment logos.

The new Fab Lab also includes ten PC computers with Rhino, a laser cutter/engraver, a 3D printer, and a CNC router.

See the write-up in Alaska Public Media....

Digital fabrication workshop at IED

Register for the Rhino D+O+F - Design Optimization & Fabrication workshop, organized by IED Madrid.

Course Description

In this class, you'll learn to create and edit accurate free-form 3D NURBS models. This fast-moving class covers most of Rhino's functionality, including the most advanced surfacing commands. Also, this workshop will give students a functional understanding of Grasshopper and Parametric design. This will allow them to build on this understanding into more advanced projects of their own. The class also covers information on fabrication techniques with RP or laser machines and optimization and fabrication using RhinoCAM for CNC machines.

Details...


Space is limited!!!

Instructors: 

• Andres Gonzalez, worldwide director RhinoFabStudio.
  
• Ignacio Prieto, Professor of Architecture at IED
• Daniel García, Fab Lab IED Madrid manager
• Lorena Schmitzberger Sánchez, Trotec Spain
  

Date: 12-16 September 2016

Time: 10:00 to 14:00 & 15:00 to 19:00 h. [ 10 am-2 pm & 3 pm-7 pm ]

Location: IED - Madrid, Spain

  For more details or to register contact: Ignacio Prieto - Daniel García  or call 914 480-444

What is a RhinoFabStudio? A RhinoFabStudio™ (fabrication studio) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer-controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.

Make your own Guitar workshop, Fab Lab Barcelona

What's cooler than making your own guitar?

Join the Fab Lab Barcelona next January 23-24 and rock on!

Complete details...

Power2Play - Power to build a Seahawks guitar for Paul Allen

Once again, Sherwood and Kelso High Schools are advancing education with their fab labs. (Just search in this blog for Sherwood and you'll see several posts.)

The two schools have collaborated with the Power2Work foundation to build a custom electric guitar and case. Commissioned for Paul Allen and the Seattle Seahawks 12s, it is one of the first guitars designed and manufactured through its program.

Projects are multi-school collaborations, where students experience a professional work environment. By engaging high school shop teachers and other partners, they've outfitted over 30 high schools throughout Oregon, Washington, and Alaska with digital fab labs. With the Power2Work's goal to teach meaningful skills, kids learn to build everything from guitars to houses.

A few fun facts about the Seahawks guitar:

• The guitar case was manufactured out of old Sherwood High School bleachers. 
• The pickups are Normandy Extreme Shielding Twangshifter.
• The guitar is three kinds of wood: alder, black walnut, and maple.
• The custom body artwork was donated by Shelby Tiffany.

Article in GeekWire ....

inFORMed Clay matter 2.0 - Grasshopper and robotics workshop in Turin (Italy)

inFORMed Clay matter 2.0

Grasshopper and robotics workshop

23-25 October 2015 - Turin, Italy

The workshop is a collaboration between Co-de-iT, Fablab Torino, Officine Arduino, based on ongoing Co-de-iT research called “inFORMed matter“.

The “inFORMed matter” research project focuses on the exploration of additive fabrication processes. It explores producing form through the morphogenetic properties and capacities of matter by embedding information structures during the fabrication process itself.

The goal is to go beyond the current state of prototyping, in which the physical prototype is as close as possible to a clone of its digital counterpart, making fabrication a pure replication. 

Instead, by coding and embedding extra levels of information the production and digital fabrication phase becomes an integral part of the design process. The embedded information maps and defines material features and behaviors and different deployment patterns of the physical and aesthetic properties.

The workshop focuses on the exploration and development of the whole design and digital manufacturing process through additive processes of ceramic mixture materials.

Workshop topics

• Anticipate material behavior through digital simulation: Test and apply different tool-based conditions and parameters (extrusion direction angle, speed of extrusion, variable layer thickness, etc. ) and evaluate the consequent material behavior to get useful feedback for the digital model's next iteration. The aim is to understand how to embed material properties as code and information during the digital design phase, fine-tuning it towards the desired outcome.
• Seamless and shorter design-to-machine pipeline: One, by directly informing the machines by generating the necessary code in the design tool. Two, by building the design process around the machine's capacities.
• Embed morphogenetic material properties as design factors: Understand and manage such properties, behaviors, and their potential morphological outcomes for different materials, from clay to biologic matter, to map and use them as an atlas of expressive possibilities and performances of the material.
• Understand constraints and opportunities determined by the chosen constructor agent or machine: Learn to use and manage different machines to handle the extrusion tool for additive processes and learn to evaluate and exploit the influence, constraints, and opportunities provided by different machines and movement technologies. 

During the workshop, we will use tools to handle the special ceramic extruder, a customized 3D printer, type delta, and a 6-axis Comau Robot NJ 60.

The final output will be the result of influence, cooperation, and conflict of these. Only by successfully combining computational simulation, material properties and capacities, and machine constraints and opportunities we can effectively evaluate and push further the design process potential. Through this, we can foster design and fabrication skills and sensibilities for a more comprehensive awareness of relations between computation and material aspects.

Complete details...

Fab Lab goes mobile

Thanks to a Career Technical Education (CTE) revitalization grant through the Oregon Department of Education, Sherwood High School is taking its Fab Lab on the road. Bowman Fab Lab, run by high school teacher John Niebergall, travels from school to school by RV. The mobile Fab Lab takes technology and course ideas directly to students and teachers. It provides equipment, teaches students how to use it, and shows teachers how to build a career program.

During the visit, students will be able to try out the technology. The Fab Lab teaches how to use Rhino and and how to use a CNC program.

Based on MIT's Fab Lab model, the Bowman Mobile Fab Lab is equipped with a 3D printer, laser cutters, microcontroller boards, vinyl cutter, and laptops with Rhino software. The participating schools get a CNC vinyl cutter, plus at least one month's materials to get started.

More info and video on the traveling lab ...

Beyond Building Barcelona 2015 - exhibition, workshops, and symposium

Beyond Building Barcelona 2015

Fira Barcelona, Gran Via Venue

May 19-23

Shape the future of the building industry with the Pavilion of Innovation 2015 in Beyond Building Barcelona, curated by IaaC | Fab Lab Barcelona. This exhibition and symposium will present new ideas and construction paradigms emerging from international excellence in research and pilot projects. Novel and reactive materials, advanced digital/robotic manufacturing techniques and responsive environments are the key topics presented.

Exhibition

A limited number of pioneer academic research projects and prototypes from the BEYOND | CALL FOR PROJECTS, as well as professionally built projects and prototypes will be exhibited within the Pavilion of Innovation 2015. This includes Enrico Dini's D-Shape, Philippe Block's Rib-stiffened funicular floor system and Neri Oxman's Silk Pavilion.

The aim is to offer a matchmaking space for research and innovative projects to meet construction and technology companies, construct the bridge connecting innovation with the industry and businesses, and present possibilities for projects to be implemented in real world developments.

More details...

Events

The Pavilion of Innovation 2015 will also host events such as a symposium and round table where pioneer architects and designers will discuss future technologies and innovation in construction. The Pavilion of Innovation 2015 will also host an educational workshop series on wearable technology, internet of things, digital fabrication, robotic construction technology and aerial robotics. This is open to all professionals and students.

The symposium will take place on Saturday, May 23, where each speaker presents its innovative work and ideas in short sessions. Thematic 4D printing, digital fabrication, self-sufficient buildings and distributed manufacturing will be discussed during this event.

More details...

Workshops

Several international workshops will take place in the Pavilion of Innovation 2015  May 19-23. Varying from 1-day seminars to 5-day workshops, participants can learn about wearable technology and computational design, digital fabrication, internet of things, robotic printing with clay and data mapping using aerial robotics.

More details...

Rhino and TROTEC workshop in El Salvador

Join the Rhino modeling and digital fabrication workshop in El Salvador. Attendees will design unique lamps in Rhino and fabricate them with Trotec laser cutting machines.  

Country: El Salvador, Central America  
City: San Salvador
Place:  LASERTEC - Calle El Progreso No. 3044, Col. Ávila
Date:   Saturday, February 21, 2015
Time:   8 am-12 pm

For more information, please contact Lucía Nasser.

Join us at www.RhinoFabStudio.com 

Studio D: Design and Fabrication Lab / Department of Interior Design / FSU as a new Authorized RhinoFabStudio

Please join us in welcoming Studio D: Design and Fabrication Lab / Department of Interior Design / FSU as a new authorized RhinoFabStudio. Established in the summer of 2013, Studio D: Design and Fabrication Studio is a prototyping workspace within the Department of Interior Design. This 3000 square foot facility is a Rhino Fab Studio and housed at the new Carnaghi Arts Building. Studio D is home to the department’s traditional woodshop tools, digital fabrication equipment, and undergraduate and graduate furniture design classroom space. Currently, Studio D is focused on the design and fabrication of small and full-scale prototypes of furniture and interior designs that support the three areas of curriculum development and instruction, research and critical analysis, and product development and material testing. This lab is staffed by Marlo Ransdell, PhD and David Wray, MFA in Tallahassee, FL. 

Visit Studio D: and like their new page

 
What is a RhinoFabStudio? A RhinoFabStudio™ (fabrication studio) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.

FESPA, connect with print innovation August 2014

Connect with innovation at FESPA Mexico 2014.

As the leading graphic arts event for Mexico and Central America, FESPA provides all the industry information you need to explore the latest developments in wide format digital printing, screen printing, garment decoration, and signage markets.

The exhibition will be a comprehensive showcase of print machinery, software, consumables, and substrates. It will give you inspirational ideas on print applications and solutions to add to your business.

Stop by booth #H10 to learn more about Rhino 5, Generative Design with Grasshopper and digital fabrication with Gizmo's laser and 3D printing technologies. FESPA will be held August 21-23 at the Centro Banamex in Mexico City.

RhinoFabStudio will be at GIZMO's booth #H10.
Do not forget to join us at RhinoFabStudio too.
Register here for FESPA. 

Fab10 Barcelona

Fab10 Barcelona is one week of events focused on open and accessible technologies that will change the world. It will gather the Fab Lab Network and the citizens of Barcelona to make it a Fab City. Fab10 Barcelona will gather the international Fab Lab community, which has more than 350 laboratories based in more than 40 countries in the world, and will host the Fab Festival and Fab City Symposium, open to all Barcelona citizens.

McNeel Europe will host a FabKids workshop during the week and will exhibit together with iCreatia.com at the Fab Festival during the weekend!

www.fab10.org

Shop class isn't what it used to be

Kent Winship modeling an Orca skull (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

"This is not your grandfather's shop class." And John Neibergall, from Sherwood High School in Oregon, is out help others with that. Last month over spring break shop teachers convened in Sitka, Alaska, for a professional development class. Neibergall explained, "I'm helping some teachers and students get into digital design and fabrication."

So they spend three days drawing, scanning, printing, and just exploring the state-of-the-art technical tools in the shop lab.

Here at McNeel & Associates, we are particularly proud that we helped one of the teachers, Kent Winship of the UAF Bristol Bay / Dillingham campus. Self-taught in Rhino and struggling, he signed up with Bob Koll's online teacher training last November. Now Winship is a poster child of a top notch fab-lab.

KCAW, the Sitka public radio station, highlighted the class in their news.

Listen to or read the KCAW article... 

Advanced Grasshopper workshop: “Complex surface”

Advanced Grasshopper workshop: “Complex surface”
Mediterranean FabLab, Cava de' Tirreni (Italy)
March 18-21, 2014

The Mediterranean FabLab in Cava de' Tirreni (Italy) has organized a new Grasshopper workshop that will deal with the development of complex surfaces responsive to information from the environment and with digital fabrication techniques.

Tutor: Amleto Picerno Ceraso

Details and registration...

Meet our 2014 RhinoFabStudio mentors

We would like to welcome aboard our 2014 RhinoFabStudio mentors. The Mentoring Program is designed to provide support to professionals, teachers, and  students who are interested in pursuing research and inquiry.  Our mentors are 12 wonderful collaborators  who represent active researchers and role models from universities, schools, and companies from across the globe. Our mentors want you to succeed and will offer you valuable advice. They are unpretentious in their critiques and openhanded with their networks. To learn more about them, please click here.

The RhinoFabStudio mentors are professionals in their respective fields and they are ready to assist you with inquiries regarding the implementation of a RhinoFabStudio, but they are unable to provide tech support. You can send your Rhino related questions to support@mcneel.com at any time.

What is a RhinoFabStudio?

A RhinoFabStudio™ (digital fabrication studio) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.

Advanced Composite Workshop

Cook Composites and Polymers (CCP) is conducting an advanced composite fabrication workshop at Kreysler & Associates facilities. There will be both classroom and hands-on workshop sessions presenting a general overview of the latest in composite technology with an emphasis on architecture, engineering, and construction.

• Attendance is free. 
• Lunch is provided. 
• There will be cocktails or a wine-tasting afterward. 
• Discounted accommodations are available nearby. 

Where: American Canyon, CA (Napa Valley)
When: November 15 (all day)

Space is very limited. Please contact ccp@kreysler.com to request a spot.

FSU’s Facility for Arts Research is a new RhinoFabLab

We'd like to introduce you to the Florida State University's Facility for Arts Research. Please join us in welcoming FAR FAB LAB as a new Authorized RhinoFabLab.

About the Facility for Arts Research

Located in Tallahassee, Florida, FAR is part of Florida State University’s College of Visual Arts, Theatre & Dance. FAR incorporates both Small Craft Advisory Press (SCAP), which blends traditional and digital printmaking processes and promotes collaborations to create artists’ books, and formLab, which gives artists, designers and scientists access to a variety of tools they can use to create unique 3D objects and explore and visualize form in a tactile, multisensory way. 

Visit FAR on the web at artsresearch.fsu.edu or check out FAR’s Facebook page. For more information, contact Michelle Ray, Information Assistant/Writer, Facility for Arts Research or call (850)562-1238.

What is a RhinoFabLab?

A RhinoFabLab™ (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.