I recently witnessed the turn-over and MOA signing of the Shared Service Facility for the Bohol Island State University DigiFab Center via Zoom, of course.
With the pandemic still raging, I guess we had to settle for a teleconferencing app instead of hopping on a fast craft to Tagbilaran City to witness the event.
To recall, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) launched the country’s first FabLab SSF in Bohol in 2014 here at the Bohol Island State University. So far, the first FabLab in the country helped entrepreneurs in the island to produce travel retail products in short runs, prototype furniture and even a working “printed” house as part of the post-earthquake recovery program of the province.
The 1st Bohol Fablab was funded by the DTI, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Bohol Island State University (BISU), and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
There are currently around 10 FabLabs in Central Visayas : five FabLabs in Cebu, three in Bohol including what we launched on Dec 7, one in Negros Oriental and one in Siquijor. Most of these were made possible through DTI’s shared service facility (SSF) project. Through the SSF, professionals, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and the public have access to advance prototyping, printing, and related equipment as well as workshop facilities.
These facilities are actually applicable to everybody and not just to the creative sector or our usual industry sectors. It is definitely applicable to the academe such as the Negros Oriental State University, Siquijor State College, Cebu Technological University, Bohol Island State University and the University of Philippines Cebu, The FabLabs give art and design students tools that they can use to make their ideas come to life. Many have already attended trainings at FabLabs in the region and have benefited from this shared facility.
Although it is not required that one knows how to use them, One is taught how to use these machines. That is the education and community resource part.
Fab Labs stimulate creativity and entrepreneurship, which is exactly what Central Visayas has to develop from its base of artisanal assets. It is also what the DTI is encouraging. Fab Labs go beyond artists and entrepreneurs to anyone else who is interested and wants to learn how to use them as well to experiment and create.
At the national level, fab labs in the country provide product designing and rapid prototyping, digital fabrication, design consultation and assessment services, innovation awareness activities, research, archiving and documentation of product design and art, trainings and workshops for makers, students and visitors.
For years now, Philippine fabrication laboratories have serviced maker projects including a 3D hazard map for Bantayan Island in Cebu, a collapsible refugee home scale model, GripAID Grip Assistant Device and CNC’d surfboards, among others. The fablabs have hosted workshops, community building makeathons to build Precious Plastic recycling machines. The makers also helped produce hundreds of PPEs for Filipino frontliners during the 2020 global health crisis.
Fablabs are a growing trend worldwide and are characterized by the collaboration of sharing and building ideas, rather than just the tools and equipment within the Makerspaces.
For years, this maker movement has transformed consumers into people who create, produce, and innovate. In many ways, the Maker movement in the Philippines represents a logical extension of synthesis of current trends in education and manufacturing such as active learning, problem based learning, team based learning, and community-service learning.
We envision all our fabrication laboratories to grow as spaces for digital innovation in the country become a major part of the global Maker Network. In order to continually effect positive change in our society, the Philippine Fablabs shall gradually assume a bigger role in the international makerspace community, a unique place where people converge to make things happen.
Apart from providing access to personal fabrication tools and equipment, our Makerspaces shall also hold more relevant maker-themed workshops and activities. Fab Labs in the Philippines are already buzzing with activity as makers young and old churn out complex projects. This is our vision for an Integrated Makerspace Network – to break technological barriers and give the next generation an opportunity to be part of a technology-driven future through the development of critical 21st century skills.
Some of our universities have already partnered with industry to provide support for their makerspaces. There is general agreement that the maker movement has a strong potential to positively impact not just university education but also business. Some educational settings now focus on having students identify a problem and creating a tool or machine to solve the problem, while yet others aim to provide a “material toolbox” and allow students to independently develop fluency and push the technology in the direction they wish. The heart of the maker movement is strongly aligned with theories of “constructionist” activity or “learning-by-doing” which are accepted successful learning principles.
What is remarkable about Fablabs today is that anyone and everyone can be makers and innovators. I think of the makerspace global network as a meeting place or a converging point where people with a passion for making and inventing – hobbyists, artists, engineers, product designers, software developers, musicians, students, teachers, parents, grandparents – can gather to learn, share, create, invent, modify, improve, and discover products using cutting-edge technologies, basic and advanced materials, and powerful but readily-accessible software.
Let us not forget that our own community of makers have been helping the country in these trying times by providing our healthcare workers with locally-fabricated PPEs.
Our makers have also used the Fab Labs for self-directed learning, a haven for people who learn best by doing. This is because our makerspaces’ hands-on nature, paired with many tools and raw materials, reinforce invention and provide the ultimate workshop for the tinkerer. The synergy among builders and inventors at these facilities has encouraged a highly collaborative learning stimulus that is best for team effort and for peer encouragement, suggestion, and support.
Now with the launching of new FabLabs and makerspaces, people of diverse fields and backgrounds can use these to discover new skills, brushing up on old ones, creating products for business, or simply making for the sake of making. The cross-disciplinary dynamics make individual participation crucial and constructive. Each one will now get to enjoy the hands-on use of high-tech gizmos, and commune with the team of like-minded tinkerers worldwide, allowing an idea or design to be realized into fruition.
Makerspaces are meant to augment the problem of the high costs of prototype creation: time, effort and money. This is where future industry leaders can transform ideas into tangible products or services that provide solutions to identified problems.
If there is a common element among spaces that truly foster the maker mentality, it’s that collaboration piece. People don’t have to feel like they are working alone in their garage. In a well designed makerspace, they can now look over somebody’s shoulder to see what they’re working on or get help virtually from someone in another country, and that might trigger something that fits into something they are working on or thinking about.
Makerspaces are the next step in the educational, manufacturing and community transformation. In a world of do-it-yourselfers, everyone receives hands-on experiences and opportunities outside a textbook. Our makerspaces help enhance collaborative environments by sharing ideas and instructions. This networking and helpfulness in turn leads to enrichment of other communities and teams and the ability to make positive changes in society and, eventually, the world.
Our ultimate goal is that with the FabLabs, our economic growth story will continue in a post-COVID future. We are confident that the SSF for the Digifab Center will relay a clear message across to the rest of the Philippines that Bohol is innovative, dynamic and resilient. Now, more than ever, we are ready to roll up our sleeves and make things happen for our fellow makers.
Let’s MAKE IT HAPPEN, BOHOL!
No comments:
Post a Comment