Commuter

Issue date: 2/3/08 Section: Campus Life

Media Credit: Jared Silfies This sign, made in the Fab Lab, showcases the machines versatility as it welcomes users to the lab itself.

Media Credit: Jared Silfies Numerous materials can be engraved with the machine in the Fab Lab. These glass pieces are an example of the quality of the engraving.

Media Credit: Jared Silfies Computers using Corel Draw and other design software create the designs for the engraving machine.

Fowler Family Southside Center hopes to become the teaching center of entrepreneurship by introducing Fab Lab (Fabrication Laboratory), says Dr. Paul Pierpoint, NCC's vice president of Community Education and dean of the Southside Center.

Fab Lab, also known as "personal fabrication," will help provide skills and educational training for students and the Southside Bethlehem community, says local business man Shahri Naghshineh, a graduate of Lehigh University, founder of Surface Chemistry Discoveries, and donor of Fab Lab, valued at $25,000.

By learning how to use the Fab Lab, one can design parts for any industry, Naghshineh says. This knowledge will enable artists, students and entrepreneurs to go into business for themselves.

"We are trying to get people to realize that they can make a living by using Fab Lab," Pierpoint says.

Fab Lab is a machine that produces 3-D creations and models. Ideas can be converted into products within hours, says Naghshineh, who hopes to see more entrepreneurs in the future of Southside Bethlehem.

The first idea is never the finished product for a start-up or a well-established business. Before the invention of Fab Lab, ideas from pencil to paper took months.

After this, a business had to come up with a proof of concept to see whether the product worked. This involved going to a plastic shop and having a mold made of the product. The mold concept takes a considerable time and investment.

Fab Lab enables rapid prototyping, which allows you to build a proof of concept faster and cheaper, Naghshineh explains. This allows business owners to spend more time with their customers or to invent newer products.

Naghshineh says he believes the real value lies in who comes up with the new idea or creates the newest invention, not who produces it.

With the help of Fab Lab, there is going to be a shift more toward ideas and invention enabling individuals to make products cheaper and faster, he says.

Fab Lab already is being used around the world with great success, Naghshineh says. In Norway an electronic tag was made to keep track of sheep by herders. In India a device was made to check for spoiled milk.

Involved locally with Fab Lab is Northampton-based Protocam.com, a rapid prototyping business, which makes products for many industries from medicine to aerospace, Naghshineh says.

Businesses that sell trophies also use this machine. Using Fab Lab, Pierpoint recently engraved seven awards on acrylic for the Monroe Campus Leadership Award.

"You don't have to know how technology works, but know that it works," Pierpoint says.

Fab Lab basically works like a printer, says Daphne Newman, an instructor for the Horizons for Youth Program.

Southside Center uses the CorelDraw software program to make designs on a computer. Other preferred graphic design software programs can be used as well. They are then sent to the Fab Lab, which is about the size of an office copier and uses a laser to engrave and cut. It cuts accurately up to a quarter-inch, Naghshineh says.

The laser can cut and engrave acrylic, leather, wood, plastic and many other materials, Pierpoint says. It cannot cut through glass and tiles, but has the ability to engrave them.

Starting this spring, the Southside Center is offering non-credit art and craft classes for adults using Fab Lab, Pierpoint says. Credit classes will be offered soon.

Classes currently are open to students in grades six to nine throughout December. The cost per student is $49 plus a $10 material fee. "Mr. Naghshineh has made scholarships available to those kids who cannot afford it," Pierpoint says.

"In the near future," Naghshineh says, "I could see birthday parties for kids held around this machine."

Students and the Southside community are not Pierpoint's only focus. He wants to introduce the Fab Lab to local businesses and is willing to let the businesses try out the machine at low cost.

Companies could use this machine to make sure that it could be useful for them before they invest in it or to test a new product, Pierpoint says. If companies like the products and want to mass-produce them, they can then go to a business like Protocam.com.

Fab Lab was invented in 2001 by professor Neil Gershenfeld of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Naghshineh says he donated the Fab Lab because NCC did a great thing in bringing the Fowler Center to Southside Bethlehem.

Fab Lab's future looks bright, he says. "This machine cannot be limited; it is evolving. Hopefully this machine allows the students to open their minds to the opportunities that are out there."

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