The Fab Lab Berlin offers private individuals and start-ups with unconventional ideas machines, tools and professional guidance.
It's a draughty, rainy autumn day, but it's pleasantly warm in the rooms of the Berlin Fab Lab in Prenzlauer Berg. In the large main room there are 3D printers of all designs and sizes. The room is filled with the whirring of devices and machines and the busy typing on computer keyboards. Suddenly someone turns on music and a rock song starts playing. This is not a normal office, but a Fab Lab.
Julius Stauffenberg came here in a roundabout way. The blonde, young Berliner studies mathematics at the TU and also knows a bit about Python programming. The 22-year-old had actually applied to the medical technology company Otto Bock. The company, based in Duderstadt in Lower Saxony, cooperates closely with the Berlin Fab Lab, has donated the majority of the machines and has its offices right next door. Julius came to the Fab Lab through Otto Bock and is now completing his internship there.
His eyes light up with eager curiosity as he leads me through the rooms. The Berlin Fab Lab branch now has over 100 members. “On the one hand, we have our core group of people. They each work on a different project here, some are here almost every day. Others only come sporadically or a few times, or they try out the tools here and realize that it’s basically not for them at all,” explains Julius.
The Fab Lab users’ projects are completely different. For example, one of the inventors here has just designed a drone with very long antennas. The images it takes in flight can be sent over long distances in HD quality. Most of the parts for the drone were made using 3D printers. Another Fab Lab user made small rag dolls, as sewing and knitting machines are also available here. Equipped with light-emitting diodes in the eyes, they flash when pricked with voodoo needles.
A desire for technical gadgets brings people to the Fab Lab, as does the ambition of an inventor and the intention to develop the prototype for a groundbreaking new device. Many artists and product designers use the Fab Lab for their work - producing prototypes and works of art. With a few exceptions, the machines in the Fab Lab are connected to the Internet and can be started and stopped by the user via a terminal. Julius' first own project in the Fab Lab: He wrote a program that constantly monitors the status of the machines and, in the event of a defect, sends an email to the Fab Labs technical team, which then takes care of the maintenance. “It was my first own project. Not a big one yet, but the next one is definitely coming. And it’s getting bigger,” says Julius. And he beams again.
The Fab Lab Berlin offers private individuals and start-ups with unconventional ideas machines, tools and professional guidance.
