Fab Lab UNI

Oliver Castillo Ramos is the one behind the spotlights who works every day for 2 years to support students and teachers with digital fabrication, to maintain the space and to achieve services for clients.

For his first job, this mechanical technician was looking for a place to apply and to develop his technical skills while giving birth to ideas. In addition to his key role to maintain the machines park, he put all his energy to train students to digital fabrication and to give them the trigger to start creating and inventing new concepts.

However, his field of action is limited: he doesn’t have the power nor the time to develop new activities but he can suggest improvements. Victor Yañez, the Fablab Director, is the one able to validate his propositions and to make big changes. He is responsible for the administration, the communication and the strategy of the space. He works in close collaboration with the Dean, Jose Beingolea del Carpio, to decide the amount and use of the budget, the integration of the Fablab in the curriculum, the services offered to external users and its participation to events.

Since its creation, in 2011, the team has changed many times with an important shift in 2013 when the founders, Benito Juarez and Victor Freudt, external to the University, were replaced by internal resources of the University. This change is one of the reasons why the use of the Fablab decreased over the years. The new dean, actually in charge of the University, has clearly identified the key role of the team members for the success of the place and he is looking for the person(s) able to help the actual team with a new impulse.

Besides the engineering curriculum which is the DNA of the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI), the University benefits from a national reputation of excellence in architecture, which shelters the Fablab in its campus area. As a consequence, the major part (80%) of the users are students from architecture who come by curiosity the first years and by necessity to last years to achieve their projects. If few teachers are using the space, they are more and more interested in its potential to support the production of maquettes for their students but also to develop their creativity and new complementary skills. They also see the opportunity to use the making spirit « test&learn » to train them how to iterate with prototypes to improve their design with real users feedbacks. As a consequence, some of them ask Oliver to train their students during the class sessions and to support them in their pedagogic projects. Students or teachers can also be trained on demand and then, they can use freely the machines under the supervision of Oliver. However, to use the machine for free, they have to write a project proposal, after an interview with Oliver, to defend their idea and to justify their demand. They receive an answer in a week.

This process and the lack of integration of digital fabrication in the curriculum are two brakes to diversify and to increase the number of users. However, despite its difficulties well known by the dean, the space is used by 5 to 10 person every day and this number can triple at the end of the semester. The elective courses (furniture design, weaving workshop, …) helped to break the barriers between the department (engineer, architecture, …) but what makes it living is the key role of a user, Walter Gonzales, teacher for 15 years and maker internationally reputed within the Fablab Network. This industrial designer and architect has always seen digital fabrication as an opportunity to support the Peruvian culture such as a possible threat. Indeed, it could be a powerful tool to democratize the ancestral art by simplifying the processes but it can also erase the Peruvian culture and values if it’s applied without taking into consideration its environment and local impact. To direct it in the good direction, Walter dedicated lots of time and energy to develop within the lab famous weaving workshops which received International prices, highlighting the Fablab UNI internally but also externally. A new book and a new line of investigation are in the pipe for him and the dean aims to open an intern and transversal contest to produce projects to encourage students to push the Fablab doors.

To launch the lab in 2011, the cooperation agency of Spain financed all the machines. Also, to give the key to manage the makerspace to Victor Freudt and Benito Juarez, this institution financed their FabAcademy training at the Iaac in Barcelona one year before. In return for this, they had to manage the space for two years.

Then the university UNI supported them by giving them a space inside the university.

To support its operational costs (raw material), the team developed investigations with and for companies and municipalities and consulting missions.

But since the departure of the initial fablab team in 2013, the lab is more seen as an educational asset for the university. Thus, to be sustainable is no more the objective.