Sander van Vliet

Fabacademy2016
@Fablab Amsterdam



I followed the Fabacademy course in Fablab Amsterdam which is hosted by Waag Society - An institute for art, science and technology. The Fablab is located in De Waag, a beautiful 15th-century building on Nieuwmarkt square in Amsterdam. See the photo at the bottom of this page.

The Fab Academy is a Digital Fabrication Program directed by Neil Gershenfeld of MIT’s Center For Bits and Atoms and based on MIT’s rapid prototyping course, MAS 863: How to Make (Almost) Anything. The Fab Academy began as an outreach project from the CBA, and has since spread to Fab Labs around the world. The program provides advanced digital fabrication instruction for students through an unique, hands-on curriculum and access to technological tools and resources.

After studying construction engineering and working in construction for a few years, creating CAD drawings and calculations, I switched to a job in IT. Mainly because I realized that I could exercise my personal computer hobby and be paid while doing so =). There I experienced that helping people is an incentive for me and I worked at IT helpdesks and in other supportive roles over the following years. I never got to developing further and I got stuck doing the same type of job for years. You could say I got stuck in my comfort zone of a steady job, holding on to the feeling of stability and safety.


Following my girlfriend Shirley doing Fabacademy last year made me more aware of the evolution of digital fabrication and rapid prototyping and it inspired me to develop myself in this direction! I have been wanting a different job for years and I have now taken a serious step; after 11 years I quit my job to do Fabacademy! This is a way for me to get moving and become inspired again. This is an exciting new challenge exploring myself learning to create, using all kinds of new skills and digital fabrication tools! My goal: A future job which gives me energy and enables me to keep developing myself.