How to Make Almost Anything: 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.

Learn to Turn Codes into Things: Just as communications and computation went from analog to digital, resulting in PCs and the Internet, the digitization of fabrication is leading to personal fabricators that will allow anyone to make almost anything, anywhere. The development of digital fabrication is based on creating codes that don’t just describe things, they are things, much as proteins are coded in molecular biology.

Students at the Fab Academy learn: How to use a Fab Lab’s digital fabrication tools for rapid prototyping (Epilog Mini Lasercutter, Roland MDX-20 Milling Machine, 3D printer, Roland CAMM-1 Servo GX-24 Desktop Vinyl Cutter, ShopBot), electronics design and production by producing circuit boards using a variety of sensors and output devices, how to program AVR microcontrollers on the boards they have produced, molding and casting, 3D scanning and printing.

How It Works: Fab Academy is a distributed educational model providing a unique educational experience. Each Fab Lab that participates in the Fab Academy program is part of a global Fab Lab / Fab Academy network. These Fab Labs are Nodes that offer the Fab Academy program. Students view and participate in global lectures broadcasted from MIT every Wednesdays at 9:00 am – 12:00 pm EST. The lectures are recorded and available to students throughout the semester. In addition to the lectures, there are 2 / 3 lab days each week where students have access the digital fabrication equipment and personal help with projects. Hands-on instruction in the labs is provided by instructors who supervise and evaluate Certificates, develop and disseminate instructional material, and assist with projects.

The Fab Academy is directed by Neil Gershenfeld, produced by Sherry Lassiter, coordinated by Tomas Diez and students are managed by Anna Kaziunas France.