Ana Cabral

About

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Hi there, I'm Ana! :)

Hi there, I'm Ana! I'm portuguese, educated as an architect and currently the lab leader of FabLab Spinderihallerne, Vejle, Denmark. I work with schools, creative start up companies and facilitate open FabLab days for all citizens on a weekly basis. I really enjoy matchmaking and fostering collaborations between these three segments of users!

I’m also a FabLearn fellow, at Stanford University, USA, where, together with 19 other educators from all over the world, I reflect and disseminate best practises within "maker culture" in classroom context, through blog posts. See more here.



Why FabAcademy?

I’ve been dreaming of taking FabAcademy for a couple of years now…

When I started my masters in Architecture, I got introduced to laser cutting and that had a great impact in my education but also in personal projects I started developing next to it. Then I got introduced to more machines and techniques in FabLab Copenhagen… everything was possible!!

Below, some of the projects I have been developing in FabLabs… 1) Wedding invitation for a friend, entirely laser cutted, 2) crib for my son, lasercutted, family tree engraved and hand painted, 3) bouquet of flowers, making use of laser cutting, 3d printing and Little Bits, for Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark, made in collaboration with a Kathja Egebaek, graphic designer.

I feel that I have good knowledge of fabrication machines in the lab, but regarding electronics and programming, my knowledge is very basic. So I’m looking forward to open a new door of endless possibilities and find meaningful ways of sharing it in FabLab Spinderihallerne.

We are the first FabLab to offer Fab Academy in Denmark. We hope to offer it again in 2018, with a mixed group of participants 16-25 year old students, start ups and industry employees.




More about FabLab Spinderihallerne...

I’m lucky enough to work in one of the most amazing places in Denmark. Spinderihallerne is an old industrial complex that has been renovated to host creative start up companies, as well as part of the municipal team from the Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Cultural departments.

It’s a very experimental environment, where new concepts/ideas are given a chance, not always with a strong/well defined strategy behind. We “do”, we let it happen, and then we “make sense” of it. Take a look at the video.

So… FabLab Spinderihallerne was not planned… I was given an opportunity to work with schools, design thinking and digital fabrication in classroom context. We had a couple of machines, that were used every second month or so, when we had activities with schools. Companies in the house were not really keen on using them…

While I was living in Copenhagen, I was an active user of FabLab Copenhagen, and saw its fast growth of users within a couple of weeks after they have opened doors. So I asked Spinderihallerne “why not open up to the public and connect to the global network of FabLabs?”

My leaders saw the potential on it, and a big adventure started! By opening up to the public, we extended the use of the machines, the exploration and development of new techniques and knowledge that benefits all users - students, teachers, start up companies, artists, hobbyists, anyone.

That was in April 2014. Today, we have a great community of users that are good at sharing knowledge and helping each other. More and more people come visit the open lab days and a good deal comes back to work on their own projects.

All contribute to documenting and sharing (we are looking into creating the right framework and flow that invites users to easily upload their files and add good documentation of their projects; at the moment is mainly through photos, weekly published in the lab’s facebook page - see here.

For more info on FabLab Spinderihallerne, check:

http://www.spinderihallerne.dk/fablab/

https://www.fablabs.io/fablabspinderihallerne