Hello, welcome on Board! We are glad to see you there :)
is a FabLab based at 274 Avenue de la Couronne in Ixelles that encourages new means of creations providing to its network machines. 100% independent, OpenFab is an ecosystem gathering capacities to foster innovation and creativity. From the machines to the communication, this guild 2.0 supports open source.
🇫🇷 Version en français de ce document par ici.
You want to make a furniture? To rapidly prototype the design of your new product? To build your own arcade cabinet (Yes, one of our member did it!)?
We offers you two ways to conduct your project:
- Let's do it together!
Become a member of our awesome community, learn how to use the machines at our disposal (3d printers, laser cutter, CNC, ... complete list there), discuss with other makers, cooperate with them to do crazy projects, ...
How to join us? Fill in this form and come to see us!
Price:
- membership fees: 25€/year.
- access to the FabLab: 10€/day or, if you want to get involved in the community, you can become SuperUser and pay 34€/month.
- Price depends the machine you want to use, we advice you to take your own material, there is a Brico just near us (330 avenue de la Couronne).
Enter the game!
- Let us do it for you!
You have no time, you simply don't want to do it on your own, it's ok. We have a community of around 100 makers with various skills that will be pleased to do it for you. It's a way to create jobs, to help local entrepreneurs earn a living, to relocate production, design, ...
Price : 55€ per hour. Let's meet to discuss your project, determine the best way to conduct it and evaluate what could be the total price. You can contact us by mail: contact@openfab.be or you can write an issue directly on GitHub or join us on Facebook, ...
OpenFab is an open source project. That means anybody can view, use, modify, distribute but also contribute to what we are doing. These permissions are enforced through an open source license, CC BY-SA 4.0 in our case.
Open source is powerful because it lowers the barriers to adoption, allowing ideas to spread quickly. Every experience, iteration, either it's a success or a fail is documented and could be used by anyone to go further. This way, as said Mandela, we never lose: we win or we learn.
3 main values guide us in our exploration:
-
Collaboration.
At OpenFab, we collaborate by nature, we are pooling of machines (3D printers, laser-cutter, CNC, ...). We are sharing our thoughts to go further, to find our answers. Plus, the more we are the more fun we have. -
Iteration.
As said Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn : "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late." There are no perfect answer to our questions. Let's try and see what happens, will do better next time. -
Empowerment.
OpenFab is a tool for the community that empowers its members: production means, trainings, learning from peers, ... It's a virtuous spiral, the community makes members greater which in return makes the community better and so forth.
If you want more information, you can read this document.
If you want to contribute to our project and make it better, your help is very welcome. Contributing is also a great way to learn more, to get involve in an ambitious project.
Read this document to know how to do so: Contributing.
Here are the projects we are working on, click on the one that interested you to go directly on their repository to get more information. If you want to contribute on one of them, check their own "README", "Contributing" file or ask directly through issues.
FabLab + community management
- Gamification: The process of adding games or gamelike elements to something. We want members to evolve in OpenFab as if they were in a game, they can do quests, learn skills, ...
- Maker passport: Strongly linked to Gamification + OpenBadges. A helpful tool to ID makers in their community, to collect skills badges and token, to help the process of documentation.
- OpenBages: Strongly linked to Gamification + Maker Passport. 1 badge = 1 skill. We want to create an alternative to CV, something more pratical. Learning by doing.
Maker
- MakerLib: Based on the Maker Library Network launched by the British Council.
- Jacqueline: Project launched by members of the community. The goal is to create a mobile sound system.
- Aquaponics: More information soon. Project starting in septembrer 2017.
"One adventure with many heroes."
Neil deGrasse Tyson