Incubator Meeting

Incubator Meeting

Today, FabLabSD met at Media Arts Center San Diego to develop some ‘alpha’ workshop to teach each other over the summer.  The thinking behind this is that FabLab San Diego will be able to ‘alpha test’ workshops we’d like to teach, see what works and what doesn’t and then refine and build on them (marketing, facilities, equipment) for the fall.

Summer ‘Intra-staff’ Workshops

MAKE Electronics for Artists
taught by Jesse
10am, June 26th

Screenprinting  Stickers
taught by Claudia
10am, July 3rd

WordPress for Artists
taught by Morgan
2pm, July 10th

Aerial Photography
taught by Melinda, Sandro and Bea
2pm, July 17th

S.W.O.T Analysis

Before we got to these 4 workshops, we went through a lengthy S.W.O.T. analysis for FabLabSD (we didn’t get to the ‘threats’ part, but instead shifted our focus to developing 4 workshops for summer – these are like internal ‘professional development’ pulling from our pool of talent.

Strengths:

  • ‘soft’ skills
    • experimental
    • exploratory
    • innovative,
    • community development
    • partnership building
    • working with kids
    • greater community connections
    • experience running a community-based lab
  • ‘hard’ skills
    • hands on fabrication
    • electronic construction for art applications
    • mold making
    • casting
    • scale model constructing
    • structural building / concept
    • screen printing
    • glass
    • enamel
    • illustration
    • web design / dev
    • print design
    • typography
    • packaging
    • architectural urbanism
    • fashion
    • marketing
    • digifab
    • curriculum development
    • 3D prototyping
    • podcasting
    • webcasting
  • equipment
    • Modela
    • Plotter
    • Laser cutter
    • Computer lab
    • Kiln
    • 3D fabber
    • Sewing, embroidery
    • Screen press
    • electronic knitting machine
    • software
    • fabric
    • airbrush

Weaknesses/Needs:

  • Operating capital/Funding
  • Times/scheduling/coordination
  • Development time
  • Job roles/distributed responsibility
  • Communication
  • Transparency
  • Structure for communication – present, future
  • Overall goal – short, long (milestones)
  • Venues

Opportunities:

  • SIGGRAPH connections – crafters, scientists
  • Space
  • Other machines
  • UCSD
  • Childrens Museum
  • Media Arts Center San Diego
  • GIS/Geolocative stuff
  • Program development
  • Incubation
  • Fiscal sponsorship
  • Audience, Marketing, Pre-existing Partnerships

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • Fiscal sponsorship for FabLabSD AND our artists via Media Arts Center San Diego can be found here.
  • All Fab Lab folk present now have an @fablabsd.org email account (via Google Apps)
  • All FabLab folk can make new blog posts by simply emailing post@posterous.fablabsd.org
  • Media Arts Center San Diego’s own Fall programming structure can be found here.