15-20 Minute Paper
Robert E. McGrath
Champaign Urbana Community Fab Lab
Biography
Robert E. McGrath is retired from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has undergraduate degrees in Anthropology, graduate degree in psychology, and a Ph. D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, and worked as a professional software engineer and academic research scientist.
Abstract
Digital technology is enabling new forms of creative and scholarly communities new forms of expression, and the living culture of contemporary life in many ways. This paper considers one example of such reintegration, a local community-‐based Fab Lab, in which we are developing an approach to fostering collaboration and creativity.
The availability of low cost digital fabrication technology has led to the emergence of a variety of community-‐based social spaces, including Fab Labs affiliated with MIT, independent Maker Spaces, and similar groups. These spaces deploy low cost digital design and fabrication techniques in small, community-‐based workshops featuring an empowering and creative “do it yourself” ethos within a supportive, diverse, and multidisciplinary setting. Digital technology magnifies long existing drives to personal creativity, through the combination access to tools and sharing of knowledge.
The Champaign Urbana Community Fab Lab (CUCFL), located on the University of Illinois Urbana campus, is a volunteer-operated, open community of people who like to design and make things. These technologically enabled networks and workshops represent an important trend in the reintegration of art, design, engineering, and entrepreneurship; crossing the boundaries between physical and virtual creativity; emphasizing social interaction, and knowledge sharing.