Latest events:
FabLab conference http://www.iri.centrepompidou.fr/non-classe/futur-en-seine-2011/fablab-conference-june-20th-17h-20h/
Futur en Seine http://fablabsquared.org/?Agenda-semaine-Futur-en-Seine-du,14

Project Fab Labs Squared. Supervisor for Iri: Armen Khatchatourov

The prototype Fab Labs Squared (FL2) presented during Futur en Seine 2011 aims to create the technical and organizational « matrix » of the forthcoming Fab Labs that may be carried out in universities, corporate headquarters, associative and cultural places. The FL2 is a prototype for a Fab Lab that is light, easy to install and to dismantle, and one function of which is to incubate other Fab Labs. The point is then to define and to experiment the following:

– The required device for a Fab Lab enabling the user to « build almost anything », while trying to reduce its cost: some of the devices will be built within the project.
– The concrete uses of Fab Lab in several actors categories: entrepreneurs, artists and designers, students, handyman « tinkerers » and « hackers », and mere amateurs or interested citizens.
– The developing and exploiting conditions of a Fab Lab: the project will document itself and aim to offer future Fab Labs the greatest amount of technical, practical and methodological data.

The call for project « technological prototypes » is an essential step in the definition, experimentation and documentation process of FL2:
– Before the installation of the prototypes in the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (late 2010), the project consisted in frame and package the characteristic of a quick-installing Fab Lab: equipment, technical constraints, location issues, link with local actors, public welcome, organization forms, functioning models, economy, capitalization of produced items and acquired knowledge…
– During the event of late 2010, the point was to design « hood open » several digital control devices:
a »RepRap », 3D open source printer ; a « RepStrap », machine capable of producing pieces to build the RepRap ; and a wood router. The presentation of this FL2 « prototype » has been punctuated with several workshops and with a conference. Mediators will accompany the public throughout the FL2 discovery.
– During Futur en Seine, FL2 was an open Fab Lab in a symbolic place. With 4 animation types, it introduced the public to the computer-aided manufacturing, accompanied innovative projects for prototype building, and incubated artistic projects. Continuously, it sensitized to the Fab Lab concept and exposed the results of experimentation.
– After Futur en Seine, FL2 shaped the acquired experience, produced an accessible documentation and restored its experience during the New Industrial World Forum. The aim is to ease the future development of FL2 in other territories,  but also the development of other Fab Labs.

For its partners, the FL2 prototype is a response to clear strategic goals:
– Fing will feed its research on open innovation and Web of objects with FL2, and will start a development initiative for Fab Labs in France..
– Ensci and the Télécom Institute will base on FL2 to assess the possibility of creating a Fab Lab in their organization, and defining the implication level for teachers and students.
– The four associations that represents the « hackerspaces » movement (/tmp/lab, Usinette, Tetalab et Ping) will take positions so as to develop FL2 in sectors that need it, and to begin the development of future Fab Labs.
– Silicon Sentier will use the experience of the « Cantine » and of the Living Labs to help developing new places and open innovation modes.
– Iri will base its research axes on the « new amateurism » and will present it during the following new industrial world forums.
– Bearstech will enhance its R&D on « hackable devices », the equivalent for hardware of free software for software.