An Investment in Community — With Big Returns

I ran a workshop to show labs around the world how to make the Quirkey Accessibility Keyboard. I was delighted that the workshop took place in a proper electronics lab with enough equipment for everyone to work on the software and hardware for their Quirkey as a group. All the Quirkey kits went, and everyone left with a working one.

The workshop not only included a couple of very notable hardware experts who joined in and helped other participants, but also resulted in people offering to help with translation into other languages. There was great social and professional interaction, with people updating me on projects, updated hardware, and new tricks and tools that I can report back to the Masterton Lab on. I also met with the Czech team and will have plenty to offer to the next conference.

I was surprised to find that there were four other implementations in existence based on the original hardware and software by other labs that I had not previously been aware of. The Quirkey project feedback will send the accessibility keyboard in new directions. This has helped me firm up the new version that I have been working on for people with fewer than five digits.

I have been conducting research in Japan to make local cuisine easier to prepare by using AI systems to modify regional recipes according to the availability of ingredients. This was the first time I conducted a workshop overseas. The main purpose of this workshop was to broaden our perspective on local cuisine outside of Japan and to link this to future development.

I was able to teach participants about Japanese food culture, explain the AI application I use to generate recipes, and have everyone cook and enjoy a food item. The highlight was that we created seven teams to cook each of the recipes, and all the dishes were completed properly and tasted delicious. Some of the dishes were made differently or looked different from what we had imagined from the generated recipes. And in some cases, people successfully corrected the incorrect part of the AI-generated recipe, or replaced it with something else.

It was very interesting to see the different dishes produced by the various cooks in the actual cooking process after the recipes were generated. Based on these outcomes, I would like to evolve the workshop and create a structure for discussion about educational tools that can deepen our understanding of food culture and ingredients. I often do workshops for students and children and would like to apply what I learned from my experience at FAB24.

FAB24 Mexico was an opportunity for me to grow as a person. It was a very rich cultural experience and also a lesson in love. I met many people from all over the world; it was wonderful. They all have big hearts, and they share their knowledge and experiences. The most important thing is to learn from their values, principles, and ethics. They all changed my life for the better.

I also learned a lot about new materials and new technologies. Thanks to these people and their willingness to share, I am a better teacher. I will share all my knowledge with my students in Lima, Peru. My community will become more efficient by making production processes more efficient. I will be able to create new designs and research work with my students. In addition, new contacts in the Fab Lab Network will help me create new projects. I have received many suggestions to improve my projects, and I thank all those who supported me.

I consider this event a gamechanger in a very positive way. I found a lot of interesting and novel workshops and projects. I met people I only knew online previously. I could connect confidently with people from common professional fields and common motivations. And I felt supported by the organizers and sponsors all the time.

For the first time, I was able to mix my design, musical, and educational skills in an extended (8 hours) workshop for non-specialized people in any of these areas. This allowed me to meet people with educational and digital fabrication backgrounds for future collaborations. I found many teachers and musicians interested in taking the workshop. I felt motivated by the interest of the participants and how they valued the information and activities I prepared.

I was also fortunate this year to be part of the host team at the events in Yucatán, working with the Fabricademy group for the Future Fabrics bootcamp and with the Fab City Foundation team for the Fab City Summit 2024. I got to meet very passionate people in an inclusive and friendly environment, really interesting people from all over the world, with common interests.

One of the two roles I represented at the conference was as the Regional Technical Manager in the Asia-Pacific Program for Field Ready, a non-profit organization focused on localizing aid supplies and capacity. An example of our work is the first-ever locally made Mobile Makerspace in the Pacific. My colleague, Timoci Vosailagi, and I co-facilitated a workshop on "How to Build a Mobile Makerspace for Disaster Response." This helped us connect with Gerrit, who has worked with Tolocar (a Mobile Makerspace in Ukraine) and is part of a team that built one in Germany. He invited us to participate in his workshop, which led to the idea of forming a Mobile Makerspace Working Group.

With the increasing number of Mobile Makerspace initiatives, it’s appropriate to start a group where people can connect, seek advice, or help others pursuing similar initiatives. It could also serve as a starting point for those interested in building their own. We plan to explore ways to increase visibility and connection between mobile labs in the future, including building a platform to map mobile labs and connect with them directly. This working group will continue at FAB25 in the Czech Republic.

I am overjoyed to have attended FAB24! I am very thankful to the Fab Foundation for this opportunity. I assure you that your investment will not go to waste, and everything I learned will benefit not only me but thousands of people in the Asia-Pacific region.