FAQ

Answers to your most frequently asked questions about Fab Labs

General

What is a Fab Lab?
Fab Labs are a worldwide network of local labs that stimulate inventiveness by providing access to digital manufacturing tools.

What can you find in a Fab Lab?
Fab Labs share an evolving catalog of core capabilities for making (almost) any object, enabling people and projects to be shared.

What does the Fab Lab network provide?
Operational, educational, technical, financial and logistical assistance beyond what is available in a single lab.

Who can use a Fab Lab?
Fab Labs are available as a community resource, offering free access to individuals as well as subscription-based access to specific programs.

Who owns the inventions made in a Fab Lab?
Designs and processes developed in Fab Labs can be protected and sold as their inventor wishes, but must remain available so that individuals can use and learn from them.

Responsibilities

What are your responsibilities?
Safety: do not injure anyone or damage the equipment
How it works: helps clean, maintain and improve the Lab
Knowledge: contribute to the documentation and knowledge of others

Company

How can companies use a Fab Lab?
Commercial activities can be prototyped and incubated in a Fab Lab, but they must not conflict with other uses, they must grow beyond the Lab rather than within it, and they are expected to benefit their inventors, the Labs, and the networks that have contributed to their success.