DIY lab

The DIY lab is a re­search and pro­to­typ­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry shared by both stu­dents and aca­dem­ic staff. It pro­vides an in­ter­face be­tween re­search, teach­ing and artis­tic ex­per­i­men­ta­tion.

The goal is to de­vel­op al­ter­na­tive ways of solv­ing problems of all kinds.

Putt­ing the do-it-your­self prin­ci­ple in­to prac­tice, the users build their own high-tech/low-bud­get machines – a so­lar cell, a CNC milling mashine, an open-source 3-D prin­t­er – and then put them to use. Fig­ur­ing out each de­vice’s pur­pose and per­so­n­al­i­ty leads us to cont­in­ue de­vel­op­ing them, and to in­vent new ones.

The gen­er­al ques­tion of how best to ma­n­age the means of pro­duc­tion goes hand in hand with spe­cif­ic ques­tions about tech­nol­o­gy. How do you re­al­ize a com­plex idea with sim­ple tools? How do you com­bine the pie­ces in­to a func­tion­ing whole? Me­chan­i­cal­ly? Elec­tron­i­cal­ly? What pro­grams do you use to con­trol your de­vices?

Do-it-your­self strate­gies de­pend on in­tel­lec­tu­al cu­rios­i­ty; they de­mand or­gani­za­tion, im­pro­vi­sa­tion and ini­tia­tive; and they pre­sup­pose the pow­er of the in­di­vi­d­u­al as the driv­ing force be­hind de­vel­op­ment and change. Prac­ti­cal skills from the world of busi­ness/en­trepreneur­ship in­crease the lev­el of pro­fes­sio­n­al­ism.

Col­lab­o­ra­tions and con­tracts with out­side en­ti­ties cre­ate po­si­tions for tu­tors, ex­tend the DIY Lab’s hours and en­sure its ex­is­tence in­de­pen­dent of grant fund­ing.