Devon Guild of Craftsmen members have taken advantage of the machines and technical expertise available at Fab Lab Plymouth with a glassmaker, jeweller, sculptor, contemporary furniture maker, textile designer and two printmakers all progressing from their initial introductory day to further, more specialised sessions.
Guild Member Roberta Ayles, a glass artist who has been experimenting with glass and ceramic processes for 40 years, describes how her intial sessions in the Fab Lab have informed her stained glass practice.
"My design was borrowed from an Islamic mosaic, and then cut in 3mm Perspex on the laser cutter. From this, I took an impression in clay, and from the clay I cast a plaster and a Gelflex version. From the Gelflex I took another plaster cast, so I had a positive and negative of the same design."
"I was particularly interested in geometric or intricate patterns which would have been very time-consuming to cut by hand, and I look forward to trying different colourways from these moulds."
Roberta has gone on to produce a piece for her summer exhibition using a mould made with the Fab Lab Plymouth laser cutter.
"The initial session was fascinating and sparked off several ideas. I would be really interested in investigating how I could use CAD and CAM to speed up the initial stages of manufacture."
— Jeweller Ann Bruford was similarly inspired by her Fab Lab experience.
Devon Guild Exhibitions Officer Flora Pearson has also been exploring the facilities at Fab Lab Plymouth and has looked at the potential of the laser cutter in relation to print making.
"I have been attending the FabLab course for four weeks and have found it enthralling, exhausting, inspiring and exciting in equal measures – it’s a journey beyond my comfort zone. I have been working on ways to produce a block for hand-printing wallpaper as the technology would provide a precision which would be really useful for matching up or tiling a wallpaper design."
"My experience of working alongside other craftspeople in the FabLab has shown me that the end product of the machines is very much the tip of the iceberg. Everyone has a lot of knowledge, experience and understanding, and is looking for ways to push the boundaries of what can be produced; to perhaps create something which would have taken hundreds of hours, or reproduce something more than once for example."
— Flora Pearson, Devon Guild of Craftsmen Exhibitions Officer
The Made@EU project aims to bridge the “digital divide” that currently hinders the widespread use of digital fabrication knowledge and technologies in the European cultural and creative sectors, especially in the field of design, arts and crafts. Fab Lab Plymouth is uniquely positioned next to Plymouth College of Art’s craft and design workshop complex, creating the perfect setting to fuse traditional crafts with new technologies.
The project brought together five institutional partners from France, Spain, UK, Netherlands and Hungary and began with a series of intensive workshops, introducing digital 3D systems to artists, craftspeople and designer-makers from across Europe.
“The facilities at Plymouth College of Art are incredible, and the Fab Lab staff were incredibly patient, helpful and supportive.”
— Phil Cuttance, a designer/maker from New Zealand
Working in partnership with École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle (ENSCI) Paris, Institut d’Architectura Avancada de Catalunya (IAAC) Barcelona, WAAG Society: Institute for Art Science & Technology in Amsterdam and FabLab in Budapest, we invited emerging designers and creative talent to put forward proposals for enhancing their practice utilising FabLab facilities, offering a number of subsidised residencies to give access to both Fab Lab Plymouth and Plymouth College of Art’s specialist traditional workshops.
Artists were enabled to develop projects that creatively investigated the merging of traditional crafts with 3D digital ‘maker’ technologies. Participants included Adriana Ionascu, Alfie Smith, Jack West, Laura Martinez, Mark von Rosenstiel, Matthew Bush and Phil Cuttance, Ludovic Mallegol and Annemie Maes.
The resulting work was showcased in an exhibition at The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, which featured sculpture, animated film, furniture and architectural models.
Phil Cuttance, a designer/maker from New Zealand who is based in London and participated in a residency at Plymouth College of Art as part of Made@EU, said, “The facilities at Plymouth College of Art are incredible, and the Fab Lab staff were incredibly patient, helpful and supportive.”
Hannah Harris, Director of Development at Plymouth College of Art, said, “The project is as much an exercise in exploring new technologies, materials and processes, as it is in making art works.
“Made@EU offered a unique opportunity to the resident artists to undertake an experiment with unknown outcomes in the reassuring setting of the Fab Lab, with full access to high end digital skills and equipment.
“This collaborative project has been beneficial for all parties, for the artists to develop new skills and to push the boundaries of the Fab Lab itself.
“The European dimension is incredibly important and exposes staff, students and artists to opportunities that would not otherwise be possible.”
Photos by Dom Moore.
The winners of the exciting new HackFest project Challenge Days, from South Devon UTC, Great Torrington School and Stoke Damerel Community College, were given the opportunity to attend Venturefest South West, a showcase of the most cutting edge innovation and entrepreneurship coming out of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset that took place at Sandy Park, Exeter.
Funded by Devon County Council, Heart of the South West LEP, Plymouth Culture and Plymouth City Council, HackFest saw partners from across Devon working together to provide students from all across the county the opportunity to bring innovation to life by designing and building prototypes of their very own products using the Fab Lab facilities.
Adrian Farmer, Team Leader Year 7 Learners’ Baccalaureate and Engineering teacher at Great Torrington School, said: “HackFest has been an amazing experience for our pupils, exposing them to new technologies and aspects of design thinking and innovation above and beyond what they experience in the classroom.
"It is a great opportunity to inspire the next generation of engineers and designers and get them hooked at a young age.”
A large group of students studying creative Extended Diploma courses at Plymouth College of Art took part, as well as students from the free school, The Red House.
Participating students gained a vital insight into disruptive technologies and skills to equip them for future careers, through a programme of hands-on, dynamic workshops focused on: Design Thinking; Electronics and Coding; Lean Startup models; 2D Design; 3D Design and Printing; and Laser Cutting.
Seeing this kind of digital innovation and forward thinking in the South West shows just how much our students can achieve when they’re encouraged to embrace design, creativity and new digital technologies like the equipment housed in our Fab Labs.
— HackFest Project Team Leader, Oliver Raud
Paul Wigmore, Design and Technology teacher at West Exe School, said: “Our students had a fantastic time, mixing and learning with other schools. They particularly enjoyed working with the Fab Lab and the work with 3D printing, electronics, vinyl cutting and laser cutting.”
Dan Youlden, Science teacher at Stoke Damerel Community College said: “HackFest allowed our students to develop a range of new skills throughout a fantastic day that has created a real thirst for design and development of new concepts.”
HackFest not only provided a means of stimulating design and digital making among young people, mixing a range of skills from art, design, engineering, science and technology, but it will also bring a hugely valuable youth enterprise and entrepreneurship element to Venturefest South West, inspiring the next generation of innovators.
Following a series of preparatory workshops in Newton Abbot, Great Torrington, Plymouth and Exeter, students working in teams competed in a series of HackFest Challenge Days, competing to build the best product prototypes, in response to social issues of the future, through sustainable design and making.
Possibly the most exciting part for students was pitching their prototypes and ideas to investors, innovators and entrepreneurs, hungry to develop new talent and support tomorrow’s digital leaders.
HackFest Project Team Leader, Oliver Raud, from Plymouth College of Art, said: “We’re very pleased with the success that HackFest has met already and it has been an amazing experience watching students aged 13 to 19 coming together from across the county to learn digital skills that will help them to succeed in tomorrow’s workplace.
“Seeing this kind of digital innovation and forward thinking in the South West shows just how much our students can achieve when they’re encouraged to embrace design, creativity and new digital technologies like the equipment housed in our Fab Labs.”