Adam Savage Explores MIT’s Center for Bits & Atoms and a Boston Maker Space in Tested.Com Videos Filmed on Tour Sponsored by Chevron, The Fab Foundation
BOSTON, MA (PRWEB) July 11, 2017 -- Viewers get a look inside two innovation spaces in Boston along with renowned digital designer and maker, Adam Savage, with the debut of two video series on his website Tested.com. The Fab Foundation and Chevron sponsored the events.
The visits are part of a national tour that celebrates the impact of digital fabrication and making in education and youth development, business and entrepreneurship, and invention. They feature cutting edge tools for invention and interactive demonstrations from participants at labs, reflecting diversity in people and place.
Partners seek to expand awareness of the power of new tools, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, CAD design and robotics. “My time exploring in Boston was amazing,” Savage said.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Bits & Atoms (CBA), Savage talked with director Prof. Neil Gershenfeld about the future of digital fabrication and innovation. Gershenfeld, who's been called the intellectual father of the maker movement, took Savage on a tour of CBA's unique facility for making and measuring things on length scales ranging from molecules to buildings, and showed him stages in their research roadmap leading from machines that make machines up to Star Trek-style replicators.
“At MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, my friend Neil Gershenfeld showed me the future of making, which includes some astounding machines that I had no idea even existed. Truly our robotic overlords can be found at MIT,” Savage said.
This visit provided an opportunity for Savage to see not just the origin but also the future of the global network of now over 1000 community fab labs initiated by CBA.
The tour also included the nonprofit Makerspace, Artisans Asylum, in Somerville, MA. That 40,000 sq. ft. community fabrication center has tools and equipment local residents can use to make items, from robots to jewelry. Its classes and speaker series are open to the public, feature local artisans and are underwritten with support through donations, volunteers and partners.
“At Artisan's Asylum I not only saw some amazing art (a piece of which I bought), I poured molten metal for the first time,” Savage added.
Savage is an internationally renowned television producer, special effects designer/fabricator, host, maker and public speaker whose model work has appeared in major films, such as Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones and The Matrix Reloaded.
The former cohost of Discovery Channel television series MythBusters and producer of Tested.com has partnered with Chevron and the Fab Foundation for the national tour of fab labs and maker spaces.
“Boston’s collection of amazing colleges & universities, and unique place in American history makes it a key player in the nation’s innovation conversation. Home to our Fab Lab network, it was essential for Adam’s tour to stop here,” said The Fab Foundation’s Chief Implementation Officer, Sonya Pryor-Jones.
The Boston visits occurred on May 16, 2017. Other tour stops include The Bay Area, Pittsburgh, Austin, Boston, Detroit and New Orleans.
A Fab Lab is a carefully curated digital fabrication laboratory comprised of off-the-shelf, industrial-grade design, fabrication and electronics tools, wrapped in open source software and supported by programs written by researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits & Atoms. This platform for learning and innovation is a place to play, create, learn, mentor and invent—while joining and engaging with a global community of learners, educators, technologists, researchers, makers and innovators. There are 1100 labs in more than 100 countries.
The Fab Foundation was formed in 2009 to facilitate and support the growth of the international fab lab network as well as the development of regional capacity-building organizations.
It is a U.S. nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization that emerged from MIT’s Center for Bits & Atoms Fab Lab Program. The Foundation’s mission is to provide access to the tools, knowledge and financial means to educate, innovate and invent using technology and digital fabrication to allow anyone to make (almost) anything, and thereby creating opportunities to improve lives and livelihoods around the world.
Contact: Sonya Pryor Jones
The Fab Foundation
http://fabfoundation.org
info(at)fabfoundation(dot)org
Becky Gaylord, The Fab Foundation, http://www.fabfoundation.org, +1 (216) 970-7185, [email protected]
Share this article