Abstract
Los laboratorios de fabricación digital (FabLab) son una realidad que presenta nuevas oportunidades a los usuarios y consumidores de convertirse en diseñadores y creadores de objetos de uso cotidiano. Concebidos en el MIT a principios de este siglo, como entornos de desarrollo de proyectos con componentes digitales han sufrido un crecimiento espectacular en los últimos años. El movimiento FabLab, en parte debido a su juventud y a cierto alejamiento de los circuitos académicos al estar más relacionado con la cultura Maker y el movimiento Open-Source, ha sido poco estudiado formalmente. El presente trabajo plantea un acercamiento a dicho movimiento mediante el uso de una metodología mixta que permite identificar las dimensiones relevantes en este movimiento y definir las preguntas de investigación a las que dar respuesta en posteriores investigaciones.
Highlights
At the beginning of this century, Professor Neil Gershenfeld of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) considers that his course called “How to Make Anything” in the CBA (Center for Bits and Atoms) presents certain limitations to students, since these can learn to design their own objects, but they cannot have them physically in their hands
Gershenfeld manages to create a digital fabrication laboratory, the first FabLab, which would be followed by many others spread around the world
Other fabrication laboratories followed this first FabLab at MIT: Boston in 2001, Costa Rica, India and Ghana in 2003 and the first FabLab in Europe, built at Lyngen, Norway
Summary
We present a research design based on Mixed Methods with the development of an exploratory sequential strategy (S-QUAL → quan) (Creswell, 2014) that allows the construction of a tool of use in quantitative terms, using different sources, data collection and qualitative analysis with the support of Grounded Theory (Glaser, 2008). The present work shows the use of qualitative methodologies in the first phase of our analysis: focus groups, events attendance and semi-structured personal interviews, with the aim of achieving an approach to the FabLab movement that allows us to identify their relevant dimensions and define the research questions to be answered in future investigations.
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