Fab-in-a-Box: Making Fabrication Accessible to More People

At the 3DEXPERIENCE 2025 conference, the Fab-in-a-Box project was announced on main stage and showcased in the EDU zone. Fab-in-a-Box is an initiative spearheaded by the Fab Foundation to provide "a low-cost, high-impact, digital fabrication kit for education". 

Last week, we were at the MIT Media Lab to help support a beta test of the unit and lesson plans with a few high school students. The session introduced the students to xDesign and guided them in designing and fabricating custom gliders. They were able to work with the lesson plan and predefined templates designed by our very own @S. The students designed in xDesign, laser cut their components, and tested their creations in an outdoor test flight. Then they evaluated their design, iterated in xDesign, and tested their adjustments again in a second test flight. It was fun observing how the students interacted with the instructor, the software, and the devices in the Fab-in-the-Box setup. 

Introduction to the lesson
Designing in xDesign
Learning how to use the laser cutter
Flight Test #1