Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas 

Fab Lab ICC is a regional community resource —the name is short for Fabrication Laboratory at Independence Community College, but many people say Fabulous instead of Fabrication. We are chock-full of equipment, supplies and accessories to allow people to come in and make things. There are no geographic limits and no age limits, although most youth under the age of 14 come with family, or are part of organized classes or camps. The Lab is available through a public membership program whereby individuals can learn to make almost anything using the lab’s equipment for an annual membership fee starting at a little over $100. Families, living in the same household, can belong, with access for everyone starting at about $200. We have a “sustaining” membership category for those that want to support us financially, but for one reason or another, can’t participate in lab activities. Some of our classes, like those hosted by Fab Lab Divas, do not require membership to participate. 

We belong to the International Fab Lab (IFL) network, a global association that grew out of the first Fab Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in about 2000. When we opened on October 1, 2014 we were one of about 200 Fab Labs in the world. Today there may be over 700 globally, but still relatively few in Kansas. Fab Labs are a subset of a larger and more broadly defined category; Maker Spaces. Maker Spaces don’t have to be as large as ours but some, as with one in Houston are quite large at 40,000 square feet. We occupy most of the 8,000 square foot training facility Cessna built (no longer uses and title has passed to the college) in 1996. We are preparing to break ground on an additional 8,000 square foot building that will be connected. At 16,000 square feet, we believe we will be the world’s largest Fab Lab in markets of 50,000 or fewer people. 

Early on, we discovered the psychological benefits to people learning to make things. The sense of empowerment and self-confidence that occurs as people learn to make is called self-efficacy by the psychologists. This increase in self-efficacy seems to happen in nearly everyone, regardless of age, gender, socio-economic status or any of the other ways in which we categorize people. In the beginning, our mission was “to help people make things.” Now, we see our mission as “Improving the self-efficacy of all Fab Lab ICC users.” 

We also discovered early that the self-efficacy boost is especially beneficial to entrepreneurs and small business owners struggling to start or grow small businesses. Some Fab Labs and Maker Spaces prohibit members from making things to sell or promote their businesses. Not us. We encourage members to make things on our machines they can sell to their customers. We also encourage members to use our equipment to make promotional and marketing items for their businesses. The entrepreneurs and small business owners tell us regularly of the sense of empowerment they get when they make their own signs, prototypes or marketing materials. 

For those that are so busy with their businesses that they don’t feel they can get away to do their own projects in the Lab, we have a group of entrepreneurs ready to contract with them to get their Fab Lab ICC projects finished. 

What we’ve discovered in our two and one-half years of existence is a potential for entrepreneurship combined with Fab Lab to increase the self-efficacy of a large area around Fab Lab ICC resulting in rural economic development and perhaps even the growth of populations in our small rural communities. I’ll be taking much of this message with me to a small group of rural communities in eastern Ohio in a couple of weeks. 

I don’t like the concept of “best practices” especially related to anything Fab Lab. The institution of Fab Lab is still too new for any of us in the Fab Lab business to consider what we do to be “best practices.” When we speak about these things, it’s from the perspective of telling our stories and lessons learned and letting those listening decide how they might use the information to benefit their own rural communities. We strive to become a national leader in combining entrepreneurship with the Fab Lab experience in small rural communities.