Design Your Own Future: Supporting Networked Design Expertise

MakerSpaces和Fab Labs是开放的、公众可访问的研讨会，为人们提供尖端的工具和技术（数字和模拟），他们可以使用这些工具和技术来完成设计项目。这些网站通常是作为集体经营，与捐赠或购买的设备。就像公共图书馆服务于教育资源匮乏的公众一样，MakerSpaces和Fab Labs通过提供关于设计和制造技能的非正式培训和知识交流，为人们提供了获取资源的机会，这些资源对于人们来说过于昂贵，无法随时拥有自己并采取行动来提高社区的技能。随着“智能物体”变得越来越普遍，开发、设计和修补“物联网”设备的潜力变得越来越日常，也越来越复杂，因为参与的技术障碍会越来越大（可以理解，用数字技术DIY对公众来说似乎更难）。随着人们有可能制造自己的技术，并修改和定制他们拥有的现有技术，MakerSpaces和Fab Labs将越来越多地在支持人们进行这些活动方面发挥主导作用。然而，我们对这些网站如何运作良好或不好，以及我们如何使用数字化工具来支持“开放设计”或知识交流的过程，在其中设计的理解是在社区之间共享的。因此，我们需要实地考察这些网站，并对其进行研究。与此同时，制造业将越来越接近消费者，按需印刷，快速生产和个性化/定制。这是一个很好的机会来探索开放设计平台（基于网络的技术）如何在制造商中循环，使他们能够成为设计社区中设计技能的消费者（设置挑战并联合或“众包”他们的设计和创新需求）。而且，至关重要的是，反馈给这些社区和设计集体，以提供对设计过程和技术的更深入的理解，从而提高公众的技能，创造一个更了解设计的群体。因此，我们需要花时间与制造商交谈和合作，了解他们对“开放设计”过程的看法，并利用这些知识和我们与MakerSpaces社区的合作，共同设计一个新的基于网络的“开放设计”平台原型，然后我们可以与制造商和设计社区进行试验。该项目还将致力于了解如何将新的社区带入-设计活动的折叠，减少参与设计空间的障碍。这将通过制作一个简单的移动的Fab Lab来实现，该实验室可以在学校等地点之间巡回，向新的受众展示MakerSpace的工具和技术，并培养对“开放设计”过程的更广泛兴趣。

MakerSpaces and Fab Labs are open, publicly-accessible workshops, which provide people with access to cutting-edge tools and technologies (both digital and analogue), which they can use for completing design projects. These sites are commonly run as collectives, with equipment gifted or purchased from donations. Much as public libraries serve to educate a resource-impoverished public, MakerSpaces and Fab Labs provide access to resources too expensive for people to readily own themselves and act to up-skill a community, by providing informal training and knowledge exchange for, and about, design and manufacturing skills. As 'smart objects' become more commonplace the potential for developing, designing and tinkering with 'Internet-of-Things' enabled devices becomes more everyday and yet more complicated, as there will be greater technical barriers to participation (DIY with digital technologies seems understandably harder for the general public). As it becomes possible for people to make their own technologies, and to modify and customise existing ones that they own, MakerSpaces and Fab Labs will increasingly lead the way in supporting people to do just these activities.However, we understand relatively little about how these sites work well, or badly, and about how we can use digital tools to support processes of 'open design' or knowledge exchange, in which design understanding is shared amongst communities. Consequently, we need to go and visit these sites to study them, in situ.Alongside this, manufacturing will increasingly come closer to the consumer, with print-on-demand, rapid production and personalization / customization. There is a great opportunity to explore how open design platforms (web-based technologies) might loop in manufacturers, such that they can become consumers of design skills amongst design communities (setting challenges and federating or 'crowd-sourcing' their design and innovation requirements). But also, crucially, feeding back in to these communities and design collectives, to provide deeper understanding about design processes and techniques, thereby up-skilling the public to create a more design-informed population. Consequently, we need to spend time talking to and working with manufacturers to understand their perspectives on processes of 'open design' and to use both this knowledge and our work with communities in MakerSpaces to co-design a new prototype web-based 'open design' platform, which we can then trial with manufacturers and design communities.The project will also work to understand how new communities of people can be brought in-to-the-fold of design activity, reducing the barriers to participation in design spaces. This will be done through the production of a simple Mobile Fab Lab, which can be toured between sites, such as schools, exposing new audiences to the tools and technologies of the MakerSpace, and fostering a broader interest in processes of 'open design'.