Would you like to be part of our team, and are there in the list of projects below one or more that interest you? This is possible as a student during the summer vacations, or on a permanent basis during the year.
Are you a graduate and/or do you have solid skills in software development (backend, frontend or computational geometry) don’t hesitate to contact us. We are always looking for such profiles!
Contact us using the form below and indicate what you are interested in. A portfolio is always welcome!
We want to offer everyone the chance to become a maker – equipped with the necessary competencies in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics) and CT (Computational Thinking).
Fablab Factory was founded in 2015, initially with the ambition of providing schools and other organizations with the infrastructure, know-how and training needed to start a fablab. As of 2019, we also had an offering specifically aimed at the context of libraries, FabLib was born! Also in 2019, we started developing an advanced digital learning platform – Learn, Make & Share, which was launched in beta at the end of 2020. With this, FabLab Factory is well on its way to becoming a software EdTech (Educational Technology) company. Fall 2021 we will launch a STEAM package for education.
If you surf to learnmakeshare.io, you can log in there as a guest.
The purpose of this LMS is to give everyone, young and old, the opportunity to acquire maker competencies. To this end, it rests on 3 pillars: Learning, Making and Sharing. In the following sections we will elaborate on this.
The developed learning material is currently focused on young people between 10 and 14 years, of course it is the intention to stretch that range completely.
Importantly, this LMS is and will remain in beta until the end of 2021.
The built-in WYSIWYG editor in Moodle uses outdated technology (literally). Going to implement a completely proprietary editor is currently impossible, as is building your own LMS. So we need to improve the existing editor. This project is phased. 1. PHASE I The first phase of this project is to clean up the editor. Specifically:
2. PHASE II At this point, the editor should already be running good, clean html, but it is therefore not yet usable. In this phase, UX is addressed by transforming the editor into a block-based editor. Concretely, the editor will indicate in real time which components you can add. The only way to add such a component is to press a button and fill in a pop-up. |
Prerequisites
|
This project is about the share part of Learn Make Share. Specifically, it will be a (stripped down) Mahara instance. It needs to be integrated not only with Moodle, but also with our ID provider and our translation server. The editor should be looked at (may be its own project) to make it as simple as possible to build your own portfolio. |
Prerequisites
Related to Proposal DESIGN4: UI/UX E-Portfolio |
In this phase, the backend of the 3DSlicer will be addressed. It will be connected to our API servers as an oauth2 client (just like the SVG editor) such that, for example, the following things become possible:
|
Prerequisites
|
Each Makercart will eventually be equipped with an IoT device to monitor the machines, among other things. Currently, this device continuously synchronizes with a (sort of) public Drive folder and offers the files to our machines. In time, of course, this will not be enough. This could be a large project, so we are working in phases: 1. PHASE I The first phase will be to connect these devices to our API servers. Specifically, authentication will be done via a machine-to-machine secret. The IoT device can then, for example, keep a websocket open with a specific endpoint or poll every so often. The IoT device will need to publish the status of the machines and usage to some sort of logging endpoint. Users with the appropriate permissions can then retrieve this information. Note that the machine does not work with personal information. For that, a simple machine-to-machine secret is not secure enough. 2. PHASE II After the second phase, it will also be possible to interface directly with the machines, provided that you are allowed to do so (based on badges, for example) and that you are connected to the local network. For that, the device will have to run a relatively small HTTP server. Now we do deal with personal data, so the external API server will also play an important role here in terms of authentication. Specifically, authentication will be done with a partially automated version of the OpenID Connect device flow. Thus, a custom client-side javascript module will also need to be developed to guide this authentication. Some examples of things that should be possible after Phase II:
|
Prerequisites
|
NO LONGER AVAILABLEWith the SVG editor, we also want to be able to generate machine code for embroidery machines. Typical file formats are .pes and .dst The generation of machine code based on a .svg file is handled serverside. Some of the features we want to implement:
|
Prerequisites
|
NO LONGER AVAILABLEWhen bitmap images are used for display on physical media through digital fabrication, they must first be converted to a so-called raster pattern. Different raster algorithms exist for this purpose:
The generation of raster images is handled serverside. Intention is to implement and further optimize different algorithms for laser cutters. |
Prerequisites
|
The built-in WYSIWYG editor in Moodle uses outdated technology (literally). Going to implement a completely proprietary editor is currently impossible, as is building your own LMS. So we need to improve the existing editor. This project is phased. 1. PHASE I The first phase in this project is to clean up the editor. Specifically:
2. PHASE II At this point, the editor should already be outputting good, clean html, but it is therefore not yet usable. In this phase, UX is addressed by transforming the editor into a block-based editor. Concretely, the editor will indicate in real time which components you can add. The only way to add such a component then is to press a button and fill in a pop-up. |
Prerequisites
|
The first phase is to restyle the 3DSlicer to our house style. The restyling must be done in such a way that we can still “cherrypick” from the main development repository with relative ease. |
Prerequisites
|
Further work on current design, add extensions and extra features. Pen-touch enablement of this application for tablets. |
Prerequisites
|
Users of the LMS will also be able to build an E-portfolio. For this we are taking inspiration from various making platforms such as Instructables and thingiverse Perhaps the backend of the system will be based on Mahara. |
Prerequisites
Related to proposal SOFTWARE2: Setting up Share section |