Fab lab is a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is a workshop laboratory equipped with an array of flexible computer controlled tools and materials that enable application of innovative technologies in various fields of science and fabrication of “almost anything.” The projects implemented in fab labs are relevant to not only technological innovations and improvements, but also new business approaches and various researches in manufacturing, robotics, design, architecture, agriculture, and so on. In 2015, Ayb opened the first two fab labs, one at Ayb School in Yerevan and one at Dilijan Central School in Dilijan.
Fab lab is an exclusive program of introducing innovative and "smart" laboratories with extensive impact in Armenia, making the education applied. By joining the fab lab network, Armenia has become a part of MIT’s vast international educational network and got a chance to use the skills, knowledge and experience developed in member laboratories.
Financed by the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), Ayb obtained a license (to the value of $250,000) from MIT for two fab labs. Ayb founded two full fab labs, one on the premises of Ayb Learning Hub in Yerevan and second at the Dilijan Central School in Dilijan, thus fostering research activities and fabrication of prototypes in robotics, physics, technology, engineering and other fields, as well as providing a new research platform for young Armenian scientists.
After long-term negotiations with MIT, Ayb has acquired the complete hardware package of fab labs, which currently includes:
• Computerized laser cutting machine
• Digital regulation cutting (milling) machine, used to get large-size prototypes
• Antennas, typographical clichés, flexible circuits simulator
• 3D printers
• High performance and low cost programming tools
• Other devices and programs
After the full launch of the Ayb Learning Hub program in Yerevan, the fab lab will join the Science and Technology Center operating in the Hub. Thus, the fab lab, as an open space for experiments and innovations for any educational and scientific institution, fully complies with the Hub’s ideology, which is to turn the school campus into a crossroad of main areas and important institutions of life and society, where each person shares his experience and learns by teaching.