Education and projects at Fab Lab Oulu

There are many courses utilizing Fab Lab Oulu premises, specially from Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Technology and Faculty of Education. University teachers are welcome to utilize Fab Lab premises, machines, and processes in their own courses. If you are teaching a course at the University of Oulu and you do not know how you can access our premises do not hesitate to ask.

Our educational portfolio includes these seven university courses:

• Principles of Digital Fabrication (5ECTS, ITEE Faculty, Georgi Georgiev) This course is an introductory course open to any university student no matter their background. It serves as initialization to main Fab Lab processes. The course is held at Fab Lab Oulu between March and May.
• Fab Lab Project Management (5ECTS, Fab Lab Oulu, Jani Ylioja)
  
  Introductory course where most basic Fab Lab processes (including CAD design and laser cutting) are taught. This course also provides information on how you should document your project in a Fab Lab way. The course teaches the basics for the rest of Fab Lab courses.
• Fab Lab Electronics (5ECTS, Fab Lab Oulu, Jani Ylioja)
  
  This course teaches students on how to design and fabricate different type of circuits at Fab Lab, and how to integrate sensors and actuators in a PCB.
• Fab Lab Project Programming (5ECTS, Fab Lab Oulu, Jani Ylioja)
  
  Students learn how to implement programs for embedded boards, how to communicate with other devices, and how to visualize information in other devices.
• Fab Lab Digital Fabrication (5ECTS, Fab Lab Oulu, Jani Ylioja)
  
  This course teaches students how to use different Fab Lab equipment and processes, including a 3D printer, a CNC router and a CNC precission milling machine.
• Fab Lab Project Work (5ECTS, Fab Lab Oulu, Jani Ylioja)
  
  During this course students need to develop two different projects (one group and one individual). To that end they should combine knowledge from other Fab Lab courses.

In addition, students of Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Technology may get a grant to participate in Fab Academy.

Fab Academy is a 6-month international and distributed training program that teaches principles and applications of digital fabrication using a hands-on approach. Participants acquire a diversity of skills, like:

• Web development
• Project management
• 2D and 3D computer-aided design
• Electronics design and production
• 3D printing
• Laser cutting
• Embedded programming

More than 80 Fab Labs all around the world participate in Fab Academy. The program is open to everybody.

This page updates constantly to showcase the most interesting projects done at Fab Lab Oulu. All our projects can be found on our Gitlab Group. All projects in our Gitlab are open-source.

If you are involved in a project with Fab Lab Oulu, you can also showcase your project here. You have to provide the source files in a GIT repository and specify the license.

• Fab Lab Oulu Scheduler: Git hub files repository (fab-lab-scheduler), the online system: http://fablab.virtues.fi/fablab/
• Interface glove for Blender: Git hub files repository (virtual-fablab)
• Fab Lab Oulu in Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/fab-lab-oulu
• Monnibox, a game controller made at Fablab: https://github.com/enkwolf/monnibox
• Fabbable Measurement Devices: http://jani.fabcloud.io/FabMeasure/
• Vinyl roll stand: https://gitlab.com/fab-lab-oulu/vinyl-roll-stand
• Urumbu driver board with DRV8428P: https://gitlab.com/fab-lab-oulu/DRV8428P-D11C-NEMA17
• Boards and programming for Seeed Studio XIAO Series: https://gitlab.fabcloud.org/academany/fabacademy/2023/labs/oulu/instructors-projects/-/tree/main/

• 2015: Jani Ylioja
• 2016: Antti Mäntyniemi, Dorina Rajanen, Juha-Pekka Mäkelä
• 2017: Eino Antikainen, Iván Sánchez Milara, Jari Pakarinen, Nataliya Schevchuk, Yriö Louhisalmi, Mikko Toivonen
• 2018: Marta Cortés Orduña, Heidi Hartikainen, Behnaz Norouzi, Kati Pitkänen, Jari Uusitalo, Peetu Virkkala, Ari Vuokila, Megumi Iwata
• 2019: Jobin Varghese, Gleb Bulygin, Marjo Leinonen, Perttu Piirainen, Sahan Sandeepa Wickramaarachchi, alok sethi, Michael Oduor, Yasir Shafiullah, Lukasz Surazynski, Arash Sattari
• 2020: Achille Gakwaya, Anssi Heikkinen, Noora Nyberg, Tatiana Avsievich, Xinhui Hu, Yazan A M Barhoush, Zhengya Gong
• 2021: Kenichi Komatsu, Mona Peyvasteh
• 2022: Antero Metso, John Story

• Fab Lab 4 Schools
  
  Ivan Sanchez Milara's project introducing Fab Lab to schools.
  
  
• STEAM in Oulu
  
  STEAM in Oulu was initiated by Iván Sánchez Milara and Kati Pitkänen, in collaboration with the City of Oulu (coordinated by Arto Niva and Paula Vorne), with the goal of bringing digital fabrication to formal learning environments. STEAM in Oulu is becoming a network of schools, Fab Labs, and University researchers aiming to spread STEAM education among participating schools. Fab Lab Oulu has participated by training teachers in digital fabrication processes and pedagogies, as well as coordinating the work among different local schools and disseminating the work that has been done. More information on the STEAM in Oulu website.
  
  
• Make4Change (Tehdään Muutos)
  
  Make4Change is a three-year project, funded by the European Social Fund, which aims to strengthen the employability of citizens of Oulu through Digital Fabrication and Making. Through a series of thematic workshops we expect to bridge the digital divide and to provide participants with skills and competences which are required by the local industry. Workshop is run by researchers from "Center for Ubiquitous Computing", "Interact Research Unit" and "Fab Lab Oulu". More information on the project's website.

• Olimex-Arduino tutorial: Olimex AVR-MT128 is a development board that can be used basics on embedded programming. It includes LCD, buttons and some sensors. We have plenty of them at Fab Lab.
• Introduction to embroidery with Bernina
• Tutorial on how to create a UPDI programmer using Arduino IDE
• Tutorial on how to build VR glasses at Fab Lab

You can find more tutorials at our Fab Lab Oulu Youtube channel