Abstract

Digital fabrication laboratories (FabLabs) influence how we think, ideate, do, make, and create. To enable the full capacity of materialization of the most creative ideas in the FabLab, a fundamental understanding of the processes in the FabLab is required. To accomplish this, we propose a framework for dynamically and ubiquitously capturing human-human (team) interactions, human-tool/machine interactions, and human-design-object interactions in the complex scenarios that occur in the paradigm of making in FabLabs. The framework elaborates three methods. The first method produces categories of creative spaces about activities and users in the FabLab. The second method identifies interactions between users and tools, and between users. Last, the third method identifies in-depth cognitive and thinking types of makers in the FabLab. The proposed framework can improve creative results and experiences of all stakeholders in the making process in the FabLab, and provide easy customization of the FabLab training for different audiences.