IN THE MODE.

Popped into Manchester Fab Lab this afternoon with my daughter for a poke around and a play. I hadn’t been before, but had heard good things, and after meeting our friend Alasdair for an enormous fry up at Trof we headed down there.

It’s a great place, I recommend a visit. It kind of takes you back to that childlike awesomeness of just making stuff. The place is filled with tools, materials, kit of all kind – and a huge 3D printer which was being used by some of the guys already there to prototype some interesting-looking products.

Obviously I headed straight for the machine that involved a laser.

It was hooked up to a PC that allowed you to print to it – the machine translated the design into etching or cutting sheets of acetate, depending on the line weight of your design. I wasn’t really sure where to start, so settled on a coaster. Not very imaginative I know. Kind of like the first pottery class at school where everyone ends up making an ashtray. I guess that doesn’t really happen any more. Wonder what they do now?

Anyway, it was all great fun, and I thoroughly recommend a trip down there. They run days for companies too. I’m thinking about getting our team down there for a day to make some robots or ashtrays or something. Maybe robot ashtrays.