---
title: The Almost Useful Machine
page_type: course
track:
course_type:
feature_img: /assets/images/2020-21/t-1/almost-useful-machine.jpg
img_caption: 
faculty: 
    - santiago-fuentemilla
    - eduardo-chamorro
    - xavi-dominguez
    - josep-marti
    - guillem-camprodon
    - oscar-gonzalez
    - victor-barberan
    - mikel-llobera
---

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## Syllabus

Fab Labs and advanced manufacturing infrastructure are making accessible for any citizen to make anything anywhere while sharing it with global networks of knowledge, which allows accelerating design, development, and deployment processes for new products to be born. Traditional planning and urbanism are being disrupted by the acceleration of technology and the dynamic transformation of society during the last half-century; it is important to rethink how we make things and why, and generate active and practical conversations through projects and prototypes that become manifests itself.

 [TAUMs](https://hackmd.io/TdLbzvcbTrm8HG6xkYFNeg#The-Almost-Useful-Machines-Weeks---TAUMs) is a practical and intensive two-weeks experimental program into fabrication and introduction to the Fab Lab environment. It has been designed to fill knowledge gaps and aimed to prepare students to succeed and improve their experience during Fab Academy.

We will be going over the basic skills needed to design, develop, and fabricate almost anything in a Fab Lab, as well as how to manage time and resources necessary for its proper operation.

Our active learning methodology is based on the practice and **spiral development**, designed to encourage the creativity and imagination of the participants, as well as stimulate the search for tools and solutions for their correct definition.

We will offer an impact experience, seeking to inspire and motivate the participants to use the possibilities of digital manufacturing and technologies to prototype, design, fabricate and program **an “honest” mechanical artifact that “makes” something.**

**USELESS MACHINES**

As existential purity, building a machine that doesn´t have a clear purpose as fabricating something or solve world problems allows the designer to focus on mechanics and movements allowing more freedom to really simplify actuation forgetting about constraints.

The metaphor of machines and artifacts doing endless predefined or random movements is what we call Useless Machines.

Students will develop and fabricate something that is a mess of contradictions and wonderfulness.

**UNPACKING INTELLIGENT MACHINES**

An introduction to physical computing by hacking everyday objects

We spend our lives interacting with objects and interfaces whose underlying technology we hardly understand not merely due to their complexity but also because they were intended to be closed by design.

Through the idea of hacking, we will explore the internal components building everyday objects, from coffee machines to wi-fi networks, while learning how to use open software and hardware tools to change the way they work and interface with the world.

## Deliverables

“Honest” mechanical artifact (1 input and/or 1 outputs + 2 differents fabrication process)

## Additional Resources

[Background Research Material](https://hackmd.io/TdLbzvcbTrm8HG6xkYFNeg#Background-Research-Material)

## Faculty

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