---
title: MDEF 22/23 - Syllabus Digital Prototyping for Design (DPD)
Autors: Eduardo Chamorro, Santi Fuentemilla, Victor Barberán
---

###### tags: `MDEF` `FabAcademy` `FLU`

[TOC]

# Syllabus DPD: Digital Prototyping for Design 2022-2023

### Faculty (Instructors)
- Victor Barberán Soler: <[e-mail]>
- Santiago Fuentemilla: <[e-mail]>
- Eduardo Chamorro: <[e-mail]>
- Josep Martí: <[e-mail]>
- Óscar González: <[e-mail]>
- Petra Garajova: <[e-mail]>


## Syllabus and Learning Objectives

Advanced manufacturing, rapid prototyping and new design methodologies are not only changing how we work, live and play but reshaping the processes and interactions in the cities and sociecities. The introduction of those processes into the design and industry fields are changing the paradigm on how we conceive the actual society and its production methods. This new mediation between the old knowledge and new techniques is making the process as important as the end work, all becoming a whole.

During this 2 term course (2&3), students learn how to envision, prototype and document their projects and ideas through many hours of hands-on experience with digital fabrication tools, taking a variety of code formats and turning them into physical objects.The program provides advanced digital fabrication instruction for students through an unique, hands-on curriculum and access to technological tools and resources.

### Learning Objectives

**The goal of DIGITAL PROTOTYPING FOR DESIGN** is to combine the concepts and practices of digital fabrication & prototyping electronices with the objectives of the MDEF course in a meaningful way to develop student research projects.

A core aim is to empower students with hands-on prototyping in the Fab Lab environment, unlocking technological ‘black boxes’ to create a deeper understanding of technology in designing for emergent futures.

### Metodology

The program apply [Fab Academy](https://fabacademy.org/) mindset and set of skills, but applying new methodologies such as **"challenges**", redistributing the impact of weekly hours and adding new assessment criteria.

The instructional design of the course has two fundamental assumptions, individual reflection tasks for each weekly topic, and monthly intensive maker-sprint in the form of “**micro-challenges**”. Students work in small groups to develop week-long projects applying knowledge and skills from the previous Fab Academy topics with concepts related to MDEF and their research projects, aimed to bridge the gap that has existed between these two courses and demonstrating the competencies acquired.

The challenges combine four weekly cycles into one intense project-based fabrication sprint. Therefore, the objective is to combine the skills and knowledge acquired throughout the weeks prior to the challenge in order to ideate a small project that is connected to their personal interests and individual or collective interventions. The students have to use the technology and equipment available and focus on the specific skills they have already acquired during the past weeks. This is set as a primary goal to foster the students’ capacity to design and conceptualize their projects with the tools and skills they might have available, without limiting the possibilities of what they could achieve. In addition, the challenges align with the MDEF design studio in an effort to connect each challenge topic to the current status of the design interventions of the students. As mentioned before, the intention is to weave the two courses together in order to enhance both for the benefit of the students' projects. The design studio provides a critical context in relation to the technologies developed during Fab Academy, and in return the Fab Academy course yields the skills and knowledge to help physicalize these concepts.


## Weekly Schedule

* Master Classes: This classes are given every two weeks on Wednesday and Thursdays from 10 Am to 13.00 Pm (CET time) for two weeks in a row.
* Lab life: In addition to the lectures, there are 2 lab days each week where students have access the digital fabrication equipment and personal help with projects.Fabrication time through booking system,this happens every Tuesday and Friday
* Challenge week: intensive timeframe for a week (Tuesday to Friday) where students will combine the knowledge gained in the previous classes.

## Structure and Phase

:::info
The following timetable is provisional and may undergo modifications and adaptations during the course.
:::

**1 Block of Master classes**

* 01/02/23 - Basic electronics & Coding
* 02/02/23 - 2D Design tools (parametric design)
* 08/02/23 - 2D Fabrication (Laser, vinyl)
* 09/02/23 - Inputs / Outputs
* 14/02/23 - **First Challenge** (Intellectual property)

**2 Block of Master classes**
* 08/03/23 - Networking
* 09/03/23 - 3D Scanning - 3D softwares
* 15/03/23 - Interfaces and machine interactions
* 16/03/23 - CNC
* 21/03/23 - **Second Challenge** (Intellectual property)

**3 Block of Master classes**
* 26/04/23 - TBD - Advance Design
* 27/04/23 - Interfaces
* 03/05/23 - Wildcard week
* 04/05/23 - TBD - Coding
* 21/03/23 - **Final Challenge** (Intellectual property)


## Materials Needs
All materials needed for the course will be provided by the faculty. The students are required to bring to the classes their own students toolkit and the programming boards given to them at the start of the academic year, other development boards, sensors and actuators will be provided during the classes. Bring in your laptop with the proper software installed prior to the class if required (emails will be sent prior to the classes regarding this aspect).

## Output
Each student builds a portfolio on their respective websites that documents their mastery of different certificates taken individually along each week and their integration into a final, larger project, related to their masters thesis development.

**The DESIGN FOR PROTOTYPING COURSE is PASSED by growth progress rather than a global goal, for successful completion of each weekly assignment and challenge is a must.**

## Grading Method
- **Only the documentation into their webpages will be taken in account for evaluation**
- The weekly standarts and grading will be presented in each weekly assignment. During the master class.
- Prototyping process understanding ,workflows and evolving best practices will seriously be taken in account.

#### Academic level - 40%
*Level of the project (quality and complexity of the designed prototype/code/artifacts)*

* Initial idea / Concept of the Project ( aligned to research areas)
* Propose (What is supposed to do or not to do)
* Shown how your team planned and executed the project. (Explain personal contributions)
* System diagram (illustration explaining function, parts, and relations)
* Integrated Design (How you designed it - relation between elements)
* Honest Design (use of technology in a meaningful way, in relation to the topics)
* Be creative (find solutions with materials and technology you have)
* Explore design boundaries (based on your expertise)

#### Replicability - 35%
*Level of clarity and detail of the documentation material (photos, video, text, etc)*

* How did you fabricate it (fabrication processes and materials)
* Design & Fabrication files (open source or open format)
* BOM (Build of Materials)
* Listed future development opportunity for this project
* Iteration Process (spiral development)
* Described problems and how the team solved them
* Photographies of the end artifacts
* Add names and links to your individual pages
* Linked to your individual pages

#### Attitude - 20%
*Involvement, Motivation level, proactive behaviors*

* Attendance to classes
* Proactive behaviours to find answers during the challenge
* Help others student’s projects
* Participation in feedbacks sessions
* Dealing with uncertainty
* Don’t be afraid to make mistakes ( going out of your confort zone)

#### Explosion - 5 %
*Bonus if your artifact doesn´t explode and actually works as expected*

#### IAAC Grading System:
• 0 - 4.9 Fail (submission of a supplementary work before the 1st term finish)
• 5.0 -6.9 Pass
• 7.0 - 8.9 Good
• 9.0 - 10 Excellent/Distinction.

*Attendance and completion of submissions are mandatory, students failing to submit or not being present to at least 75% of the classes, without justification included in IAAC Terms & Conditions, will fail. Students who submit after the deadlines defined by the faculty and coordination will be subject to penalty and the grade will be automatically lowered to a máx of 5.0. Incomplete submission is considered a missing submission.*

### Background Research Material
- [Links compilation](https://fabl.ink/)
- [Fab 15 Conference](https://fab15.fabevent.org/)
- [FAB Labs Community (fablabs.io)](https://www.fablabs.io/labs)
- [Academany](http://docs.academany.org/)
- [Inventory](https://docs.google.com/a/fablabbcn.org/spreadsheets/d/1U-jcBWOJEjBT5A0N84IUubtcHKMEMtndQPLCkZCkVsU/pub?single=true&gid=0&output=html)
- [Fab Foundation](https://fabfoundation.org/)
- [SCOPES DF Project](https://www.scopesdf.org/)
- [Fab Event](https://fabevent.org/)
- [Fabacademy](http://fabacademy.org/)
- [Fab Academy Staff](https://gitlab.fabcloud.org/academany/fabacademy/2019/staff)
- [Jobs](http://jobs.fabeconomy.com/)

## Faculty Professional BIOS

### Santiago Fuentemilla
Santiago Fuentemilla Garriga , with Master of Architecture from the University of la Salle Universitat Ramon LLull , Spain, as a specialist in Architectural Design and Construction. In 2012 he graduated from the FabAcademy Diploma at FabLab BCN, a digital fabrication and rapid prototyping course directed by Neil Gershenfeld at MIT ́s Center For Bits and Atoms (CBA). Currently, he is undertaking a PHD in digital fabrication processes at the EGA UPC (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya). As a professional Santi has worked in various architectural firms carrying out projects at the international level in the last 10 years. He is currently the design director at OPR (Other people’s Rooms) in Barcelona, a multidisciplinary studio based on architectural concept design for enhanced user experiences. Since 2013 he is part of the Fab Lab BCN team, he is the coordinator of the Future Learning Unit (FLU), the unit focused on the design, implementation and coordination of active learning experiences with digital manufacturing tools for the community. FLU designs and promotes educational, innovation and entrepreneurship projects such as AmbMakers POPUPLAB "Digital Fabrication Everywhere", FABKIDS, CROCOPOI. FLU participates in European research projects such as DOIT or DSISCALE and PHALABS 4.0. Since 2014 he is Fab Instructor of the global academic program Fab Academy and since 2017 he is professor of the Master in Design for Emergent Futures
MDEF organized by IAAC.

### Eduardo Chamorro

Eduardo Chamorro is an architectural technologist, additive manufacturing expert and researcher, focusing on digital fabrication, materials, robotics and emerging technologies.

He is currently a PhD candidate at Swinburne University (Melbourne, Australia) in High performance composites additive manufacturing for architecture.
Works as faculty and researcher at FabLab Barcelona & IAAC (Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) in Barcelona, Spain as faculty in the Master in Design for Emergent Futures (MDEF), Master for Advanced Architecture (MAA), Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings (MAEB), 3D Printing in Architecture (3DPA), FabAcademy at IAAC FabLab Barcelona. For him, working in a multi-scalar environment must be the priority of architects nowadays. His research focuses on the implementation of additive manufacturing technologies along different architectural scales imaging multiple processes and materialities.

Eduardo holds a Master's Degree in Architecture from CEU San Pablo University (Spain), a Fab Academy diploma in Digital Fabrication offered by the Fab Lab Network and a Master's Degree in Advanced Architecture from IAAC (Spain), with a specialisation in digital fabrication, materiality novel design methodologies. He holds as well a Spanish architectural licence.
Moreover, he has worked as Fab Lab Seoul director, researcher at several architecture studios, professor of computational design and fabrication at CEU University and advisor for various architecture collectives. He is also a regular collaborator at Fab Lab Madrid. He is always seeking innovative architecture that attempts to solve and adapt to social needs. He has also been a tutor for the Master of Science in Computational and Advanced Design (MSc CAD) at Design Morphine - UACEG (University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy).

### Víctor Barberán Soler

Víctor Barberán is an Industrial Designer with more than 20 years of experience developing custom technology for multidisciplinary art and science projects. Throughout his career, Victor Barberán has worked in electronics design, software development, data analysis, modelling and animation, and digital postproduction. Currently, Victor works as part of the Fab Lab Barcelona as a software and hardware developer in multiple research projects, such as the Smart Citizen project. He is also the Electronics lead for the Fabricademy, Fab Academy and the Masters of Design for Emergent Futures program.

### Óscar González

Óscar González is an Industrial Engineer based in Barcelona with expertise related to data analysis, testing and calibration, through his experience in the field of automotive and sensor development. He has worked for more than six years in the automotive industry for Delphi Ltd. and Nissan Motor Corp.
As well, he has developed projects in the arts as part of a residency program in Fabra i Coats (Barcelona), collaborated with artists developing technology as well as light design for dance shows.
Currently, Óscar works as part of the Fab Lab Barcelona team doing research and development within the Smart Citizen project and is an instructor at the Fabacademy program.

### Josep Martí

Josep Martí is an Industrial Engineer from Barcelona. Josep started his career as a BI consultant but decided to change his professional path graduating from Fabacademy in 2019. Since then, he has taught digital fabrication, design and electronics in the Fablab, being part of the Future Learning Unit teaching in Fabacademy, Fabricademy and the Master in Design in Emergent futures. Recently, he started his path as a researcher in Erasmus+ projects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology Engineering and a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering, specialising in Automatic Control, both from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and the Fabacademy diploma. He has always been interested in the Maker culture and is always looking to learn and create new things.

### Petra Garajova

Petra is a Slovak designer with a background in architecture, exploring the boundaries of material science, digital manufacturing and textiles. Currently she is working in Fab Lab Barcelona as a Fabricademy Local Instructor and assisting with educational programs such as FabAcademy and Master in Design for Emergent Futures (MDEF).
Her main interest arises from biology and waste materials which lie on the borders of various artistic disciplines. Nowadays, she is also a co-founder of the Experimental Design platform which is using fashion as a tool to reshape the connection between nature, soft materials and the human body using new technologies.
Petra holds a Master's degree in Arts and Architecture at the Academy of Arts Architecture and Design in Prague. After her architectural studies she graduated from Fabricademy - Textile and Technology Academy in Fab Lab Barcelona IAAC. During her studies she was part of Shemakes.eu European project as an Ambassador between Fab Lab Barcelona and TextileLab Iceland working on the Lab to Lab project - Rethinking Wool. Her Fabricademy final project was awarded the Young Scientist Award 2022.