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About

About openlab:

OpenLab is the world's first fully documented multidisciplinary engineering lab, bridging university-grade academics with real-world industrial expertise. My goal is to create the ultimate "model lab" by openly sharing the exact tools, supplies, and methods needed for everything from traditional fabrication to modern robotics. Through this open accessibility, learners can easily find answers, and experts can offer feedback to continuously refine the art of prototyping.

  • image, irridescent paint trial
  • image, lighting choice
  • image, engine trial with propane

Above, find sample projects from painting to lighting to combustion engines. In 2025 several projects were aimed at building the lab infrastructure such as choosing good lighting and arranging them. (This lamp is installed inverted to reduce harsh shadows). The painting trials get us repeatable methodologies to make designs look how we want. And the engine photo shows a brand new (March '26) trial for operating a small engine on propane, with details to be shared soon. Some designs enhance the lab itself and all the enhancements drive towards repeatable, accessible engineering technology.

panoramic photo

It's a collection of tools, processes, and even CAD designs for building a great robotics lab. The focus is for hands-on designers & researchers of mechatronics, often giving way to robotics.

Note from David: I'll document several assets from the setup of our SCUTTLE Robotics development lab for others to get ideas & methods to enhance their labs around the world.

banner image

Want a Tour?

Click here or open the tour tab on the navigation menu. From February 2025, contents will be expanding with ongoing updates.

Deeper Purpose What's the big idea - why put so much effort into documenting a laboratory? I expect most readers are here to find instructions mentioned in a youtube video, to check what machine I used to design an open model, or discover relevant tools for building & engineering prototypes. But if you're here to change the world, take a look at the notes on purpose, or download the notes PDF and have a look.

  • lab purpose doc1
  • lab purpose doc 2
  • lab purpose doc 3

Projects++

These are related projects which offer design examples, highly advised components, and knowledge for designing & building

Processes

What processes are supported?

Processes The lab supports engineering, prototyping, fabrication, and evaluation, and documentation.

  • Engineering - evaluate a benchmark system, with space and tools to dismantle a machine, inspect and measure (weights, dimensions, colors, standards), photograph parts. Then sketch designs, build CAD models, retrieve data online, tabulate plans mathematically.
  • Prototyping - cut materials, access standard components, make permanent bonds, adjust material fit and finish, apply colors & textures, create airtight and watertight seals, generate custom CAD parts, fasten assemblies, clamp & shape materials.
  • Fabrication - form raw materials into parts, metals, wood, polymers, springs, seals, fasteners, adjustment of dimensions, fitment of mated parts.
  • Evaluation - measure features in size, shape, tolerance, hardness, rigidity of assemblies, apply loads, apply pressure, tension, twisting, compression & measure deflections, leaks, stress & strain.
  • Documentation - convert information to written form, publish models online, create manuals, add performance data to designs, create tutorials, metadata for photographs, publish tables, post videos, structure PDFs, refine file sizes, post online writeups, gain feedback globally.

Materials

  • woodwork: primarily for building fixtures
  • metalwork: several processes for metal fab, without CNC machines
  • 3D printing: all my best practices for 3D printing prototypes, even those suited for scaling
  • paint & polish: make things the way they should look

Glossary

  • AM - additive manufacturing. More modern manufacturing methods, including 3D printing, CNC laser cutting, and other processes which are driven by a fully digital control scheme.
  • analytical - systematic & logic-based computational methods with repeatable solutions, for operating in a problem space with known parameters and limited inputs & ranges of inputs.
  • CAD - computer aided design. the process of drawing our 3D models on a computer or the product of this effort. STL files, STEP files, or Solidworks files are examples of CAD models.
  • deterministic - having an output that can be logically traced & repeated. Having no possibility of an unpredictable outcome and having an outcome that can be analytically traced to a set of inputs.
  • DFM - design for manufacturing. The expertise area and actions relating to integrating manufacturing processes into the design process.
  • discrete - having defined boundaries between values. The opposite of continuous. Digital signals have discrete values (ie 1 or 0 or integer values) while analog signals have continuous values.
  • edge device - a communicating wireless device on the edge of a network, such as a mobile phone or a wireless MCU. The term edge refers to a network diagram, where the center of the network is the cloud, with servers and heavy computing systems.
  • eval - evaluation, the parts of design that relate to testing, measuring, and development of targets. eval can be part of a research stage in a project and also part of the development stage.
  • FOOST - fear of open source technology; the tendency of a business-minded individual to allow assumptions about technology to guide their interactions towards ignorant rejection of opportunities.
  • heat transfer - a specific area of thermodynamics covering energy movement in the form of heat and measurable temperature gradients.
  • heuristic - adjective for computational methods that approximate a solution or operate on a representative dataset, as opposed to analytical methods which form precise repeatable solutions.
  • inclusion - in a given design, elements that are not inventions of the designer but existing designs that become part of the presented design.
  • IoT - internet of things. Usually referring to the collection of edge devices which did not exist in the internet in the pre-2000 stage, and now are connecting by the millions or billions.
  • multidisciplinary engineering - engineering topics or scope of work consisting of multiple disciplines of the traditional breakdown. Typically the scope of Mechanical, Electrical, and Software engineering covers the full spectrum in multidisciplinary projects.
  • NG - no good, a condition equivalent to "needs improvement" and convenient for charts, from Toyota.
  • OEM - original equipment manufacturer, or referring to parts offered by OEMs.
  • OEM Brand - a major business that offers a flagship product & may have several "knockoff" brands competing.
  • OSH - open source hardware (used broadly as a term, but we dont see consistent meanings.)
  • OTS - off the shelf (parts sold at retail distributors).
  • P2P - peer to peer. a term for communications between devices as opposed to broadcast from one source to many listeners.
  • PRL - project readiness level, a rating system similar to NASA's TRL (technology-readiness-levels) term we are beginning to use for describing a prototype by establishing an expected type of outcome.
  • repo - repository, usually hosted by GitHub, where digital documentation is stored.
  • responsitory - a new word developed by us, 2025.06.25, for someone's territory for a job before designating the tasks, or under consideration.
  • revision - a milestone in the progress of a work which is saved or published by the designer. Revisions may be assigned before or after a work is complete.
  • SMART - an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, results-based, and time-bound. The ideal characteristic of an engineering target or an engineering communication.
  • Technical Data Package - collection of documentation necessary to fully describe a design, having a broader scope than only CAD model, Bill of Materials, Assembly instructions. A completed design in documentation form.
  • thermo - thermodynamics, or the movement of energy within systems.
  • worry - (in engineering) to exert effort to countermeasure a problem that has not been encountered. To input solution oriented features before verifying & characterizing a problem. This is a concept in a designer's workflow expanded in the "Rulebook" for guiding 3D designs.
  • Full Stack Hardware Developer: someone undertaking design-build-verify-document processes. Someone who is meeting the modern needs of forming functional designs, with accessible materials, and doing so by a repeatable process, so others may follow after.
  • Printegrate: to design a part from a toolset including 3D printing as well as all commercial off-the-shelf components, which branches out from printing but retains the full digital design. That is, a printegrated part is just like a printable part but it may include fasteners and any other part with a part number and global distribution.
  • TDP - technical design package, a directory or collection of files that describe a design. A good term for designs which span wider than only a CAD model. In addition to a model, a TDP might include datasheets for the materials in a design, key notes & measurements by the designer, diagrams for wiring or assembly, documentation relating parts to functions, or tabulated arrays of design variations such as sizes or multiple specification options.
  • GD&T - geometric dimensioning and tolerancing. A globally-accepted language and set of symbols for mechanical design drawings to specify geometry, accuracy, and tolerances allowable.
  • CTF - critical-to-function. A term for key dimensions or specifications in a mechanical design which are crucial to the function of the part. Communication and drawings for the design often callout CTF dimensions and CTF tolerances rather than labeling every dimension in the part. CTF dimensions focus engineers and fabricators on the crucial geometries so the development effort can prioritize these elements and cost is optimized.

Links

You may find these links helpful, relating to our community, engineering technology, more tutorials & videos too.

Docsify-This This web page was made possible by DocsifyThis, a free and open web tool that helps authors publish documentation. I discovered DocsifyThis in 2024 and it now enables all my Github repositories to render into simple web pages. Learn more at docsify-this.net and get support on discord at the docsify-this discord thanks to developer Paul Hibbits!