About

Mission

Our mission is to build a community of of makers, hackers, inventors, and artists sharing their skills and knowledge to establish a bottom-up approach to education and create local, inclusive economic opportunity.

Some Projects

COVID-19 Million Mask Challenge

Fab Lab Fort Smith went into full production running 3d Printers around the clock. We joined “The Arkansas Million Mask Challenge Program” to help provide PPE to the people of Arkansas during this pandemic.

Contributions made:

  • Made over 300 face shields
  • 50 hand made cloth mask
  • Designed mask prototypes for future development
  • This project is ongoing 

Fort Smith Junior League’s Family Night.

Fab Lab Fort Smith helped raise money for the Junior League’s mission to provide opportunities to the foster children of the Arkansas River Valley Community.

Contributions made:

  • Designed and built a custom farm house table to be auctioned as part of fundraiser
  • Demonstrated 3D printer fundamentals
  • Provided virtual drone pilot simulator experience
  • Boat craft workshop and races

UAFS Drone Competition

20 teams from six different schools competed in the UAFS Drone Competition. Fab Lab participated as a team advisor for Future School in Fort Smith. 

Skills provided:

  • Working through several technical problems under limited Time
  • The importance of keeping an Engineering Notebook
  • Presenting the project’s progression from the initial brainstorming ideas to the final completed design
  • Using 3D CAD software to edit existing models and also to create new models
  • Soldering wires and using a multimeter to verify the continuity of the circuits

Goals

  • Establish Physical Location (In Process) We are in process to be community partners with ACHE Research Institute Health & Wellness Center. Our location will be in their facility.
  • Build 50 tiny libraries for Fort Smith
  • We are building a low cost open source Hydroponics system to provide healthy resources for food insecure communities. 

Tools We Have

  • 3D Printers
  • Sewing Machines
  • CNC Machine
  • Electronics Stations
  • Microelectronics (Arduino/Pi/Etc)
  • Video Equipment
  • 3D scanner