FabLab (Fabrication Laboratory) is an innovation laboratory created to stimulate creativity and knowledge through practice, turning ideas into reality. Its objective is to promote the professional qualification of young people and adults and the digital inclusion of children and adolescents, elementary school students from public schools, through the learning of robotics, programming and basic and intermediate knowledge in technology. With this, Ramacrisna wants to take inclusion, innovation and cutting-edge technology across regional, social and economic boundaries.
FabLab Ramacrisna has an area of 500m² and will offer the most modern and advanced technology, with tools and materials for the rapid production of objects through prototyping. The space has 6 3D printers, 5 virtual reality glasses, a CNC Laser Cut Router, 18 tablets, computers and 8 lego kits for the practice of Educational Robotics. This equipment will enable the opening of new professional courses, totally free of charge and with high demand in the market.
With this technological training in digital fabrication, programming and electronics, project beneficiaries will be able to provide services or create their own businesses. They will have several possibilities to work with 3D printing, production and preparation of materials produced in CNC Laser Cut Router, digital file cut/engrave, software, digital fabrication processes, practice and laser designs using CAD System.
The perfect combination between technology and programming places robotics in the center when it comes to prepare children and teenagers for life.
Inventing, programming, assembling and moving a little robot are activities that improve logical reasoning, provide collaborative work, and promote interdisciplinarity competence, among other pedagogical gains.
However, it goes far beyond that. By having fun with programmable kits, software, protoboards, wires, sensors, boards and motors, the students begin to change their future, even without realizing it. By becoming interested in programming, they prepare the ground for their future insertion in the labor market, which has an increasingly demand for such skills.
The use of programs such as Power Point, Word, Excel, Paintbrush, Publisher, etc., makes it possible to expand the inventive and recreational capacity of children and adolescents. Educational and research software is used to enrich teaching content and processes. The video game as a learning tool was adopted, as the games present a series of challenges to the practitioner who, at all times, is challenged to evaluate, organize, prioritize information and, based on them, make strategic decisions in the short and long term.
The purpose of virtual reality is to simulate a reality that doesn’t exist. Such technology allows the students to interact with three-dimensional objects and scenarios. For example, the teacher can use the tablet to guide the students to inhospitable areas of the real world (swim with sharks, visit space) or to transform the classroom into a museum, without leaving their actual location. In such experience, the students become able to play the main role and, consequently, to enhance their learning process in a way that seems more intense and closer to reality.
The 3D printer promotes activities that encourage collaboration, creativity and sharing. To use this technology, the students create their model in the Paint3D app (Windows Operating System) and use the Simplify3D software to translate their 3D models into instructions that the 3D Printer can understand.
