BUA

OpenMake on tour !

Berlin researchers can now access a central lab and a mobile lab to design and produce research hardware. The BUA mobile lab is on tour, with a first stop at the FU Berlin in June 2025. Dear Berlin researchers, Have you ever heard of makerspaces, 3d printing, or open source research hardware? You may wonder how these concepts are connected with open science and research reproducibility. Whether you are developing, building or using hardware in your research, or are just curious about makerspaces and digital production technologies, make sure you visit the Making Lab or the BUA Mobile Lab on tour !

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Hannover Messe 2025: OSH for industry

During the Hannover Messe 2025, we presented the BUA Mobile Lab, and both the Open.Make and the LAUDS Factories projects. We got the chance to talk with experienced experts from industry including engineers, managers, consultants and business leaders about hardware development practices. Key topics included how they are currently documenting their projects and how open collaboration can be a valuable tool for driving innovative open source hardware development. The most valuable outcome for us was to realize that our academic research is of relevance to the industry and could find application there as a means for open innovation projects and research transfer.

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OpenMake at the Hannover Messe 2025

Next week, starting 31.05.2025, we will be one week in Hannover for the Hannover Messe. The Messe is quite famous (the. “world leading industryshow”) in the world of the manufacturing industry. We will represent both the OpenMake project (implementing open and fair hardware) and the LAUDS Factories (local accessible urban digital sustainable factories). We will present our mobile lab, including open source CNC mills developed by our lauds partner Mekanika, and the beta version of our hardware review and publication system.

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BUA Mobile Lab at Long Night of Science 2024

Dear Reader, We presented the BUA Mobile Lab project at the Long Night of Science 2024 in Berlin. During this annual event, universities and research institutions showcase scientific demonstrations, lectures, and interactive activities, making science accessible and engaging for all ages. We used the occasion to present the BUA Mobile Lab concept, and showcase the three open source manufacturing machines we collected for that purpose: a 3D printer, a laser-cutter and a CNC mill.

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LNDW2024: BUA mobile lab presentation

This post is in German, an English summary and alt text to images will be added in the coming weeks. Aknowledgement: I want to thank my son Jeff (10) for corrections of my text. Hallo liebe Besucher*innen, auf diesen Website erklären wir, worum dieses Projekt OpenMake sich handelt und warum wir es betreiben. Auf den homepage können Sie sehen, dass Wir sind aus verschiedenen Unis in Berlin. Wir arbeiten seit 2019 über offenes Hardware in Akademia.

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Open.Make kickoff meeting.

On October 7th 2021, the Open.Make project kickoff meeting took place at the Charité campus in Mitte. The three research partners/labs, the project officer from the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) and three invited external partners presented and discussed their respective works. It was a successful meeting as it offered a broad overview of the benefits of open hardware in academia and beyond. While it was originally planned as fully in-person, the meeting had to be shifted to a hybrid meeting, as two participants could not come to the meeting location.

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Scope of the Open.Make project.

Original post (2021-09-27) has been updated (2023-12-14). The problem(s) Have you ever tried to follow instructions on how to assemble something and get stuck, either due to a lack of clarity or missing information? This can be annoying enough when you are trying to setup a new piece of furniture, but when your goal is to replicate someone’s research1, these annoyances create an additional burden. In the worst case, the research cannot be replicated and the research process is significantly slowed down.

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Genesis of the open.make project.

On September 1st the Berlin university alliance project Open.make: toward open and FAIR hardware has officially started. Three labs that work together for the first time will collaborate and design a social and technical infrastructure, in order to foster open and FAIR hardware publication and recognition. In this post, we will describe how the idea was developed over a short period of time following the publication of a BUA call.

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