Planning a Course or Large FabLab Project
The best time to involve the FabLab is before a fabrication process becomes fixed in an assignment, research plan, or final design.
Early planning helps connect the project’s learning goals to realistic equipment, material, training, staffing, and scheduling requirements.
Project planning comes before machine scheduling.
Who Should Use This Page?
This guidance is intended for:
- Faculty planning course assignments
- Staff planning workshops or College initiatives
- Students planning theses, capstones, or unusually large projects
- Researchers planning fabrication-intensive work
- Project teams requesting repeated or coordinated access
- Anyone planning work that affects multiple users or shared equipment capacity
An ordinary individual project may not need a formal planning conversation. A project should be discussed early if it involves unusual materials, many participants, repeated machine use, large quantities, advanced equipment, significant staff support, or a fixed public deadline.
Why Early Planning Matters
A short individual job can become several weeks of machine demand when multiplied across a course.
For example:
- A 20-minute job completed by one student is manageable.
- The same job completed by 20 students requires almost seven uninterrupted machine hours.
- Testing, failed attempts, setup, cleanup, training, and machine downtime increase that demand.
- If every student needs multiple iterations, the true requirement may be several times larger.
Planning early allows the assignment and the FabLab’s capacity to support each other.
Begin With the Learning Goal
Start by explaining what students or participants should learn.
Do not begin only with:
“I need every student to use the laser.”
Instead, describe the intended outcome:
“Students need to understand how repeated components, tolerances, and assembly affect a physical system.”
This allows the FabLab and faculty to consider whether laser cutting, CNC machining, woodworking, 3D printing, hand fabrication, or a combination of methods best supports the goal.
The machine is a means, not the learning objective.
Information to Bring
You do not need a finished design to start a planning conversation. Bring what you know and identify the choices you still need help making. It is fine to mark an item as unknown.
| Tell us | Include |
|---|---|
| Purpose | What students or participants should learn, test, or demonstrate. |
| People | The course or project, the person coordinating it, and the number of participants. |
| Output | The parts or objects, approximate dimensions, and total quantity. |
| Process and materials | Your proposed process and material, or the alternatives you want help comparing. |
| Timing | When files will be ready, the actual deadline, expected iterations, and flexibility in dates, quantity, scale, or process. |
| Readiness | Training already completed and file-preparation or process questions still unresolved. |
| Support | The demonstrations, staff assistance, or supervised work you expect to need. |
| Access and safety | Accessibility or accommodation needs affecting the process, known hazards, and unusual requirements. Discuss personal details privately with the appropriate staff. |
| Space | Where assembly, temporary storage, and any larger work would happen. |
| Resources | Who is arranging materials and covering applicable costs. |
| Completion | Who will collect the work, remove leftover material, and restore shared space. |
Discuss the whole class or project, not just the time needed to make one part. Testing, setup, supervision, repeated attempts, and cleanup also affect what is practical.
Before including equipment in a grant or purchase
Start with the capability the project needs and ask whether an existing College resource could provide it. If additional equipment is being considered, discuss its location, access, utilities, training, maintenance, consumables, and staff support before committing to a purchase.
Identify who will operate and care for it during the project and what should happen when the project ends. These questions help establish a workable plan; purchasing equipment does not by itself settle space, access, or staffing arrangements.
What the FabLab Will Consider
FabLab staff may evaluate:
- Whether the proposed process supports the learning goal
- Required equipment and current equipment status
- Training and supervision requirements
- Material suitability and availability
- File-preparation requirements
- Expected machine time
- Cohort size and number of attempts
- Staffing and consultation demand
- Setup and cleanup time
- Maintenance and likely downtime
- Ventilation, dust collection, and facility constraints
- Temporary storage
- Conflicts with other courses or projects
- Peak academic demand
- Safer or more efficient alternative processes
- Whether another campus resource or outside vendor is more appropriate
This review helps identify what the FabLab can responsibly support.
Possible Planning Outcomes
A planning conversation may result in:
Supported as Proposed
The project is feasible with the proposed process, timing, quantity, and available resources.
Supported With Conditions
The project is feasible if specific training, material, scheduling, supervision, or file requirements are met.
Revised Scope
The project can be supported at a different scale, quantity, level of complexity, or number of iterations.
Revised Process
A different fabrication process may better support the learning goal or fit available capacity.
Revised Timing
The work may be possible during a different period or through staggered access.
Prototype Required
A small test may be needed before the FabLab can estimate time, material, reliability, or capacity.
Best-Effort Support
Late or substantially changed work may be supported through remaining capacity but cannot displace previously coordinated academic work.
Different Resource Recommended
A vendor, another University facility, or a different production method may be more appropriate.
A changed plan is not necessarily a rejected project. It is often the path to a project that can actually succeed.
Faculty Responsibilities
Faculty retain responsibility for:
- Course content
- Learning outcomes
- Assignment design
- Student evaluation
- Communicating requirements and deadlines
- Ensuring students receive the same project information
- Identifying accessibility or accommodation needs through the appropriate process
- Coordinating material or project funding
- Informing the FabLab when the assignment changes
Faculty should not promise machine access, waive training requirements, or assume unlimited FabLab capacity without coordination.
FabLab Responsibilities
The FabLab is responsible for:
- Explaining current capabilities and constraints
- Identifying training and safety requirements
- Reviewing equipment, staffing, and scheduling feasibility
- Recommending appropriate processes
- Communicating known material and file requirements
- Protecting safe and equitable shared access
- Identifying when a project needs testing or revision
- Communicating significant capacity or equipment changes
- Supporting the agreed fabrication pathway within current operational limits
A planning conversation does not transfer ownership of the assignment to FabLab staff.
Student Responsibilities
Students remain responsible for:
- Completing required training
- Preparing their own files
- Verifying scale, units, and dimensions
- Obtaining approved materials
- Making required reservations
- Arriving prepared and on time
- Monitoring their work
- Following safety procedures
- Cleaning and resetting the workspace
- Reporting problems
- Allowing time for testing, failure, and revision
A course plan creates a pathway to access. It does not remove individual readiness requirements.
Scheduling Through EMS
Laser reservations are made through UK’s EMS system.
An EMS reservation is downstream from project planning. It reserves a time but does not:
- Approve a course project
- Guarantee production capacity for an entire cohort
- Waive training
- Approve a material
- Confirm that a file is ready
- Guarantee that equipment will remain available
- Reserve FabLab staff for extended project development
- Authorize use of other machines in the room
Large projects should be discussed with the FabLab before participants begin making individual reservations.
Plan for Testing and Failure
Physical fabrication is iterative.
A realistic project plan includes time and material for:
- Initial tests
- Tolerance checks
- Fit and assembly tests
- File corrections
- Material variation
- Failed jobs
- Machine downtime
- Queue delays
- Design revision
- Final production
- Cleanup and documentation
Avoid scheduling the first test immediately before the final deadline.
Tell Us When the Project Changes
Contact the FabLab when there is a significant change in:
- Cohort size
- Number of parts
- Material
- Fabrication process
- Project dimensions
- Deadline
- Number of iterations
- Staff-support needs
- Storage needs
- Safety or facility requirements
A small design change can create a large change in machine time or operational risk.
Project-Planning Checklist
- We can explain the project’s learning or research goal.
- We know the approximate number of participants.
- We have estimated the number of parts or jobs.
- We know the approximate dimensions.
- We have identified proposed materials.
- We have identified possible fabrication processes.
- We have shared the desired dates and final deadline.
- We have identified what can change if capacity is limited.
- We have considered training requirements.
- We have considered testing and failed attempts.
- We have discussed staff-support expectations.
- We have considered material funding and temporary storage.
- We will notify the FabLab if the project changes.
- Students understand that reservations do not replace readiness requirements.