Entrepreneurs, engineers and people who like to tinker in the West Kootenay can now get access to some of the latest digital fabrication technology.
The Kootenay Association for Science and Technology opened the MIDAS Fab Lab earlier this month. The lab and others like them around the world, provide public access to high-tech manufacturing equipment.
“It’s a 6,000 sq. ft. lab and it hosts about $400,000 in cutting edge equipment that the public is able to use via membership,” said MIDAS program director, Amber Hayes, to CBC reporter, Bob Keating.
Among the equipment available to use at the lab are 3-D scanners, 3-D printers and computer-controlled machining tools.
“We can do things like using a 3-D scanner to scan an item and then we can print it on a 3-D printer and folks can use that as a prototype,” said Hayes.
“Or they can come to us with pictures and designs and input those and actually print them out in a hard copy version of what that design was, so everything from drones, planes, pieces for equipment, to you name it, you can pretty much design it and print it here.”
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The lab was recently used to create a prosthetic hand. Read More…
