One Year of Open Labs Programming at info.nl

Last June, Labs achieved one of its dreams, building a space to further its experimentation with off-screen technology. After five years of projects ranging from wearable connected sleeves for communicating by touch over the internet to wearable vests for receiving posture adjustment notifications during boot camp sessions, Labs was ready to become an official maker space. We kitted out the lab with a new 3D printer, gave our legos a home, filled our tool cart, and organised a library of microcontrollers and components.

A prototyping session with Arduino.

We wanted to build a space where anyone could play hands-on with technology, thereby complementing info.nl’s hack time policy for employees to use 10% of their time for personal projects. However, its one thing to tell people to be creative and another to give them a sandbox and a shovel to do so.

“A lot of people have ideas, but they don’t work on them as they get stuck in their day to day routine. Open Labs gives a space for people to take a step back from the project they are working on and spend time developing for themselves… it is motivating and fun.” — Tech Lead Stefan Mirck

From Applied Research to Employee Development

To kick-off our new maker space we initiated Open Labs, a program to encourage hands-on interaction with technology. Starting with two Arduino workshops, we empowered infonlers to make LEDs blink, play with sensors, and create new interactions with sensors. Then, we began keeping the Labs space open late once a month to support the makers with their projects. A group of makers began coming together, working on projects ranging from turning a remote-controlled car into an autonomous vehicle and hacking a skeleton tracking device for projection interactions. Tech Lead Stefan Mirck commented, “a lot of people have ideas, but they don’t work on them as they get stuck in their day to day routine. Open Labs gives a space for people to take a step back from the project they are working on and spend time developing for themselves… it is motivating and fun.”

Infonlers show off their Arduino creations in a workshop.

Alongside our social hacking, we continued to hold workshops for employees to explore and experiment with tech and design. Two highlights of the year have been an artistic introduction to machine learning called Prototyping the Useless Butler, by designer and former info.nl collaegue Kars Alfrink and a service design workshop on smart mobility for future cities by TU Delft Industrial Design master’s student Sen Lin.

Workshop facilitator, Kars Alfrink walks participants through the training of a light sensor in a machine learning design workshop.

Service design tools and legos meet smart mobility for future city ideation.

The topics covered in the workshops and support of social hacking in the office has drawn in a crowd of loyal infonlers. Carrying the flags of learning and play, our programming provides an in-house structure for creativity and experimentation with new off-screen technologies.

Social hacking at an Open Labs evening.

Want to join an Open Labs Session?

Open Labs is planning to open its workshops to the public in Autumn 2018. If you would like to join us, subscribe to our newsletter and/or our events announcements mailing list where you will be notified of Labs activities and events by our related organisations Behavior Design Amsterdam, ThingsCon and TU Delft PACT. We hope to see you in the Labs space soon!