FamiLAB is Central Florida’s provider of space, tools, and community for creative technical learning and projects. If you are looking for a great place to meet like-minded people, learn, collaborate on projects, and have access to great tools, FamiLAB is the place for you!
FamiLAB’s mission is to be a community that fosters learning and creativity through hands-on projects, collaboration, and the sharing of skills & tools to improve ourselves and enrich the world around us.
FamiLAB welcomes makers, artists, thinkers, hackers*, crafters, and everyone else – come wield your imagination in any (legal and ethical) way you see fit. Think of FamiLAB as a club for geeks! Whether you are an art geek, hardware geek, photography geek, code geek, lab geek, or any geek in between–we would like you to join us at the lab and teach a class, lead a lecture, or simply work on a project while surrounded by awesome people. If you can think of it, come build and share it the lab.
Following the philosophies of the worldwide hackerspace* movement, FamiLAB seeks to be a diverse community where people of various backgrounds can come together to teach and learn. We provide a space, tools, and a community of geeks for you to utilize. The currently available tools include hand tools, CNC and manual metal working tools, CNC and manual wood working tools, welders, leather working tools, 3D printers, laser cutter, a dark room, a class room and a biology laboratory. Interests among current members range from abstract mathematics to microcontrollers, iPhone and Android application programming, Arduino design and coding, PCB design, FPGA design, Quadcopters, etc. We’re always looking for new people to collaborate on current projects or bring new projects to the table.
Due to the nature of the tools that are available and the risk involved in their use, FamiLAB requires all members be at least 18 years of age and sign a safety and liability waiver. While members are welcome to bring their children with them, we consider FamiLAB to be family tolerant, not necessarily family friendly. Since all of our members are adults, conversations can be of an adult nature and may not appropriate for children.
For more information on FamiLAB, use our Contact form, follow us on twitter @FamiLAB, collaborate with us on Slack, or come to a Class, Event, or Open House. We also have a presentation that we use before classes or with special tours if you like learning with slides :)
To become a FamiLAB member, see our Membership information page.
FamiLAB is a registered 501(c)(3) public charity. Our funding comes from membership dues, class revenues, and sponsorships from local companies. If you’d like to support FamiLAB, please use our Contact form – if you’d like us to target your sponsorship to a specific areas (public education, children’s education, etc.) we have several programs that can meet your needs.
*A note on the label “hacker”, as used in “hackerspace”: There are ethical hackers and non-ethical hackers, just like there are ethical and non-ethical people in almost every field. Unfortunately, the media only uses “hacker” in the negative context. This wikipedia article explains the origins of the term “hacker”, and we encourage you to read it. However we can save you a click – we like this simple definition (also found in the wikipedia article) – “A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.”
