VIVA Lab

To be Great, Just Make!

Rua da Boavista 730, 4050-466 Porto, Portugal

Fab Lab School workshop Design & Innovation center Community center

Space size 150 m²

Opened in August 2018

Structure type Association (NGO)

Explored in February 2021


We are a Fabrication Laboratory that promotes a culture of Education, Design and Innovation by Turning Thinking Into Doing in Cities. VIVALab is a laboratory for turning ideas into reality which seeks to support businesses, schools, universities, entrepreneurs and communities, by using our digital fabrication facilities to prototype, fabricate and test these ideas in the real world as research, education and design projects. Serving as a model for the development of solutions to local problems which can be scaled, replicated and exported globally creating clusters of innovation and looking for local and international talents.

Main interests

Technology - machines & tools Community Entrepreneurship Industry & innovation Education Design Art & culture Recycling & upcycling Craftsmanship Do-it-yourself Social Innovation Residency Makers Residency makers

This workshop is great for:

Teachers Designers Small & medium businesses Public organisations Non-profit organisations General public Students Large companies Schools & universities Entrepreneurs Adolescents between 12-18 Kids under 12 Makers pro Artists

Fab Lab Internship Program in Porto, Portugal

Porto is a great place to live, work and enjoy a unique quality of life. The perfect spot for your skills to take off and reach new heights. Porto offers many benefits as it is: safe, sunny, with a rich culture and heritage resulting from nine centuries of history, and with a high quality of health services, international schools/universities and excellent flight connectivity to all over the world. Portugal and Porto are known for its capacity to welcome, integrate and make anyone feel at home.

This is what we deliver during our Internship Program:

  1. Provide work experience in a Fab Lab environment.
  2. Offer real experience related to the applications and implications of Digital Fabrication.
  3. Offer a vast network of professionals and a fertile environment for collaborations.
  4. Foster opportunities to test and explore new opportunities for professional development.
  5. Teach technical and soft-skills.

Interview & guided tour

Meet someone from the team & discover the space by yourself!

Our workshop

Learn more about our space, members, machines & services!

MAKERSvsCOVID

A community with innovators is more autonomous and resilient

Predicting the scarcity of hospital supplies, we contacted Porto’s Hospitals in an attempt to understand their needs. In a first survey, we understood that 20% of those infected by Covid19 were health professionals themselves due to the lack of PPE’s (Personal Protective Equipment).

We created a multidisciplinary volunteer team and started the MAKERSvsCOVID initiative designing and producing PPE’s (Face Shields, Protective Googles, Masks etc.) for the local community. All the designs were shared online for free so anyone could replicate and deliver in any part of the world. In a 2 month period me managed to produce over 16,000 PPE’S in VIVA Lab and the MAKERSvsCOVID community managed to produce a extra 35,000 PPE’S globaly!

A tremendous effort to protect those that most needed.

VIVA Lab is one of the 2,000 digital fabrication laboratories in the Fab Lab’s worldwide network that aims to democratize access to personal and collaborative invention, using digital technologies to make (almost) anything.

Our Fab Lab is located at the Boavista area, one of the main economical and cultural centers of the city of Porto with connection to several high-tech companies, universities, research and qualification centers.

We focus our efforts in four key strategic areas of expertise:

  • Maker Education
  • Industrial Design
  • Social Innovation &
  • Open Innovation for Businesses

With a great community with diverse fields such as Educators, Designers, Engineers, Architects and so much more we are able to collaborate together to create solutions to local problems as one.

MAKERSvsCOVID

A community with innovators is more autonomous and resilient

Predicting the scarcity of hospital supplies, we contacted Porto’s Hospitals in an attempt to understand their needs. In a first survey, we understood that 20% of those infected by Covid19 were health professionals themselves due to the lack of PPE’s (Personal Protective Equipment).

We created a multidisciplinary volunteer team and started the MAKERSvsCOVID initiative designing and producing PPE’s (Face Shields, Protective Googles, Masks etc.) for the local community. All the designs were shared online for free so anyone could replicate and deliver in any part of the world. In a 2 month period me managed to produce over 16,000 PPE’S in VIVA Lab and the MAKERSvsCOVID community managed to produce a extra 35,000 PPE’S globaly!

A tremendous effort to protect those that most needed.

VIVA Lab is one of the 2,000 digital fabrication laboratories in the Fab Lab’s worldwide network that aims to democratize access to personal and collaborative invention, using digital technologies to make (almost) anything.

Our Fab Lab is located at the Boavista area, one of the main economical and cultural centers of the city of Porto with connection to several high-tech companies, universities, research and qualification centers.

We focus our efforts in four key strategic areas of expertise:

  • Maker Education
  • Industrial Design
  • Social Innovation &
  • Open Innovation for Businesses

With a great community with diverse fields such as Educators, Designers, Engineers, Architects and so much more we are able to collaborate together to create solutions to local problems as one.

Machines & tools available

Prusa 3D printer X-carve CNC Machine Laser Cutter 150W 1400mmx900mm Precious Plastic Machines

Technologies & processes available

3D printing Laser cutting CNC milling Casting & moulding Wood working tools Welding Arduino Plastic recycling

Services offered

Maker Education Teacher Training Industrial Design Product R&D Social Innovation Student Internship Prototyping Creativity sessions Community center Products selling Pay-as-you-go machines & tools access Classes & workshops Kids classes & holiday training courses Workshop memberships Coaching & project mentoring

Our best practices

The inspiring things we do here to run our collaborative space

Precious Plastic Portugal

categories
Community Ecosystem & partnerships Sustainability

As the leading players of the Precious Plastic movement in Portugal, with over 5 years of experience working closely with the Precious Plastic Community, VIVA Lab seeks to further impact the local society by empowering the community to take action on Making Plastic Precious.

We identify ourselves with the PP philosophy:

“Precious Plastic exists to reduce plastic waste. Our solutions see people as the key element to fix the plastic mess. Precious Plastic is a combination of people, machines, platforms and knowledge to create an alternative global recycling system.”


OBJECTIVES

Make Plastic Precious​

  • Promote investments in innovative opportunities by creating solutions through everyday challenges
  • Involve civil, scientific, business and local authorities in developing solutions to combat plastic
  • Improve the economy and quality of plastics recycling
  • Design for recyclability
  • Boost product demand and use of recycled plastic
  • Improve and standardize the selection, collection and distribution process

HOW?

  • R&D of Machines adapting them to local projects, businesses & communities
  • Design & Development of Products and solutions using plastic waste.
  • Through Education we can teach local communities the potential of recycling plastic waste
  • By seeking our participation in Events we further raise awareness to the Precious Plastic project
  • Building a Community in Portugal that will spark and boost a alternative plastic recycling system.
Contact : vivalabporto@gmail.com

A Podcast for the Bold Maker - 5min Educação Maker

categories
Community Documenting the workshop’s life Vision Communication Education

5min Educação Maker is a podcast for those bold enough to take the small steps into rethinking our education.

These open conversations look to helped inspire thousands of listeners to pursue a meaningful life through making and education.

Doing brings us back to our roots, helps us develop skills, is creative and fun. It is time to bring the Maker Movement to Education in Portugal.

You can listen us on:


To understand why we started this, listen to our Episódio 0- Porquê este Podcast?

Just keep in mind - it’s in Portugeese (also a great opportunity to start learning the language :)

Contact : vivalabporto@gmail.com

Our makers projects

Get inspired by the DIY projects of our team & members

WORLD'S FIRST Recycled Electric Skateboard

PET MINI Skateboard is a Open Source, Recycled Electric Skateboard for urban transportation. With the goal to end stressful commutes and boost your door-to-door speed with the perfect last mile recycled vehicle.


PET Mini Skateboard - How the idea was born?


HOW

By using the potential of Open Design we can easily prototype and distribute design’s at a global scale while promoting local manufacturing and problem solving. After getting the recycled plastic HDPE sheet’s from Precious Plastic, this get machined by a CNC router to obtain the skateboard deck. Mechanical parts were 3D printed to speed up prototyping phase, as the parts were manufactured at a local Fab Lab, VIVALab, so it can easily be replicated at any of the 1600 Fab Lab’s from the global FabLab network.


WHY

PET MINI was developed based on the growing importance of creating participatory approaches to design, with the growing access to digital fabrication tools through Fab Labs and information through the internet, the Maker and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movements are booming, we must rethink how we design and manufacture the products of the future through distributed approaches and bringing the user and industry closure to the design process.

The PET MINI is a constantly incomplete design, it’s incompleteness invites further evolution, it’s open philosophy generates community, it seeks to stimulate dialogue on the theme of development and circular economy – dialogues that invite designers to continuously rediscover new tools and materials that surround their environment, to stimulate a constant feeling of amazement by changing the way we perceive and understand our surroundings, setting up a connection to the problem and building a sense of meaning and purpose.


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