A new membership-based technology workshop and prototyping center is bringing the Avenue of Technology more of its namesake.
NextFab Studio, located at 3711 Market St., is a center where members can bring a wide variety of their own projects and make use of expensive prototyping technology that they couldn’t afford on their own.
The studio, which opened Jan. 22, offers an extensive list of resources, such as woodworking, 3-D printing and modeling, video editing, motion graphics, electronic prototyping, metal working, graphic design, sewing and embroidery, programming and consulting about members’ projects. All members receive basic training on the equipment.
“You don’t have to know how to do any of this or even have a clear sense of what you want to do,” NextFab founder Evan Malone said. “It’s a friendly, comfortable place where we’ll teach you how to use equipment and help you come up with ideas for how to use it.”
Malone has been working with a number of faculty members from the School of Design, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Wharton School on the details of executing lab sessions or project work time to be held at the studio.
He is also coordinating with local organizations to develop after-school programs for high school students.
Student membership costs $75 per month or $825 per year, while non-student individual monthly memberships cost $100 per month or $1,100 per year. Prospective members must also pay a security deposit and initiation fees.
Before NextFab opened, the Esther Klein Gallery was the only forum for technology of the kind that the studio offers, according to Dan Schimmel, the gallery’s executive director.
NextFab, a for-profit company, works in partnership with the University City Science Center’s nonprofit Breadboard program, which aims to provide access to NextFab to people who would not otherwise be able to access its equipment, such as high schoolers working on a class project.
Breadboard, which also manages the Klein Gallery, decided to work with Malone after he told them of his idea for NextFab.
Schimmel explained that Malone wanted a studio “that would offer resources and services to the community at a more affordable and accessible rate than most of the tools and technologies that are [currently] made available.”
A detailed list of the center’s equipment can be found on NextFab Studio’s web site, nextfabstudio.com.
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