About me

My name is Fran Sanchez, I’m the founder of The (fabulous) Beach Lab, a personal and mobile Fab Lab based in Sitges, Spain. I’m a Civil Engineering graduate with diverse passions: I love adventures and exploration. I often escape to the mountains in a 4x4, far from civilization, whenever I can. In pursuit of gaining a bit more range of motion, I became a ship captain, then a diver, and finally a pilot. I’m also a Radio Amateur Operator (EA3IRP) to meet people who aren’t glued to their “smartphones” all day. I’m debating between submarines or helicopters for my next adventure. I also adore Unix-type computers (anything that runs in a terminal), Art, and Science. Yes, all this is very cool, but I wasn’t making money, so I also became an Apple developer and now I also develop applications in Swift/SwiftUI for iOS devices. But I’m still not making any money. Check out my travel utility, Hariburi!

Feel free to contact me on LinkedIn.

Week by Week

Week 1: Principles and Practices, Project Management - January 24
Week 2: Computer-Aided Design - January 31
Week 3: Computer-Controlled Cutting - February 7
Week 4: Electronic Production - February 14
Week 5: 3D Scanning and Printing - February 21
Week 6: Embedded Programming - February 28
Week 7: Computer-Controlled Machining - March 6
Week 8: Electronic Design - March 13
Week 9: Output Devices - March 20
Week 10: Mechanical Design, Machine Design - March 27
Week 11: Input Devices - April 10
Week 12: Molding and Casting - April 17
Week 13: Networking and Communications - April 24
Week 14: Interface and Application Programming - May 1
Week 15: Wild Card Week - May 8
Week 16: Applications and Implications, Project Development - May 15
Week 17: System Integration - May 22
Week 18: Invention, Intellectual Property, and Income - May 29

Final Project

Final Project Page

Expectations vs Reality

Here are my goals and expectations for this cycle.

Expectations (written on January 19)

• I’m really excited to explore the limits of cutting-edge advancements.
• Since this is my second iteration of the Fab Academy, I expect the output of each week to be a productA product understood as something finished enough to potentially hit the market.
  
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• I want to brush off my knowledge in structural engineering, fluid mechanics, and differential geometry and put it into practice.
• I hope to be able to create or modify an AI model to generate some parts of the Fab Academy.
• I aim to complete a somewhat ambitious final project that I’ve had in mind for some time now.

I just reread my expectations, and I am already regretting them. But I am committed to not keeping them.

Reality (we’ll see on June 5)

• Space reserved for a long list of miserable failures.