A Cloud Platform for Sharing Educational Digital Fabrication Resources Over the Internet

Cloud and IoT technologies have the potential to enable a plethora of new applications that are not strictly limited to remote sensing, data collection, and data analysis. In such a context, the IoT paradigm can be seen as an empowering technology rather than a disruptive one since it has the capability to improve the standard business processes by fostering more efficient and sustainable implementations and by reducing the running costs. Cloud and IoT technologies can be applied in a broad range of contexts including entertainment, industry, and education, among others. This chapter presents part of the outputs of the NEWTON H2020 European project on technology-enhanced learning; more specifically, it introduces the concept of fabrication as a service in the context of educational digital fabrication laboratories. Fab Labs can leverage cloud and IoT technologies to enable resource sharing and provide remote access to distributed expensive fabrication resources over the internet. Both platform architecture and impact on learning experience of STEM subjects are presented in detail.