17.08. 17.08. – 28.08.2026
2 weeks
English
Campus of the TU Berlin
TU Berlin Summer School Certificate of Attainment including 3 ECTS
on-site
LECTURERS
Dr. rer. nat. Julien Colomb
Dr.-Ing. Robert Mies
1.250 €
SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING IN URBAN SETTINGS
The course will provide students with both hard skills and soft skills necessary to use a FabLab and get an understanding of the concepts of urban factories, “low-tech” design and open source hardware.
The course is built on a theoretical part presenting the different aspects of urban manufacturing, digital design, distributed manufacturing, hardware project development and documentation, and the “low-tech” approach, and a practical part where students will work in groups to develop open source hardware projects, using digital manufacturing tools (3D printer, laser cutter, CNC milling machines) to create objects. The quality of the documentation of their practical work will be examined.
Learning goals
Technical knowledge- using Git and Git forges
- using digital manufacturing machines
- applying agile project management practices
- understanding the strength and limitations of urban and distributed manufacturing
- understanding the concept of open source hardware and relevant development practices
- being introduced to the “low-tech” movement
- being able to work as a team on a self-developed hardware project
- being able to provide and get help or feedback
- understanding how technology, creative spaces and communities can be more inclusive
Content
In this two-weeks course, students will have a mix of theoretical presentation and feedback (2-3h, but for the first day 4h), before being asked to apply that knowledge to one project during the practical part (about 5h per day). The practical part will be documented thoroughly and continuously on a Git Forge. The Git repository will be used to note the course.- Open source hardware development and documentation
- Using Git and Git Forges
- Low-tech movement
- Community building and inclusivity
- Using 3D printers and laser cutter
- CNC milling machine -1
- CNC milling machine -2
- OSH and business models
- Distributed manufacturing
- Urban manufacturing
- Technical report
Target group
We hope to gather an heterogenous group of students bringing different interests and background. Backgrounds in engineering, industrial engineering and computer science will be useful. Yet, other backgrounds such as economics and business studies, natural sciences, social sciences, and many more are equally encouraged.Prerequisites
Participants must meet the following requirements:- B2 level English, or equivalent
- at least one year of university experience
Dates
The course takes place from 17.08. – 28.08.2026 on-site, in Berlin.The registration deadline is on 20.07.2026.
A detailed syllabus with information on the schedule will be made available to registered participants. You may find the syllabus useful when discussing with your home university whether the ECTS credits attainable for this course are accepted by them.
Please note this is a full-time, intensive course and participants will be expected to attend lectures (22 hours of class per week) and complete independent study Monday through Friday. Additional study may also be required on weekends. The activities of the cultural program are also shown in the syllabus.
LECTURERS
Dr. rer. nat. Julien Colomb is a former neuro-geneticist (10 years of research on fruit fly memory and behavior) and has been exploiting his interest in open research, working on reproducible data analysis and research data management. He has been working on ways (technical and social) to implement the principles of FAIR and open data in the lab workflow and ways to foster collaboration between researchers, notably through the GIN-Tonic projects.
Most recently, he moved to the TU Berlin to work full time on FAIR, open source research Hardware (www.openmake.de) and local, urban manufacturing (https://lauds.eu) projects. This combines his interest in project management in collaborative research projects, using data science techniques.
Dr.-Ing. Robert Mies is a research associate at TU Berlin, where he studied industrial engineering and completed his D.Sc. in Engineering (Dr.-Ing.). His research is on the intersection of industrial engineering, open source hardware development and open and distributed manufacturing.
His current projects are LAUDS Local Accessible Urban Digital and Sustainable Factories (Horizon Europe), Open.Make – Implementing FAIR and open hardware (Berlin University Alliance) and Fab City (dtec.bw). Since 2025, he also runs the Making Lab at the Central Library TU/UDK and the BUA Mobile Lab.
