In May 2022, Stuart Kestenbaum and Neil Gershenfeld were interviewed by Galen Koch to discuss the origin story of the Haystack Fab Lab.

Click on the play button above to listen to the full interview between Stuart Kestenbaum and Neil Gershenfeld.

Haystack & MIT

Timeline

1999 – Kestenbaum is introduced to Mitch Resnick, head of Lifelong Kindergarten Group of the Media Lab at MIT. 

2002 – MIT & Haystack collaborate to run a symposium, Digital Dialogues: Technology and the Hand, convening 60 makers, thinkers, designers, and educators for lectures and hands-on activities. Half the group was selected by Haystack, the other half, by MIT. Impromptu labs were set up with a craft representative and technology representative to develop projects. 

2009 – Haystack develops and runs a conference, Making: Past, Present, and Future to investigate how artists’ work was evolving with technology. Neil Gershenfeld, founder and director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT is an invited speaker, and brings digital fabrication technology to the campus. 

2010 – Gershenfeld is invited back to Haystack as a visiting scientist for two weeks, this time bringing up a mini-Fab Lab setup and continuing to explore the relationship between digital fabrication and artists’ work. 

2011 – Haystack constructs a dedicated Fab Lab studio building adjacent to the visiting artist cabin on campus and begins offering access to workshop participants and faculty. 

2013 – Haystack moves Fab Lab equipment to the Center for Community Programming in Deer Isle village during the offseason and begins running community workshops for local teachers and students. 

2016 — Haystack’s Fab Lab is recognized with the Distinguished Educators Award from the James Renwick Alliance, for pioneering contributions to craft education.

2018 — Haystack launches a paid, high school internship program for local teens to gain job training design experience working in the Fab Lab.

2019 — Haystack hires the first dedicated Technology Director, James Rutter, to oversee and direct the program and develop increased educational initiatives and outreach efforts.

2020 — The Haystack Fab Lab responds to the pandemic by producing over 6,000 items of personal protective equipment- donated to over 100 organizations in our community.

2021 — Haystack Labs convenes for the first time, an experimental program that brings together leaders in the field of technology and craft to explore and innovate.