How I Ended Up Volunteering At The Fablab In The Indian City Of The Future
Introduction: Auroville, An Experimental City
Situated in the experimental city of Auroville near Pondicherry, South India, —there is a FabLab (Fabrication Lab) called Minvayu. This particular FabLab was started around 10 years ago. Due to its roots in the Auroville community it matched my ” tradigital ” approach where traditional craftsmanship fuses with futuristic technology.
Auroville: India’s Experimental City
In my opinion Auroville stands as one of the world’s most ambitious social experiments—a universal township where people from across the globe come together to realize a sustainable and harmonious future.
The FabLab in Aurovile therefore offers a unique location to develop the ethos of the global FabLab network “make, learn and share” I have a strong background in FabLabs, doing art residencies in FabLab Isafjordur, Iceland, Echo Fab Montreal Canada and also the now defunct FabLab London.
The FabLab Experience: Where Ideas Take Shape
My journey to the Auroville FabLab began unexpectedly. In November 2025, I was passing through Auroville as a digital nomad and found accommodation called Auromode situated opposite to the center for scientific research (CSR), one of Aurorville’s zones.
I had had some previous e-mail contact with Jorge Ayarza, the manager of the Fablab there prospectively offering some voluntary work there. I decided to contact him as I was passing through. By pure coincidence, the FabLab was just meters across the road from where I was staying. I went to meet him and started working on projects there. A week’s stay in Auroville ended up being nearly 2 months.
Despite having to balance my work as a digital nomad, I found myself dedicating several hours each day to volunteering, learning, making and sharing at the FabLab.
It was a great situation I helped at the FabLab for a few hours each day and apart from sightseeing and swimming at the nearby pool (link), I worked at the Hive coworking space (inside the Auromode apartment complect) A great place too you should check it out or in my room for most of the evenings.
What I Did At The Fablab During My Voluntary Part Time 1 and a half Months Stay in Auroville:
Below, I list the different voluntary aspects I contributed to help at the Fablab. This will give you an idea of how you could perhaps help at one of these spaces around the world either near or far.
Ceramic 3D Printer
A while ago some student volunteers at the Fablab had constructed this DIY Delta printer optimized for ceramic printing
3D ceramic printing enables the combination of traditional pottery techniques with modern 3D printing technology. By allowing for precise ceramic fabrication, this innovation opens new possibilities for sustainable construction and artistic creativity.
I helped to adjust the settings, troubleshoot and also load the ceramic tube with clay. The clay mixture had to be like “Nutella” so some water had to be added little by little.
Unfortunately, the motor stepper at the top that functions to push the clay through the nozzle needed new gear parts 3D printed so unfortunately, I had to leave Auroville before this was up and working.
However, helping in this process enabled me to delve into how a 3D ceramic printer works, what I think it is good for and what I don’t think it is not so good for.
In my conclusion, one off and complex geometries are a great thing for ceramic 3D printers and I plan to make my own 3D ceramic conversion for my Honey Milk Coffee business. However, I felt it is not suited so much to multiple production, where if I was making ceramic pieces which I am see below I would 3D print them out normally and then get negative molds made to use a process called slip casting (link).
This project was a great example of forging links with others in the community as we had to contact Mantra Potteries to source clay. The owner was very helpful and gave my and Jorge a tour of Mantra pottery workshop.
Blender Tuition
I tutor Blender a lot with my own private learners and also I am employed by agencies in London to tutor Blender. I have 1000s of hours of experience tutoring Blender. This gave me a very credible skill I could offer the Fablab. I gave some of the members a few Blender lessons and I hope it helped them. These sessions I focused on how Blender can use its 3D modeling tools for 3D printed models.
The Dancing Girl Project – Image To 3D
The owner of the building wanted this ancient Indus Valley statue to be replicated as it was so hard to find , it was a favorite statue of his. There did not appear to be a 3D scanned version out there and sculpting something like this from scratch using photo references would take ages.
I decided to use the image we could find online and put it through an Image to 3D generator.
It gave ok results so I still had to use sculpt mode in Blender to come up with an acceptable outcome. They should be 3D printing this statue soon. I used the Image to 3D AI generator Hitem3D for this. I tried to use Meshy too, however it didn’t give such consistently detailed models on this occasion.
3D Printing for Slip Casting
For my Honey Milk Coffee collaboration business. I needed to make larger 3D prints of the fox and hare to test to see if plaster of Paris negative molds can be made for the slip casting process. I asked a ceramicist back in Glasgow, she recommended that I chop parts off to reduce the slip cast pieces for each model. So for the fox and deer models , I sliced each off to be attached after the ceramic slip cast process.
Once I have made the plaster of Paris negatives, I will get these as ceramic casts. Having molds means I can make them again and again. Large ceramic versions of these will look charming, contemporary, artistic and fetch a higher price as opposed to the smaller resin casts.
The Fablab had a brand new Bambu Labs 3D printer that allowed me to print 20cm wide versions of my Deer and Fox sculptures for casting. Nice!
The Glow Frog Lamp
Again cheating a bit. Jorge and a member of the Fablab Christian who uses the lab to develop his entrepreneurial product ideas wanted to make some income for the Fablab at the Christmas market and local shops.
We made this project mostly in AI, I don’t advocate this all the time but it came up with amazing commercial results Firstly we described in Chat GPT that we wanted a Frog Lamp.
Again, an image to 3D AI technology was used, this time using meshy.
Then I hollowed the frog out using the solidify modifier tool in Blender and we came up with the idea to have a screw in component with a micro Led lamp fixed. onto it to allow easy access for the light maintenance.
Christian designed this amazing mechanism using Fusion 360.
I then imported it to blender and used Booleans etc. to make sure it would screw into the hollow frog. This lamp worked really well and many shops in Auroville are interested in this product that too literally a day to make and 3D print! Below you can see the 3D prints made with ABS. If you come to Auroville and see it in a shop, please buy it as all proceeds go to FabLab Minvavu…
Oher Things Happening At This Fablab:
This Fablab has a lot of other activities and projects going on including a huge 3D printer for constructing buildings that is believed to be the largest 3D printer in India. Jorge has a great drive and passion and background in recycling plastics. Something India greatly needs and the world as a whole.
Conclusion: Building Tomorrow, Today
I hope to someday come back to this FabLab to help out. communities.
For anyone interested in the future of urban living, digital fabrication, or sustainable innovation, Auroville’s FabLab represents more than just a workshop—it’s a living laboratory where the cities of tomorrow are being built, one project at a time.
As of January 3rd 2026, I left to head to North India stopping at the UNESCO site Hampi and also the quiet beach town of Gokarna. But these are for future blog posts.
Useful Links-
Auroville
The Auromode HIVE Coworking Space
The Indus Valley Dancing Girl-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Girl_(prehistoric_sculpture)
Blender –
AI Image to 3D Applications –
Ceramic 3D Printing Resources –
Delta Ceramic 3D Printer Information
Domestika Ceramic 3D Printing Course
If you would like to learn more about 3D modelling for 3D printing and other skills mentioned in this blog post, or improve them get in touch with me for a free 30 minute trial session on Zoom.
