The space was born as a platform for interaction that seeks synergies between individuals from different branches of knowledge in an environment that encourages direct experimentation based on the pedagogical method of learning by doing, mixing different technologies.

FAB LAB UFV has a Teaching Innovation Community for Research in the Learning of Digital Manufacturing made up of professors from various disciplines, through which it develops research projects, publications and patents with which it attends congresses to promote the development of the society.

FAB LAB UFV has created the UFV Makers student society that is dedicated to developing projects with social impact in collaboration with the community and with the support of sponsoring companies.

In addition, the FAB LAB UFV is open to the public, offering training workshops, scientific dissemination talks and design and manufacturing services.

The documentation and dissemination of the creation process allows a debugging of the result by iteration of the design that allows sharing the information with the entire maker community so that anyone can take advantage of it, improve it and share it again.

Digital manufacturing laboratories open the way to the customization of manufacturing, causing a relocation of production on a local scale. Socially, it allows people to be empowered by appropriating production techniques that solve real problems in their daily lives or simply produce what does not exist in the market.

A FAB LAB (Fabrication Laboratory) is a custom digital fabrication workshop that has computer-controlled machines to design and produce physical objects using rapid prototyping technology with additive and subtractive techniques, mixed media forming methods, electronics, and programming. Among these machines we will find 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC milling machines, in addition to traditional machining tools.

Being a FAB LAB implies belonging to a connected global network of laboratories coordinated by the FAB Foundation, sharing a common ideology and inventory that favors the transfer of learning and collaborative creation. The concept of FAB LAB appeared at the beginning of 2001 as a distributed education project at the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that derived in 2009 into the FAB Academy.