Instructor Bootcamp Leon
In January 2024, I traveled to León, Spain, to take part in the Fab Academy Instructor Bootcamp. This time I had some good company traveling with Svavar so we were team Fab Lab Ísafjörður! Andri from Fab Lab Reykjavík and Frosti from Fab Lab Vestmannaeyjar joined us in Reykjavík. A proper Icelandic Fab Lab squad.
The plan was simple: fly to Madrid, take the train to León, and get some rest before the first day.
Well… we landed late. The train had stopped running. Frosti made the wise decision to stay overnight. The rest of us (less wise) decided to take the bus, which turned out to be a 6-hour ride. After a cramped journey, we finally arrived in León at 3:00 AM to a city fast asleep.
Info
Documentation still in progress.
Arrival & Location
Fab Lab León has its own flow, and it’s a big space. The days felt a bit longer, and so did the meals. Also: so much ham. We were in Spain after all.
The lab is located next to a mall, around a 15-minute walk from where we were staying. The vibe was familiar: workshop tables, stacked tools, people moving between conversations and machines. A space full of activity and possibility.
Arriving at the Lab
One of the best parts of any bootcamp is meeting others instructors, coordinators, and the local lab team. People who are teaching, learning, prototyping, documenting, adapting. It’s always inspiring to see how diverse and passionate this community is.
Workshops & Projects
We explored a variety of topics from workflows and machine maintenance to educational strategies and emerging tools.
Full documentation:
👉 Fab Academy 2024 – Instructor Bootcamp
👉 Local site – León
It was refreshing to step out of our usual lab routines and engage with ideas from other instructors trying out different techniques, testing assumptions, and even debugging things together.
Takeaways
Every bootcamp reinforces something different. This time, for me, it was about collaboration and alignment syncing teaching strategies, documentation habits, and expectations across labs. It also gave me time to reflect on how we’re building our Fab Lab ecosystems back home.
I left León on a high-speed train to Madrid a welcome change from the bus. I spent a day there before heading to the Nordic Bootcamp.
Spain in January isn’t a bad idea either.