I wish there were a way to do th labs as an outsourced thing, sort of like hacker spaces. Doing a few weeks or months of lab work together with a group of people would be great fun and a useful adjunct to other education -- I've done this for various technical skills (firearms, armorer, machining, medical, diving) and expanding it to more academic topics would be awesome.

Is there a business opportunity in this idea? Coworking and Maker spaces are all the rage now days. How about tailoring those kind of spaces in collaboration with a MOOC to bring labs to the students. It obviously doesn't scale like a MOOC. But it might work in population centers that have a lot of MOOC students.

For a lot of physical skills, Techshop is the model I'd use. They run amazing classes, plus have a credentialing system in place to access certain kinds of equipment.

They recently opened a TechShop in Arlington. I did not realize how spoiled I was with NoVaLabs. It seems like techshop is all-or-nothing pricing. There is no plan that allows for light to moderate use. For $400 less than techshop yearly bill I can get 24h access to NoVaLabs.