Invention Kits Let you Build (Almost) Anything

This is going to change alot of things

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity - Seneca
http://potentiatenebrasrepellendi.blogspot.com/
Nec Aspera Terrent!

>
> FYI,
>
> This type of technology will be invaluable for insitu space
> development and colonization.
>
> "Invention Kits Let you Build (Almost) Anything - Creator: Fab Lab
> helps people get means to create their own technology
> MSNBC
>
> : Give a man a gadget, and you feed his tech needs for a day. Teach
> : him to make gadgets, and he can feed himself and a few savvy
> : venture capitalists for life.
>
> : Such is the thinking of Neil Gershenfeld, a 48-year-old physicist
> : and MIT professor and the inventor of what he calls the Fab Lab. A
> : Fab Lab (short for fabrication laboratory) is a package of tools
> : designed to make essentially any object.
>
> : The kits can include a laser cutter, computer-controlled wood
> : router and a miniature mill for drilling circuit boards, all for
> : around $50,000, including open-source software, batteries and
> : micro-controllers.
>
> : Those appliances and materials, Gershenfeld says, are all anyone
> : needs to build whatever he or she can imagine: panels for roofing
a
> : house, a simple computer or a better mouse trap. "Basically, the
> : goal is to create a 'Star Trek'-style replicator in 20 years,"
> : Gershenfeld says matter-of-factly.
>
> : For now, Gershenfeld's project is focused on bringing an early
> : version of that replicator to the masses: He's shipped 26 Fab Labs
> : around the world since 2002. Shepherds in Norway have used a Fab
> : Lab to create radio-frequency ID tags for tracking wandering
> : sheep.
>
> : The South African government is working with Sun Microsystems and
> : Cisco on building simple Internet-connected computers that hook up
> : to televisions and cost just $10 each.
>
> : For ordinary people
>
> : The latest Fab Lab was shipped to Afghanistan in June, where it
> : will fashion customized prosthetic limbs. Gershenfeld says he
> : receives a lab request every day.
>
> : "The Fab Labs tap into this wellspring of interest from ordinary
> : people in getting the means to create their own technology," says
> : Gershenfeld.
>
> : But for all that emphasis on self-sufficiency, Fab Labs have so
far
> : been oddly dependent on charity the project has been fueled by
> : about $2 million in funding from the National Science Foundation
> : along with money from local non-profits and governments.
>
> : That's why Gershenfeld has been searching for a way to make his
Fab
> : Lab network self-sustaining. His newly evolved answer is the Fab
> : Fund, a for-profit project launched a year ago by Gershenfeld's
> : brother Alan and fellow venture capitalist Michael Angst.
>
> : The Fab Fund is a test of what its founders call "micro-venture
> : capitalism." Its capital, currently around $200,000, will be
> : invested in for-profit businesses that manufacture their products
> : in Fab Labs around the world. Each Fab Lab, instead of building
> : just what its owners design, can earn its keep by spending a few
> : hours building someone else's Fab-Fund-sponsored product.
>
> : The Fund's first investment is in a company that will sell a toy
> : called GIK, or "Great Invention Kit," a system of cardboard cut-
out
> : panels that range from a size used to assemble miniature figures
to
> : a scale large enough to build forts.
>
> : A first round of GIK, which Gershenfeld's own children invented in
> : their family's Fab Lab, is currently being cut in a lab in the
> : South Bronx. Eventually, GIK designs will be customized online by
> : kids around the world and sent to any Fab Lab that has a few
hours'
> : downtime or even better, a lab near a customer's home, to lower
> : shipping costs.
>
> : Aside from GIK, the Fab Fund has received proposals from
businesses
> : pitching gadgets that range from clothing accessories to super-
> : cheap, long-range antennas to an attachment that converts a
> : cellphone to a remote control. All hope to use a Fab Lab's spare
> : hours to either prototype their products or build small,
customized
> : batches.
>
> : The goal, Gershenfeld says, is to show that distributed
> : manufacturing can turn a profit. Eventually, he hopes many funds
> : will throw their capital into the Fab Labs ecosystem.
>
> : Replicating Fab Labs
>
> : For Gershenfeld, self-sustaining fabrication is the culmination of
> : decades of obsession with the culture of DIY. As a child, the
> : curly-haired engineer spent hours building his own music
> : synthesizer and calculator, sitting for hours in front of an
> : oscilloscope, trying to understand the minutiae of circuitry.
>
> : Gershenfeld's techno-lust continued into his college years, where
> : he lamented that his time was spent on mere academia, while
> : hands-on building was left to trade schools. "I couldn't
understand
> : why an interest in making things was taken as a sign of lesser
> : intelligence," he wrote in his 2005 book "Fab."
>
> : Since 1998, he's been working to bridge that gap between learning
> : and making, teaching a class at MIT called "How to Make (Almost)
> : Anything." He's also founding a global degree program, the
> : so-called Fab Academy, that certifies students in Fab-style
> : building from digital designs.
>
> : But there's an even more ambitious element of Gershenfeld's plan
to
> : spread DIY around the world in small, self-sustaining workshops.
He