Fab lab

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Introduction

A Fab Lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop with computer controlled tools with the aim to make "almost anything". (Wikipedia). The smallest type of a modern fab lab is a so-called 3D-printer. Fab labs are a disruptive technology. In the same way that micro computers changed computing, desktop fabbers (fab lab machines) may change manufacturing, i.e. people can produce things at home or within small organizations. An impact on education also can be expected, e.g. for design teaching (in engineering or design schools) or for producing constructivist learning objects (manipulatives).

See also: Constructionist learning objects and Fröbel gifts, i.e. educational application areas with huge potential for desktop fabbers. Disclaimer: I am not a "fab lab" expert and some technical information may be wrong. However, there should be enough good links that you could follow up - Daniel K. Schneider 16:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC).

Fab labs can have different aims, e.g. rapid prototyping of industrial products or low cost and on-demand manufacturing from "open source designs" for both hobbyist and serious use. Both purposes include an idea of empowering individuals to create devices that are adapted to specific needs.

The Fab@Home project emphasizes freedom of design and innovation of a Solid Freeform Fabrication system:

Universal manufacturing embodied as today’s freeform fabrication systems has – like universal computers – the potential to transform human society to a degree that few creations ever have. The ability to directly fabricate functional custom objects could transform the way we design, make, deliver and consume products. But not less importantly, rapid prototyping technology has the potential to redefine the designer. By eliminating many of the barriers of resource and skill that currently prevent ordinary inventors from realizing their own ideas, fabbers can “democratize innovation” [1,2,3]. Ubiquitous automated manufacturing can thus open the door to a new class of independent designers, a marketplace of printable blueprints, and a new economy of custom products. Just like the Internet and MP3’s have freed musical talent from control of big labels, so can widespread RP (Rapid Prototyping) divorce technological innovation from the control of big corporations. (retrieved 23 June 2009)

In a similar way IFTF, in the Future of Making Map argues:

Two future forces, one mostly social, one mostly technological, are intersecting to transform how goods, services, and experiences—the “stuff” of our world—will be designed, manufactured, and distributed over the next decade. An emerging do-it-yourself culture of “makers” is boldly voiding warranties to tweak, hack, and customize the products they buy. And what they can’t purchase, they build from scratch. Meanwhile, flexible manufacturing technologies on the horizon will change fabrication from massive and centralized to lightweight and ad hoc. These trends sit atop a platform of grassroots economics—new market structures developing online that embody a shift from stores and sales to communities and connections. (retrieved 23 June 2009)

Hands-on future is a word play that summarized the idea that is now spreading on the Internet and in venues such as the LIFT France '09 conference. According to Laurent Haug,

What happened in the software industry - young guys waking up with an idea, ending up changing the world from their sofa like it happened with Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. - is now happening in the tangible world. Things like Arduino are enabling hackers and creators all around the globe, and what was possible with software (easily assemble code to create new applications) is now possible with objects. The conference program was centered around three main topics:

  • Changing Things: Towards objects that are not just “smart” and connected, but also customizable, hackable, transformable, fully recyclable… Towards decentralized and multipurpose manufacturing, or even home fabrication…
  • Changing Innovation: Towards continuous and networked innovation, emerging from users as well as entrepreneurs, from researchers as well as activists…
  • Changing the Planet: Towards a “green design” that reconnects global environmental challenges with growth, but also with human desire, pleasure, beauty and fun ...

The Fab Lab concept emerged at MIT under the direction of N. Gershenfeld. It included a laser cutter, a miniature milling machine and jigsaw cutting machine. At the same time, people started thinking about creating cheap 3D printers.

The Fab Lab movement also is anchored in ecological thinking. “Think of RepRap as a China on your desktop” (Chris di Bona). Typical materials used in desktop fabrication are not much polluting and there is no transportation cost. The technology will also allow to produce cheap goods that are locally adapted. Finaly, designs can be shared for free, which means that "fab labs" rely on open content, both for the design of the tools and the designs that these tools then can "print".

A possible future was described by Vilbrandt et al (2008) as Universal Desktop Fabrication. “Advances in digital design and fabrication technologies are leading toward single fabrication systems capable of producing almost any complete functional object. We are proposing a new paradigm for manufacturing, which we call Universal Desktop Fabrication (UDF), and a framework for its development. UDF will be a coherent system of volumetric digital design software able to handle infinite complexity at any spatial resolution and compact, automated, multi-material digital fabrication hardware. This system aims to be inexpensive, simple, safe and intuitive to operate, open to user modification and experimentation, and capable of rapidly manufacturing almost any arbitrary, complete, high-quality, functional object. Through the broad accessibility and generality of digital technology, UDF will enable vastly more individuals to become innovators of technology, and will catalyze a shift from specialized mass production and global transportation of products to personal customization and point-of-use manufacturing. Likewise, the inherent accuracy and speed of digital computation will allow processes that significantly surpass the practical complexity of the current design and manufacturing systems. This transformation of manufacturing will allow for entirely new classes of human-made, peer-produced, micro-engineered objects, resulting in more dynamic and natural interactions with the world.” (Abstract, retrieved 16:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)).

In October 2008, Evan Malone, the principal designer and implementor of Fab@Home, posted a (draft) Functional Block Diagram for FutureFab System at NextFab and that is shown below.

Functional Block Diagram for FutureFab System by Evan Malone (2008)

This diagram shows the complexity of software and hardware constraints interaction. Current fabbers can't produce "anything", but near future systems will be able to integrate both solid freeform fabrication (printing 3D objects) and electronic components

History

An excellent source for the early history of 3-D models is Lipson et al, 2004). According to this paper, “Physical models of machines have played an important role in the history of engineering for teaching, modeling, and exploring mechanical concepts. Many of these models have been replaced by computational representations, but new rapid-prototyping technology allows reintroduction of physical models as an intuitive way to demonstrate mechanical concepts” (Lipson et al, 2004:1032).

Here are a few milestones (that should be completed):

15th century
Filippo Brunelleschi 1377–1436, the architect and engineer of the Duomo in Florence is

known to have created construction models.

19th century
Robert Willis (1800–1875) of Cambridge was known for his kinematic teaching models.
Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905) created the world’s largest collection of kinematic models at the Technical University of Berlin with over 800 models.
1940's
Birth of numerical control, i.e. machine tools controlled by code.
mid 1950's
Birth of special purpose programming languages for computer numerical controlled (CNC) machine tools.
end 1950's - mid 1960's
Birth of interfaces of Computer-aided design (CAD) with CNC.
1970
Mohamed Hashish created a technique to add abrasives to the water jet cutter
1986
3D-Printing
2005
Neil Gershenfeld's et al. MIT class 863.04 - how to make (almost) anything.
2006
The RepRap prototype
2007
Neil Gershenfeld and Joe Jacobson MIT class How To Make Something That Makes (almost) Anything.
The CandyFab Project

Hardware tools

There exist several popular fab lab technologies, some of which are described below in more details. Most fall in the category of solid freeform fabrication tools and that include:

  • 3D printers
  • Laser cutters
  • CNC machines
  • Automated paper cutters
  • 3D Scanners (for replication)
  • Laser sintering

Another set of toolkits are electronics platforms like Arduino.

A fabber (or digital fabricator) refers to a "factory in box" (i.e. one of the above tools) that can create things automatically from digital data. The Digital Fabrication Portal distinguishes three fundamental kinds of fabbers, according to the way they operate on their raw material:

  • Subtractive: Material is carved away from a solid block, such as by milling, turning, or electrodischarge machining (EDM). Subtractive fabbers have been automated since the late 1940s, and are often called computer-numerically controlled (CNC) machines.
  • Additive: Material is successively added into place to build up the desired object. The methods used include selective curing, selective sintering, and aimed deposition. The first commercial additive fabber was introduced in 1987. [This includes the 3D printers that became very cheap and popular in recent years] (DKS).
  • Formative: Material is neither added nor removed, but opposing pressures are applied to the material to modify its shape. Techniques in this category, including automated bending and reconfigurable molding, are under development.
  • Hybrid: Processes from two or more of the above categories are combined. Sheet-based fabbers, which cut and laminate successive layers of sheet material, are hybrid subtractive/additive devices. A combination CNC punch press and press brake is a hybrid subtractive/formative fabber. (retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

Solid Freeform Fabrication overview

“Freeform Fabrication is a collection of manufacturing technologies with which parts can be created without the need for part-specific tooling. A computerized model of the part is designed. It is sliced computationally, and layer information is sent to a fabricator that reproduces the layer in a real material” (Laboratory of Freeform Fabrication, UTexas, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)). CreatItReal shows an animation of this principle. Typical commercial free form fabricators range between 20'000 and 300'000 $US although low-end 3D printers start at $5000 (June 2009). Open source kits are much cheaper if self-assembled (see below)

Low End Solid Freeform Fabrication tools, also called rapid prototype machines are usually a kind of 3D printers. “3D printing is a unique form of fabrication that is related to traditional rapid prototyping technology. A three dimensional object is created by layering and connecting successive cross sections of material. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive fabrication technologies. While prototyping dominates current uses, 3D printers offers tremendous potential for retail consumer uses.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

RepRap self-replicating 3D printer

Currently, low-end commercial 3D prototypers are still costly for individuals who want to "play" or schools. On June 2009, the cheapest 3D printer we found a printer at $5000 from Desktop Factory and one at 5000 Euros from CreateItReal. A more expensive one is "Dimension uPrint" and cost £12000. In addition you need to buy materials and solidifiers which may be more expensive. Current (June 2009) open source freeform systems rather cost about $2000 (not counting assembly time) and assembled versions cost about $4000.

According to Wikipedia (retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009), “Prototypes made by low-end commercial machines cost around US$2 per cubic centimeter to fabricate. The RepRap Project is on track to produce a 3D prototyping machine and free and open source accompanying software that costs about US$400 to build and which can fabricate objects at a cost of about US$0.02 per cubic centimeter.”

There exist various kinds of 3D printers, e.g. Inkjet where layers of powder (e.g. plaster, corn starch or resins) are selectively bonded or photopolymer machines that fix liquids with an UV flood lamp. A low-cost fabber, typically includes a kind of "gun" that heats up polymer plastic from a filament and then extrudes a fine stream to build things. Malone and Lipson (2007) describe in good detail the architecture of the Fab@Home solid freeform printer. A similar more complex procedure is called fused deposition modeling (FDM) (Montaro, 2002) and is described more precisely by Lipson et al. (2004:1030): “The process creates a sequence of thermoplastic layers from a filament wound coil that is heated and extruded through a nozzle. The trajectory of the nozzle is derived from the triangle mesh, so as to raster scan and fill solid volumes. In order to create functioning mechanisms, a second, soluble release material is placed in the gaps between the movable parts.”

Low cost fabbers

Fab@Home Fabber model 1, 2007: Source fabathome.org

Very low-cost non-proprietary 3D printers are often referred to as Fabbers (although the term includes other technologies, including high-end ones). There exist several projects with a high profile in the "web 2.0 sphere". Most printers use a "hot gun" plastic extruder, but other techniques are emerging, e.g. sugar sintering in the CandyFab project.

The Fab@Home project (retrieved June 2009) “is a project dedicated to making and using fabbers - machines that can make almost anything, right on your desktop. [...] Fabbers (a.k.a. 3D printers or rapid prototyping machines) are a relatively new form of manufacturing that builds 3D objects by carefully depositing materials drop by drop, layer by layer. With the right set of materials and a geometric blueprint, you can fabricate complex objects that would normally take special resources, tools and skills if produced using conventional manufacturing techniques. A fabber can allow you to explore new designs, email physical objects to other fabber owners, and most importantly - set your ideas free. Just as MP3s, iPods and the Internet have freed musical talent, we hope that blueprints and fabbers will democratize innovation.”. Fab@Home was conceived by Hod Lipson of Cornell University and designed and implemented by Evan Malone. Current development includes more people.

RepRap is another well known project. “RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right - a self-replicating machine. This 3D printer builds the parts up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you about €30,000. And it isn't even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about €500). That way it's accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world. Following the principles of the Free Software Movement we are distributing the RepRap machine at no cost to everyone under the GNU General Public Licence. So, if you have a RepRap machine, you can use it to make another and give that one to a friend...” (What is RepRap?, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

RepRap Thermoplast Extruder Version 2

This RepRap 3D printer builds the parts up in layers of plastic with the help of a custom-made Thermoplast Extruder. Version 2 “takes a 3mm diameter filament of a polymer (the single white rod coming into the picture from the top, not to be confused with the pair of white 12V supply wires), forces it down a heated barrel, and then extrudes it as a melt out of a fine nozzle. The resulting thin stream is laid down in layers to form the parts that RepRap makes. The extruder should work up to a temperature of 250o Celsius”. It works with ABS (Lego-like plastic) and polylactic acid. (Thermoplast Extruder Version 2.0, retrieved 16:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)).

The next version of RepRap (RepRap Version 2.0 "Mendel") “will have multiple write heads for working with a wide range of materials in a single reprapped object, and will have the ability to embed three-dimensional electrical circuitry inside mechanical parts. Mendel is still very much in the early stages of development, but the build instructions are themselves under construction at that link.”

CandyFab pure sugar objects

The CandyFab project is a 3D freeform fabrication project that works with sintering of sugar and other low-melting point materials. This project is different from Fab@Home and RepRap in two ways. The fabricator can print a much larger printable volume but with a lower resolution and you may eat the product. The creators argue that “Sugar is a particularly good medium because it's easy to obtain, low in cost, kid friendly, water soluble, non-hazardous, non-toxic, non-intimidating, rigid despite having a low melting point, and may be suitable for making objects for lost sugar (like lost wax) investment casting. We also think that it may also be possible to make interesting food with this technology.” (Sneak preview: The Evil Mad Scientist 3D Printer Project, retrieved 16:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)).

W.H. Oskay summarizes the procedure as follows: “When the first layer is started, there is a bed of granulated sugar. The heat gun locally melts the top surface of the bed in one point, melting the sugar at that point. The heat gun then moves to the next point, melting the sugar there. If this is done in a number of points in a row, it begins to fill in a line of melted sugar [...]. The sugar only stays molten for about 15-30 seconds after the heat gun is removed from a point. If a second line of melted sugar is added next to the first, you can begin to fill in an area with a thin layer of fused sugar. Let's suppose that you were making a cylinder-- then the first layer would just be a circle. The depth of the melt layer is controlled by the temperature, air flow rate, and hold time at each pixel location. After the first layer is finished, the bed is lowered slightly-- by an amount equal to the melt depth-- and a fresh layer of sugar is added to the top, such that the new top surface is at the same place where the original surface was. To make the next step in the cylinder, a new circle is drawn in the sugar on this layer. For each point in the circle, as the sugar in the top layer melts, it fuses to the corresponding point in the hardened sugar circle below. If we were to let the model cool and take it out of the machine at this point, you would have a solid thin disk, twice the thickness of the melt layer.”

Until recently, fabbers had to be assembled by the end-user using open designs and low-level parts, i.e. many many days of bricolage. However, some fabbers now can be bought commercially as easy kits or fully assembled. E.g. in June 2009, the NextFab Store sold kits for about $3000 and assembled Fab@Homes for about $4000. Bits from Byte sold a (unassembled) RepRap kit (Version 3 - RapMan) for about £750. The latest addition as of June 2009 was the Cupcake from MakerBot Industries, sold £750 (unassembled).

Malone and Lipson (2007) published an interesting breakdown of the cost of the model 1 fab@home 3D printer. Part costs were about $2300 USD plus about 18 hours of assembly work.

Fab@Home Model 1 cost breakdown

Cutters

Laser cutters and engravers
Laser cutters and engravers can process any non-metal material (e.g. acrylic, ceramics, cork, fiberglass, glass, plastic, leather, paper, stone, wood). “Laser cutting is a technology that uses a laser to cut materials, which is used in the production line and is typically used for industrial manufacturing applications. Laser cutting works by directing the output of a high power laser, by computer, at the material to be cut. The material then either melts, burns, vaporizes away, or is blown away by a jet of gas, [1] leaving an edge with a high quality surface finish. Industrial laser cutters are used to cut flat-sheet material as well as structural and piping materials.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).
Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)
“Laminated object manufacturing (LOM) is a rapid prototyping system developed by Helisys Inc. (Cubic Technologies is now the successor organization of Helisys) In it, layers of adhesive-coated paper, plastic, or metal laminates are successively glued together and cut to shape with a knife or a laser cutter.” ([2])
Plasma cutters
“Plasma cutting is a process that is used to cut steel and other metals of different thicknesses (or sometimes other materials) using a plasma torch. In this process, an inert gas (in some units, compressed air) is blown at high speed out of a nozzle; at the same time an electrical arc is formed through that gas from the nozzle to the surface being cut, turning some of that gas to plasma. The plasma is sufficiently hot to melt the metal being cut and moves sufficiently fast to blow molten metal away from the cut. Plasma can also be used for plasma arc welding and other applications.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

Plasma cutters come in various sizes are available from $3000.

Water jet cutter
“A water jet cutter is a tool capable of slicing into metal or other materials using a jet of water at high velocity and pressure, or a mixture of water and an abrasive substance. The process is essentially the same as water erosion found in nature but greatly accelerated and concentrated. It is often used during fabrication or manufacture of parts for machinery and other devices” (Wikipedia, retrieved 21:22, 23 June 2009 (UTC).)

According to Wikipedia, water jets can cut with a with of about 1mm and can cut materials such as rubber, foam, plastics, composites, stone, glass, tile, metals, food, paper and much more. Also, water jets can cut material without much harming or changing the materials' structures since there is no heat. I also can be considered a green technology, since it doesn't produce harmful waste. Water and abrasives can be recycled.

Selective Laser sintering

“In the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process, three-dimensional parts are created by fusing (or sintering) powdered thermoplastic materials with the heat from an infrared laser beam.” (Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), SLS Prototype, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

“Selective laser sintering is an additive rapid manufacturing technique that uses a high power LASER (for example, a carbon dioxide laser) to fuse small particles of plastic, metal, ceramic, or glass powders into a mass representing a desired 3-dimensional object. The laser selectively fuses powdered material by scanning cross-sections generated from a 3-D digital description of the part” (Wikipedia, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

This technology looks rather complex and expensive, compared to low-end 3D printers...

Stereolithography (SLA)

Stereolithography (or photopolymerization) “is a common rapid manufacturing and rapid prototyping technology for producing parts with high accuracy and good surface finish. A device that performs stereolithography is called an SLA or Stereolithography Apparatus.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

SLA is too expensive for fab labs (between $100,000 and $400,000)

CNC mills

A milling machine (fr. "fraiseuse") is a machine tool used for the shaping of metal and other solid materials. It uses rotating cutters to cut stuff from a workpiece. In more sophisticated milling machines, both the cutters and the workpiece can be rotated in three axis.

3D Scanners

An alternative to designing objects is to scan them. 3D scanners can be bought for about $3000.

Electronic kits

Arduino

Arduino “is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).” (Arduino Home Page, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

OpenMoko

OpenMoko is is a project dedicated to delivering mobile phones with an open source software stack. Openmoko is currently (June 2009) selling the Neo FreeRunner phone to advanced users and will start selling it to the general public as soon as the software is more developed.

“The Openmoko stack, which includes a full X server, allows users and developers to transform mobile hardware platforms into unique products. Our license gives developers and users freedom to cosmetically customize their device or radically remix it; change the wallpaper or rebuild the entire house! It grants them the freedom, for example, to transform a phone into a medical device or point of sale device or the freedom to simply install their own favorite software. Beyond freeing the software on our devices we have also released our CAD files. And at LinuxWorld 2008, we announced the release of the schematics for our products.” (Introduction, retrieved 16:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)).

The Make controller kit

The Make Controller Kit sponsored by Make magazine, is an open source hardware solution for hobbyists and professionals to create interactive applications. It supports desktop interfaces via a variety of languages such as Max/MSP, Flash, Processing, Java, Python, Ruby, or anything that supports Open Sound Control (OSC).

Software

File formats

See also Computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM)

The .STL file format
“An STL (“Stereolithography”) file is a triangular representation of a 3-dimensional surface geometry. The surface is tessellated or broken down logically into a series of small triangles (facets). Each facet is described by a perpendicular direction and three points representing the vertices (corners) of the triangle. These data are used by a slicing algorithm to determine the cross sections of the 3-dimensional shape to be built by the fabber” (The StL Format, retrieved 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).
STL files can be created with most CAD programs. Alphaprototypes provides instructions for several popular CAD applications.

CAD/CAM Software

See also Computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM)

  • ReplicatorG is the software that will drive your CupCake CNC, RepRap machine, or generic CNC machine. You feed it GCode, it parses the GCode, and then controls your machine via a driver. Its cross platform, easily installed, and is based on the familiar Arduino / Processing environments.
  • CandyFab developed CandyFaboulous, written in Processing, an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interaction.

Fab Labs and fabbers in education

Fab labs in education seem to follow to connected axis of development: Teaching design and producing models for teaching concepts.

Lipson et al. (2004:1032) reports on “the use of computer-aided modeling tools and rapid prototyping technology to document, preserve, and reproduce in three dimensions, historic machines, and mechanisms. We have reproduced several preassembled, fully functional historic mechanisms such as early straight line mechanisms, ratchets, pumps, clock escapements and counting devices, including various kinematic components such as links, joints, gears, worms, nuts, bolts, and springs.”. The authors also argue that “One can realize many historical concepts that exist only on paper, such as Leonardo da Vinci's slider crank mechanism, as well as other models that exhibit more contemporary concepts from aerodynamics to molecular biology.”

Fab labs were born in higher education (e.g. Gershenfeld:2005) and most of these are sponsored by academic institutions. Of course, technical hobbyists always did exist and and in many countries, schools do offer facilities and even classes for all sorts of bricolage. The most prominent fabber projects were founded by academics. E.g. RepRap by Adrien Bowyer et al. at University of Bath (UK); Fab@Home by Evan Malone while he was a PhD student at Cornell. Commercial low-cost printers are sold as tool for design classes. E.g. a Desktop Factory printer is advertised as “With the Desktop Factory 3D printer, departments within large firms will be able to have their own dedicated 3D printers, and many small businesses, design firms and schools will be able to own this capability for the first time. Professional designers, engineers and students alike will be able to build inexpensive models from their designs before committing to expensive, custom prototyping” (retrieved 16:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)).

Knapp et al. (2007) stress the benefits of physical models in a variety of educational settings, e.g. Mathematics, anatomy, molecular biology, aeronautics, chemistry, archeology: “Physical models have been shown to enhance learning in general student populations as well. Students learn in a variety of ways, and models allow students to include their sense of touch in the learning experience. The role of experience is emphasized in Piaget's description of cognitive development, that is, to know an object a subject must act on it and thus transform it - displace, connect, combine, take apart, and reassemble it. (Cohen, 1983). Science education especially benefits from the use of models. "If one goal of science education is to enhance and maximize an individual's special conceptual ability, then access to manipulatives is advisable for those individuals. This access to manipulatives might also enhance development of their logical abilities... Internality is positively correlated with student achievement, and experience with manipulatives tends to move external subjects toward the internal end of the internal external continuum." (Cohen, 1982)”. Knapp et al. also stress the general benefits of models and manipulatives, quoting a study from Lillard (2006) showing that children from a Montessori kindergarten significantly outperformed their peers at traditional schools in standardized tests of reading and math.

The Tactilelearning.org stresses the importance of tactile models for the visually impaired and present several devices made "by hand" for teaching. A similar project is Touch Graphics that produced a number of projects, some of which are commercially available.

As the power of desktop fabbers will increase and cost decrease over the next few years, Lipson et al. (2004:1032) argue that “more elaborate machines may be printable by a growing community around the world. Moreover, as new research leads to multimaterial functional freeform fabrication, we expect that incorporation of elastomers, lubricants, actuators, and sensors, electronics and power devices (Lipson, 2005b) will allow faithful replication and electronic sharing of an ever increasing scope of physical models and artifacts.”

Links

Fab Lab portals and overviews

Wikipedia articles
Overviews

Repositories

Software Models
Hardware models

Numerical control

Cheap open source 3D printers

3D printer as geek campfire (Source:[1])

“We didn’t know it, but it turns out that sitting around a table with folks while the MakerBot Cupcake CNC is puttering away and doing its thing and making objects appear where there were none before is really a great community activity! One of the gatherers mentioned that it felt like a geek campfire and it did!” (Pre Pettis, retrieved 16:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC))

Below are the fabbers most popular in June 2009. See also the links in the #Fab_Lab_portals_and_overviews general section above. All organizations and companies providing designs and selling parts or fully assembled tools do have web sites with a lot of information.

Fab@Home 3D printer
  • Fab@Home, is a project dedicated to making and using fabbers - machines that can make almost anything, right on your desktop. This website provides everything you need to know in order to build or buy your own simple fabber, and to use it to print three dimensional object. Hardware designs and software on this website are open source. This printer can include a dual syringe tool for printing two materials simultaneously.
  • The fab@home page lists several Vendors for buying parts.
  • The NextFab store sells assembled systems at $3700 (single syringe, clear chassis) and $4175 (two synringe, color chassis)
  • Designs are available from the Design Library
Reprap 3D printer
Cupcake (MakerBot Industries)
Cupcake is a 3D printer that works with four kinds of plastic, e.g. ABS (Lego-like) and HDPE (milk-jug like). The founder of this company also is involved in the RepRap research project.
The CandyFab 6000 sugar-based 3D printer
CandyFab
Other links

Commercial entry-level 3D printers

Laser and plasma cutters

Water jets

CNC mills

Selective Laster Sintering (SLS)

Stereolithography (SLA)

Electronics

In order to avoid hassles with repairs and an such, it is probably a good idea to buy in your own country. E.g. in Switzerland, there is the dshop (an Arduino/OpenMoko vendor)

Arduino
  • Arduino (Home page)
  • YouTube Videos
  • Most Arduino products are I/O Boards on top of which one can insert shields (extensions). Various parts range from cheap to $400.-. See the vendor page. Some OpenSource 3D fabbers use these boards.
  • There exist many Arduino clones (since the design is open source). See the Wikipedia page.
  • Arduino (Wikipedia).
OpenMoko
  • Openmoko is a project dedicated to delivering mobile phones with an open source software stack. It can run with various OSs, e.g. it got official Debian support and also runs with Android.
  • OpenMoko (Home page)
  • TechTree review of Freerunner
  • OpenMoko Store. The FreeRunner (A6) model is sold for $250.
Make Controller Kit
Make Controller Kit online sales at Making Things.com

New technology mags, blogs and communities

Fab Labs

Bibliography

  • Bowyer, Adrian (2007) Why Accountants are Dull and Guitarists are Glamourous - The End of Intellectual Property, Time Compression Technology Magazine, volume 15, issue 3, p33 (2007).
  • Bowyer, Adrian (2007)- The Self-replicating Rapid Prototyper ─ Manufacturing for the Masses, Invited Keynote Address, Proc. 8th National Conference on Rapid Design, Prototyping & Manufacturing, Centre for Rapid Design and Manufacture, High Wycombe, June 2007. Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Association, ISBN-13: 978-0948314537 (2007).
  • Bowyer, Adrian (2007). Breed your own Design, Icon Magazine, volume 52, October 2007.
  • Ceccarelli, M., (Ed.) 2000, International Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms, Proc. HMM Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht.
  • Cohen D. L., Malone E., Lipson H., Bonassar L., (2006) "3D direct printing of heterogeneous tissue implants", Tissue Engineering, Vol. 12, No. 5: 1325-1335
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Links

Acknowledgment

Thanx to Nicolas Nova for inviting Daniel K. Schneider to LIFT France '09 which gave me the impulse for writing a first version of this piece.

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