Virtual designs into physical objects/Fab Labs

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Fablab.jpg

Fab Labs (fabrication laboratories) are small scale workshops with modern computer controlled equipment such as...

...giving the ability within one room to create just about anything from engines to electronic devices. The concept was developed at the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT.

Around 34 fab labs have been set up around the world so far to give ordinary people in deprived areas access to this type of machinery to help people create machines and devices for themselves and their community.

Mobile FabLab:
Fablab trailer in wyoming.jpg

Commercial versions are now starting to spring too, see http://www.techshop.ws.

Links

'RepLab'

RepLab.jpg

RepLab - Open-source, replicable FabLabs. Very nascent but shows great promise. Conventional FabLabs use expensive commercial equipment - RepLab wants to reduce the cost by an order of magnitude and at the same time significantly increase functionality. On top of that it would follow RepRap principles so that the equipment in a RepLab would be able to create another RepLab. Basically multi-process, multi-material RepRap.