DIY Fabrication
Wow! I feel like I’ve just discovered a brave new world of possibilities.
I took a study break earlier today and wound up in the library; due to the internal creative pressures that have been building lately, I gravitated towards the CG books. I found a literate programming book which develops, from scratch, pbrt, a C++ production-quality racetracer, while explaining both the algorithms used and their practical implementation. pbrt is designed to be extensible, so if I read my way through the book, I’ll be in a position to implement some of the techniques from the SIGGRAPH papers at citeseer which currently taunt me with their inacessibility.
Also, I picked up a book on nonphotorealistic rendering, which although I have no interest in reading capapie, has a section on simulating various pencil strokes (HB, etc) on different weights of paper– the results look incredible– which has reawakened my very specific interest in that subfield of NPR. So my weekend recreational reading is accounted for.
Back to the main topic: DIY fabrication. I did not know it was feasible, until I came across an Evil Mad Scientist Laboratory entry on the CandyFab 4000– a home-built fabrication system that uses sugar as the molding material. They assert that the system can be built for under $500. It can also be driven by POV models. Anyone here at Caltech interested in working on a little project with me? 
The same article mentions the RepRap and Fab@Home home fabrication systems, which both handle multiple fabrication materials (e.g. the Fab@Home system has been used to fabricate a working flashlight from silicon, conductive silicon, and epoxy), but are limited to producing models of smaller sizes, and just aren’t as cool!
Finally, there’s San Francisco’s Tech Shop, with its $100 monthly membership, which provides its members with access to a smorgasborg of manufacturing machines. Theirs must be a unique business model– imagine the liability issues– but, it’s an idea that I hope catches on elsewhere. I can tell you, if there had been such a business in Houston when I was a child, I’d be a different person today in a different place doing something very different.
Possibly relevant posts:
- Hyperspectral imaging (5/12/2006)
- Fractal River Basins (7/12/2007)
- A Motion Capture Problem (1/17/2006)
Alex,
Great post! If I were at Tech right now, I’d go for it! 250 USD each sounds affordable for such a cool idea. Good luck in your venture!
Comment by rod. — 8/25/2007 @ 11:37 am
Yes, you’ve stumbled onto the future. Graphics programming was always the most satisfying, because you get visual feedback when you’ve done a good job. But doing things with fabbers (and robotics in general) gives you PHYSICAL feedback. This is like the PC industry when it was in it’s infancy (just like Bill Gates said in Scientific American recently).
I think there is just one more piece that needs to be added: robots/fabbers that modify/extend/maintain your primary dwelling. That way, you don’t just get physical feedback, you get something that you can actually use from day to day in your life, and in the life of your family.
Comment by Some scummy person — 8/25/2007 @ 8:34 pm