Maker

Today, the fab lab is a collection of components, but you could think of it as one big machine. The fab lab isn’t a static thing; bit by bit, we’re starting to use the machines to make the machines, until a lab can eventually make another lab.

The fab lab comprises about $25,000 in equipment, consumables, and software. Currently, there’s a laser cutter that makes 2D and 3D structures, a sign cutter that plots in copper to make antennas and flex circuits, a high-resolution milling machine that makes circuit boards and precision parts, and programming tools for low-cost, high-speed, tiny microcontrollers.

A laser cutter is a bit like a laser printer, but the laser is so powerful that it can cut through materials. And the beam can be placed with a resolution of a thousandth of an inch (a mil), which is good enough to cut out two-dimensional parts that snap together to assemble three-dimensional structures. Right now, that’s faster and cheaper than printing in 3D.

The machines in the lab come with programs that contain strong assumptions about how they’re going to be used: 2D shapes on the laser cutter, signs on the sign cutter. So one of the first things I had to do for the fab labs was write a CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) program that could read all the different kinds of ways that people describe things, and turn them into toolpaths for all the different ways it’s possible to make them. Another program helps users share their files and experiences as they work, so that users can teach each other rather than relying on a fixed curriculum.

Once we started taking these things into the field, we quickly found that there’s an instrumentation and fabrication divide that’s even bigger than the digital divide — a desktop computer isn’t much use if you don’t have a desk. One fab lab in India is working on sensors for agriculture and health care, another on crafts for rural artisans. The Ghanian lab is working on solar energy conversion and wireless networks. In Boston, a group of girls at SETC set up the laser cutter on a street corner and held a high-tech craft sale, making things on demand from scrap materials. They also made $100 in an afternoon, a life-changing experience in a community with limited economic opportunities for them.

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26 Make: Volume 01