An Open Source fabber project already exists, started by universities and supported by a slowly growing community of hobbyists. Thus the Open Fabber Project as part of the Open Source Everything Project would simply begin by lending its support to this effort through its on-line information repositories. However, the Open Fabber Project may eventually supercede these earlier individual efforts by virtue of its role as a centralized source for their information and the trading of improvements to them. The Open Fabber Project would also seek to implement this technology on many scales and in many variations as it relates to its other Open Source projects and designs.
The Fabber –the emerging child of Rapid Prototyping systems devised in the 1980s– represents a key Post-Industrial fabrication technology and an important platform for emerging nanotechnology. Todays stereo-lithograhy, laser, and machine-tool derived systems are anticipated to eventually adopt NanoChips as the basis of future tool-head components while otherwise remaining similar in form-factor and use to current devices. Fabbers will be a key tool in the promotion of Post-Industrial culture through the new more tech-savvy hobbyist community growing around their development and use. Unlike other aspects of the DIY movement, this is already a technology where grass-roots efforts are supporting everything from the earliest experimental development to practical commercial-level implementation. But these devices currently have a very long way to go before they can start producing artifacts that can compete with those of the traditional industrial hegemony and right now the community supporting this technology remains very disorganized and dispersed.
Parent Topic[]
Peer Topics[]
- Utilimobile Project
- Utilihab Project
- Open Energy Project
- Open Computer Project
- Open Space Project
- FIY - Fab-It-Yourself Series
- Enclosure Profiles
- OSbot