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    Wednesday
    Aug112010

    DIY Fablab!

    If you were going to build your own diy manufacturing facility for making almost anything, what would you have in it? Here's my list!

    • MakerBot - 3D printer and I'd add the heated build platform - $1000
    • Lasersaur - DIY Laser cutter kit in development - $559
    • DIYLILCNC - Sweet little CNC that uses a dremel $700 (on my personal make-list)
    • Oltrogge CNC 4×8 Router - Sweet large CNC Mill - $3000 (also on my personal make-list)
    • An awesome wet dry vacuum VERY IMPORTANT!- $200

    Ok, so the total comes to $5459! Yarr! That is a super cheap and fabulous laboratory!

    If I was in a hurry, I'd probably get an Epilog Zing laser instead of wait for the lasersaur, although once the lasersaur arrives on the market it's going to open up laser cutting for the masses.

    I believe you can make almost anything with the above stuff. And so I throw down the challenge! What changes would you make to this list! What would you add to the DIY Fablab list? What are the cheapest options that offer the biggest opportunities for creativity? I challenge you to make your own list filled with the most powerful inexpensive tools for your own fabulous laboratory! What would you add/change?

    Photo: Tesla... just chilling and reading a book with a tesla coil in his workshop. I should probably add one of those to the list, right?

    Tuesday
    Aug032010

    Detroit with Jeff Sturges

    I was in Detroit for Maker Faire and my buddy Jeff Sturges gave me a tour of Detroit. There is creativity, resourcefulness and great things happening. There's also poverty, 40% unemployment and 20% of the folks there graduate high school. It's a place ripe for change and the people who are there building up infrastructure for awesome are doing some really interesting things like starting farms on abandoned city blocks.

    Saturday
    May292010

    Talk at Columbia

    The nice folks at Columbia University had me come up and chat with them about the future of manufacturing and then they edited my talk down to just a few minutes.

    Sunday
    May162010

    MakerBot Transformer!

    MakerBot Transformer

    Last week the MakerBot Giveaway ended and the MakerBot Transformer came out on top.  I made one on my MakerBot over the last 3 days. The first day I only printed the body which took around 4 hours and then the rest of the parts I made while working on other stuff and each one took between 15-30 minutes to print out.

    This is one of those things that just blows my mind. It's a transformer and it transforms from a MakerBot into a robot... with my head on it!

    There are a ton of oother things I want to print out before Maker Faire next week, but this one was at the top of my list! My next project for the evening is to bring a MakerBot to life that got started almost a year ago and then it had to have most of it's parts hijacked to ship out to customers. We've got everything in stock now so I can put it together as another bot to travel with and show MakerBotting in action.

    In the rest of my life there are some great things going on. I moved in with my girlfriend Kio and we've got a great apartment with some space to entertain. As part of the deal I now live with a cat who is basically a puppey in cat's clothing. He's pretty hilarious and chases his tail most of the day.

    Wednesday
    Apr282010

    Bring That Beat Back - I Make Things.

    I'm bringing back I Make Things, which used to be my blog url until I brought my blog here. I'll still blog here, but I've got some plans for IMT as its own project. Should be good. Stay tuned.