Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication

Author(s): Neil Gershenfeld
Stars:
Publisher: Basic Books
Since: 2007-02-06
Media: Paperback
ISBN-10: 0465027466

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Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication @ivread What a wonderful lab! I envy them.

1 books read

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(19people)

I am excited about the growing field of DIY manufacturing technologies (I.e. any MAKE magazine). <
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>I picked up this book, excited that there was someone exploring the future of DIY. The first chapter was excellent, spot-on with what I thought the book would be able. The author ably described the exciting future and the possibilities of change that portable 3D printers, CNC, etc could lead to. <
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>The rest of the book (90%) is totally different. It is a short couple of pages on student projects from pupils of the author. Each 2 pages is a different project and summary, usually with a picture. That's ok, but it isn't the most exciting book then. The focus changes completely to just a list of ideas. Some are exciting, some are kinda boring. If you just want a list of cool, exciting ideas and projects it'd be much better to google the Make Blog and get an unlimited list of great ideas (with instructions to DIY). <
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>1-star.
This book should be read by everyone who is involved in helping other countries. The book shows by giving the proper tools to people in poverty areas can produce items they need instead of giving funds to their ogvernments that only corrupts the government. Our nation was founded on self-help not government handouts but our aid programs only give money the government instead of the tools to the people.
Following along on the latest "Maker" phenomenon this book gives a very upbeat blueprint for the future. Upbeat unless you are a large scale manufacturer. <
>This book describes a project out of MIT to put the means of custom manufacture in the hands of everyone. And I do mean everyone. They have taken their scheme to the African continent, the most remote parts of India and the urban centers of the US. <
>The premise is that small scale, custom manufacturing of any level of technology serves best when put into the hands of those who will us that technology. <
>Perhaps the most refreshing fact revealed by this book is that the process was two way. The people from MIT learned as much about the process as those they were trying to help. The human spirit is really quite remarkable when given the opportunity to be expressed.
As an introduction to the idea of personal fabrication this book works out quite well. The MIT FABLabs have been set up in a number of places around the world and this book tells us of the experiences that MIT students, et al, have undergone in setting them up and the things that they find people interested in making. <
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>There is nothing in this book about other people's developments in personal fabrication (such as Fab@home or RepRap) but these may have occurred after the book was written. <
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>All in all the book is a useful starting point introducing people to the perhaps novel idea of personal manufacturing, a growing field of endeavour.
FAB: THE COMING REVOLUTION ON YOUR DESKTOP - FROM PERSONAL COMPUTERS TO PERSONAL FABRICATION covers a new prospect in desktop applications: the ability to manufacture products at home on the home computer. Personal fabricators hold much potential and promise to be tomorrow's hits, and FAB surveys the new technology of digital fabrication, from inexpensive ways to build large solar energy collectors to specialized radio collars for herding goats in Norway. Fab labs build digital fabrications using logic, and FAB is an easy introduction to the process which general-interest collections will want. <
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>Diane C. Donovan <
>California Bookwatch