Personal Fabricators

Personal Fabrication technology

"What if you could design and produce your own products, in your own home, with a machine that can be used to make almost anything? Imagine if you didn't have to wait for a company to sell the product you wanted but could use your own personal fabricator to create it instead. Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, believes that personal fabricators will allow us to do just that and revolutionize our world.

His most recent book, FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop—From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication, explores the ability to design and produce your own products, in your own home, with a machine that combines consumer electronics with industrial tools. Such machines, Personal fabricators, offer the promise of making almost anything-including new personal fabricators and as a result revolutionize the world just as personal computers did a generation ago." (http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail460.html)

More Information

Fab Labs at MIT, at http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab

Personal Fabrication tag in Delicious, maintained by Samuel Rose, at http://del.icio.us/srose/personalfabrication

Key Book to Read

Neil Gershenfeld. FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop—From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication. MIT Press, 2005