Neil Gershenfeld, Head of the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT talks about his Fab Lab project and remote rural deployments to experiment the development of local tools relevant to local needs. There are pictures of the centre in Pabal based at Vigyan Ashram - an NGO that I am also associated with. V.A. was setup by Dr Srinath Kalbag, ex-DIrector Research of HLL - one of the largest Consumer Goods companies in the world.

1. Prof. Neil Gershenfeld
Director
http://cba.mit.edu/~neilg
NSF CCR-0122419

3. bits to atoms: building with logic
atoms to bits: programming with math

4. Thresholds
1940s: Communications
(Shannon)
errors
1950s: Computation
(Winograd, von Neumann)
2000s: Fabrication
noise

5. in out
m
mm
μm
nm

6. How To Make
(almost) Anything

8. The Liberal Arts
The Trivium
• Grammar
• Rhetoric
• Logic
The Quadrivium
• Arithmetic
• Geometry
• Music
• Astronomy
The Illiberal Arts

10. cam.py
input: SVG, DXF (2D,3D), Gerber PCB, Excellon drill, JPG, TIFF
output: G code, Roland mill & cutter, Omax waterjet, Epilog & Universal lasercutter,
FEI focused ion beam, Haas machining center, Resonetics excimer micromachining

11. site.py
http://fab.cba.mit.edu

14. Diesel Timing (Kalbag, Ike Chuang, Amy Sun, Anil Bahuman)

15. Bithoor
CONVERT
Java output
to dxf or
bitmap IMPORT
dxf to 2D
Design
MILL
polystyrene
mold with
Modella POUR and
CURE
silicon stamp
in oven

19. Nomadic Data
(Haakon Karlson, Telenor, Manu Prakash)
Lyngen Alps

20. Boston
Fab Labs
space (µ m), time (µ s)
fabrication, instrumentation divides
Ghana, Costa Rica, ... India
Norway electronics
3D scan/mill
PCB,
analytical electromagnetics
instrumentation