Open Manufacturing

Open production facilities for everybodies taste

Submitted by Reto Stauss on 6. April 2009 - 22:01

Not long ago I was writing about open production facilities. Shortly after that I found a few existing concepts in the web:

  • Fab Labs,  MITs high tech version I‘ve already mentioned.
  • The canadian TechShop is a member-financed manufactory providing machines, tools and materials. It‘s also offering an open and helpful community.
  • The Shop (German) is a concept of Philip Steffan, who has already initialized Baustler-events (trés sympa, someone not fearing to be mentioned by his real name)
  • And there‘s also NYC Resistor, a hacker collective with shared space located in downtown Brooklyn. They do also run training courses. MakerBot Industries, offering Open source roboter kits and 3D printers, was born in that community. 

Do we have to know everything? Do we have to be able to make everything? Do we have to own everything ourselves? Are we the only owns? I found an answer in a wonderful world of shared spaces, open source design and hardware: no

[Update]

19.03.2009: Forgot the most obvious example: Factor e Farm.

01.04.2009: Similar to Baustler, event-based: Hack-Up.

03.04.2009: Building a hacker space - a hacker space design pattern catalogue (PDF) and Hackerspaces.

Open manufacturing

Submitted by Reto Stauss on 9. March 2009 - 13:22

Make fabrication facilities and resources accessible. I think that‘s the essential point of where I am heading to. Fab labs are one step in this direction, but at the end of the day it‘s about having a place, where we can produce what we actually need.

Imagine a place, where you have free access to tools and raw materials, where you have access to knowledge and skills and imagine further you can go there with a free available design and manufacture your product based on this design and your needs.

Join to the mailing list and have a look at the Appropedia page dedicated to this issue.


Syndicate content
CC0 1.0 Universal
To the extent possible under law, all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this Work, Manufaktur in Gründung, have been waived, although certain works referenced herein may be separately licensed.