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

By Neil Gershenfeld

Book Overview

What if you could someday put the manufacturing power of an automobile plant on your desktop? It may sound far-fetched-but then, thirty years ago, the notion of "personal computers" in every home sounded like science fiction. According to Neil Gershenfeld, the renowned MIT scientist and inventor, the next big thing is personal fabrication -the ability to design and produce your own products, in your own home, with a machine that combines consumer electronics with industrial tools. Personal fabricators (PF's) are about to revolutionize the world just as personal computers did a generation ago. PF's will bring the programmability of the digital world to the rest of the world, by being able to make almost anything-including new personal fabricators. In FAB, Gershenfeld describes how personal fabrication is possible today, and how it is meeting local needs with locally developed solutions. He and his colleagues have created "fab labs" around the world, which, in his words, can be interpreted to mean "a lab for fabrication, or simply a fabulous laboratory." Using the machines in one of these labs, children in inner-city Boston have made saleable jewelry from scrap material. Villagers in India used their lab to develop devices for monitoring food safety and agricultural engine efficiency. Herders in the Lyngen Alps of northern Norway are developing wireless networks and animal tags so that their data can be as nomadic as their animals. And students at MIT have made everything from a defensive dress that protects its wearer's personal space to an alarm clock that must be wrestled into silence. These experiments are the vanguard of a new science and a new era-an era of "post-digital literacy" in which we will be as familiar with digital fabrication as we are with the of information processing. In this groundbreaking book, the scientist pioneering the revolution in personal fabrication reveals exactly what is being done, and how. The technology of FAB will allow people to create the objects they desire, and the kind of world they want to live in.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465027466
• ISBN13: 9780465027460
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

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.

An easy introduction to the process

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. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

This is not a how to book.

I think some of the reviewers here were expecting a how to book and are missing the point. This book is more of a sumation of some of the possibilities that microfabrication can bring to the world. This was a very good read and is inspiring to those with imagination. Well, if you don't have imagination, you probably aren't going to do too well when microfabrication tech truely becomes much more mainstream in the next 10 years--and it is coming despite any unenlightened assertions to the contrary. The 3D printing technology is already being proven and people with brains realize how fast printing technology comes down in price. Also, I've seen a computer controlled wood milling machine on the market for under 2k now; metal milling won't be too far behind. A clever person could put such things to good use in a small business framework. If you have an imagination, this book will be a good read. If you don't, well, no technology can cure that lol.

Loved every chapter

Neil is a very special person in that he combines nerdy intelligence with common sense. Even more rare is the ability to convey very complex ideas in a way that mixes clear explanation with just enough detail and some very relevant case studies. I found myself going "wow" at several points, have a strong feeling that this could be a landmark publication, and am pleased to have been in at the start.

Inspiring

I can agree in part with the other reviews saying that the book is unfocused and doesn't contain enough detail. Then again, if you're looking for a place to get you started in personal fabrication, this is an excellent beginning. His real life practicality and "hello world" applications are a great inspiration for anyone interested in the field.