Make:

Josh writes in -

It is makephilly time again and this month we are breaking our audio streak with something for the hardware crowd. Evan Malone will present on a cutting edge branch of Rapid Prototyping he is involved with developing that holds the promise of allowing us all to fabricate anything we design right in our very own homes.

For the past twenty years, Rapid Prototyping has advanced as a technology that allows for transforming any 3D design in software, for example a CAD model of a mechanical part, into an identical physical model of it in the real world.

Now in 2008, at the Cornell Computational Synthesis Laboratory where he is pursuing his PhD, Evan is blazing the path to develop the next generation of Rapid Prototyping machines - highly compact ones called "fabbers". These small machines can fabricate almost any kind of object – not merely passive mechanical parts, but complete and fully functional electronic devices, ready to use right out of the machine!

To accelerate the transfer of this technology from the research world into the personal realm, he launched the Fab@Home project which he will speak about in his presentation as well. The Fab@Home project includes a user-editable "wiki" website which provides open-source, free software, parts lists, designs, and assembly & operational instructions for making a simple desktop fabber which anyone with basic hobbyist tools and skills can build for themselves. (More info: http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page)

Also our hacker space the hacktory is offering a bunch of new classes!
We are even offering artist's stipends to make the classes more affordable to a couple of worthy applicants.
We have an intro to processing class, an advanced Arduino serial communication class, and an EZ LED class.
The details are all at http://www.thehacktory.org/classes.