How to Make Almost Anything

The Digital Fabrication Revolution

By Neil Gershenfeld

This article published on December 2012 issue of the Foreign Affairs by Neil
Gershenfeld is about digital fabrication. This is a course in MIT that provides a hands-on
introduction to the resources for designing and fabricating smart systems, including
CAD/CAM/CAE; NC machining, 3-D printing, injection molding, laser cutting; PCB
layout and fabrication; sensors and actuators; analog instrumentation; embedded digital
processing; wired and wireless communications. This course also puts emphasis on
learning how to use the tools as well as understand how they work. Neil A. Gershenfeld
is an American professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of
MIT’s Center of Bits and Atoms.

Started in 1998, the course was designed to expose technical students to advanced
fabrication equipment and techniques, but it ultimately grew into something much more
rewarding. In its current iteration, students marry creative visions with technical
implementation in empowering and novel ways ultimately to create a final project that
combines all the skills acquired during the semester.

He discussed the rise of Digital Fabrication Revolution which started in 1952 in which
digital computer is connected to a milling machine creating the first numerically
controlled machine tool. By using a computer program instead of a machinist to turn the
screws that moved the metal stock, the researchers were able to produce aircraft
components with shapes that were more complex than could be made by hand.

It’s not to make what you can buy in stores, but to make what you can't buy in stores.
It's to personalize fabrication. Gershenfeld believes that this is the beginning of a new
revolution: digital revolution in fabrication that will allow people to fabricate things,
machines on demand. Personalization drove digital revolution which has personalized
fabrication by using 3d printing and nano-technology.
The person who runs the Fab Foundation nicely describes it as "machines that make
machines need businesses that make businesses:"

Neil Gershenfeld said, there may come a day, perhaps not so far in the future, when
we'll no longer need manufacturers to make our products for us. He envisions a time
when many of us will have a "fabrication center" in our homes. We'll be able to
download a description of, say, a toaster -- perhaps one we designed ourselves -- to our
computers, and then feed the designs and the raw materials into a personal fabricator.
At the push of a button, almost like hitting "print," the machine will spit it out.

So far, the fab labs -- which consist of high-tech equipment and supplies, including a
laser cutter, a vinyl cutter (normally for making signs but used here to cut copper for
circuits), and a 3-D milling machine to make circuit boards, all connected to Linux-based
computers loaded with open-source design and manufacturing software -- have mostly
been used to teach kids technology, to let them play and explore, or to give adults a
place to try out new designs for business ideas.

Ultimately, Gershenfeld wants to build a machine that can make any machine -- one
that can "print" 3-D objects that include all the circuitry and mechanisms they need to
move around, heat up, make noise, connect to the Internet, or do whatever it is they're
designed to do.

Technology, in other words, was becoming sufficiently cheap and sophisticated to make
the labs useful. Gershenfeld describes the shift from large-scale, expensive machine
tools to personal fabrication as analogous to the evolution that began 40 years ago from
room-sized mainframes to personal computers. Instead of personalizing the ability to do
digital computing, we're now able to digitize and personalize the ability to manufacture
our own tools and machines.

There's been a sea change in aid, from top-down mega-projects to bottom-up,

grassroots, micro-finance investing in the roots, so that everybody's got that that's what
works. The message coming from the Fab Labs is that the other five billion people on
the planet aren't just technical sinks; they're sources. The real opportunity is to harness
the inventive power of the world to locally design and produce solutions to local
problems.

And, finally, he says “any talk like this on the future of computing is required to show
Moore's law, and what's happened is, year after year after year, we've scaled and
we've scaled and we've scaled and we've scaled, and there's this looming bug of what's
going to happen at the end of Moore's law; this ultimate bug is coming. But we're
coming to appreciate, is the transition from 2D to 3D, from programming bits to
programming atoms, turns the ends of Moore's law scaling from the ultimate bug to the
ultimate feature. So, we're just at the edge of this digital revolution in fabrication, where
the output of computation programs the physical world. So, together, these two projects
answer questions I hadn't asked carefully. The class at MIT shows the killer app for
personal fabrication in the developed world is technology for a market of one: personal
expression in technology that touches a passion unlike anything I've seen in technology
for a very long time. And the killer app for the rest of the planet is the instrumentation
and the fabrication divide: people locally developing solutions to local problems.”

Digital fabrication will allow individuals to design and produce tangible objects on
demand, wherever and whenever they need them. Widespread access to these
technologies will challenge traditional models of business, aid, and education.
The effect of “front-loading” problem-solving on product
development performance
By: Stefan Thomke, Takahiro Fujimoto

This is a research study of Stefan and Takahiro Fujimoto (JPIM 2000) which aims to
develop a front-loading method on solving product development performance.

“Front loading” in the general sense is defined as “distributing or allocating assets

unevenly, with a greater proportion at the beginning of an enterprise or process.” The
benefits are fairly intuitive: The sooner you can identify issues and opportunities in the
production lifecycle, the more efficiently and effectively they can be managed.

There are many different approaches mentioned, two of which are discussed, first is the
project-to-project knowledge transfer which leverages previous projects by transferring
problem and solution-specific information to new projects. Secondly, the rapid problem-
solving, which leverages advanced technologies and methods to increase the overall
rate at which development problems are identified and solved. Methods for improving
project-to-project knowledge transfer include the effective use of “postmortems,” which
are records of post-project learning and thus can be instrumental in carrying forward the
knowledge from current and past projects. As the article suggests, rapid problem-
solving can be achieved by optimally combining new technologies (such as computer
simulation) that allow for faster problem-solving cycles with traditional technologies
(such as late stage prototypes), which usually provide higher fidelity. Other approaches
to front-load problem-solving in product development are discussed and how a problem-
solving perspective can help managers build capabilities for higher development
performance is presented.

It is viewed that problem solving is an iterative process driven by trial and error
experiments that are guided by knowledge of underlying relationship between cause
and effect. Problem solving starts with problem recognition and goal definition and
continues with iterative process of experimental search through alternatives that are
designed and built during step 1 and 2 of a four-step problem solving process. The
alternatives are tested against an array of requirements and constraints during step 3
and test outcomes are analyzed during step 4.and use to revise and refine the solutions
under development, and progress is made in this way toward an acceptable result.

Front-loading problem solving is a strategy that seeks to improve development

performance by shifting the identifications and solving of problems to earlier phases of a
product development process.

In this article, the authors apply a problem-solving perspective to the management of

product development and suggest how shifting the identification and solving of
problems—a concept that they define as front-loading—can reduce development time
and cost and thus free up resources to be more innovative in the marketplace.

The authors developed a framework of front-loading problem-solving and present

related examples and case evidence from development practice. These examples
include Boeing’s and Chrysler’s experience with the use of “digital mock-ups” to identify
interference problems that are very costly to solve if identified further downstream—
sometimes as late as during or—after first full-scale assembly.

A field study of front-loading at Toyota Motor Corporation shows how a systematic effort
to front-load its development process has, in effect, shifted problem-identification and
problem-solving to earlier stages of product development. They conclude the article with
a discussion of other approaches to front-load problem-solving in product development
and propose how a problem-solving perspective can help managers to build capabilities
for higher development performance.

Efficient development is built on having as much knowledge as possible about the new
innovation before committing to the customer. Maximizing efficiency means minimizing
looping back to fix unanticipated problems during development. Front-loading is the
term for building knowledge in an early stage with the aim to eliminate any loop backs in
the development process, and therefore reducing both risks and costs. You invest in
building knowledge and experiences as early as possible to reduce risks and increase
speed later in the development pipeline. The closer you are to launching a new offering,
the more investments you make. It could be manufacturing equipment or sales
resources, and any late changes will have high costs and could jeopardize the entire
market introduction. The more knowledge gaps you have closed before committing to
price, features and launch date, the smaller the risk.

In existing businesses, you usually “play not to lose” and focus on cost reductions and
upgrades of existing offerings. Even though the activities during this phase can be
planned, speed is the key. Front-loading will improve, as well as increase, knowledge
about ways to improve the portfolio of concepts and thereby speed up improvements by
being able to choose the improvement concepts with the best fit.

In new markets you must “play to win” and focus on deliver new offerings to existing
customers or to new customers/markets. Usually, you can’t plan these activities, instead
you must be prepared to identify and convert them as they appear. Front-loading means
that you must be open to new ideas/insights and experiment with them to learn if they
are valuable enough to implement. This is more like a “poker game” in which you have
to bet to learn more. To discover if the offering has what it takes to be the winning hand
you have to bet to see how the other players react.

Simulation technology takes front loading to a higher level, allowing manufacturers to

make quicker, more informed and more powerful decisions very early in the design or
conceptual phases of production. This allows the design and engineering teams to
arrive at more effective engineering solutions early on — even before any design or
prototyping is done.

Front loading using simulation eliminates as much as 80% of that unneeded cost, time
and (often wasted) materials. The advantages to using simulation tools to front load
design decisions are; saved time, reduced cost, flexibility to explore more options, more
revenue, and competitive advantage.
A front-loading method on solving product development performance is developed
which can be achieved using a number of different approaches, two of which are
discussed. First, is the project-to-project knowledge transfer which leverages previous
projects by transferring problem and solution-specific information to new projects.
Secondly, the rapid problem-solving, which leverages advanced technologies and
methods to increase the overall rate at which development problems are identified and
solved. Other approaches to front-load problem-solving in product development are
discussed and how a problem-solving perspective can help managers build capabilities
for higher development performance is presented.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the link between problem-solving
capabilities and product development performance. In this article, the authors apply a
problem-solving perspective to the management of product development and suggest
how shifting the identification and solving of problems—a concept that they define as
front-loading—can reduce development time and cost and thus free up resources to be
more innovative in the marketplace.

The authors develop a framework of front-loading problem-solving and present related

examples and case evidence from development practice. These examples include
Boeing’s and Chrysler’s experience with the use of “digital mock-ups” to identify
interference problems that are very costly to solve if identified further downstream—
sometimes as late as during or—after first full-scale assembly.

In the article, the authors propose that front-loading can be achieved using a number of
different approaches, two of which are discussed in detail: (1) project-to-project
knowledge transfer—leverage previous projects by transferring problem and solution-
specific information to new projects; and (2) rapid problem-solving—leverage advanced
technologies and methods to increase the overall rate at which development problems
are identified and solved. Methods for improving project-to-project knowledge transfer
include the effective use of “postmortems,” which are records of post-project learning
and thus can be instrumental in carrying forward the knowledge from current and past
projects. As the article suggests, rapid problem-solving can be achieved by optimally
combining new technologies (such as computer simulation) that allow for faster
problem-solving cycles with traditional technologies (such as late stage prototypes),
which usually provide higher fidelity.

A field study of front-loading at Toyota Motor Corporation shows how a systematic effort
to front-load its development process has, in effect, shifted problem-identification and
problem-solving to earlier stages of product development. They conclude the article with
a discussion of other approaches to front-load problem-solving in product development
and propose how a problem-solving perspective can help managers to build capabilities
for higher development performance.

Helping the world understand how to use technology, ranging from digital fabrication to robotics, for
education. The art of relaxation… a chance for your body to recharge, recover and revitalise
How to make (almost) anything
By Katharine Dunn | January 30, 2005

IF YOU ASK Neil Gershenfeld, there may come a day, perhaps not so far in the future, when we'll no
longer need manufacturers to make our products for us. Gershenfeld, a physicist and computer scientist
who runs the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, envisions a time when many of us will have a
"fabrication center" in our homes. We'll be able to download a description of, say, a toaster -- perhaps
one we designed ourselves -- to our computers, and then feed the designs and the raw materials into a
personal fabricator. At the push of a button, almost like hitting "print," the machine will spit it out.

"In the end, fabrication [centers] will be just like PCs -- just technology that people have," says
Gershenfeld, whose new book, "Fab: Personal Fabrication, Fab Labs, and the Factory in Your Computer,"
will be published in April by Basic Books.

This may sound like science fiction, but prototype versions of such fabrication centers, which
Gershenfeld and his colleagues call "fabrication laboratories," or fab labs, are already up and running in
Ghana, India, Norway, Costa Rica, and in Boston's South End. At least four other countries have shown
interest in starting labs.

Earlier this month, a few dozen of their users from around the world met for the first time at MIT and at
the South End Technology Center @ Tent City on Columbus Avenue, home to the Boston fab lab, to
discuss the state of the technology behind the labs, how the current fab labs use their equipment, and
what they'd soon like to build. Most said they want to work together with other users to solve problems
they have in common, such as getting cheap Internet access into their communities. "The value is
ultimately in collaboration," said SETC director Mel King.

So far, the fab labs -- which consist of about $25,000 worth of high-tech equipment and supplies,
including a laser cutter, a vinyl cutter (normally for making signs but used here to cut copper for
circuits), and a 3-D milling machine to make circuit boards, all connected to Linux-based computers
loaded with open-source design and manufacturing software -- have mostly been used to teach kids
technology, to let them play and explore, or to give adults a place to try out new designs for business
ideas.

But the labs have the potential to become much more. The idea is that they can be empowering,
especially in rural, developing communities, by giving people the ability to design and create the tools
they want or need to solve local problems. In Ghana, users are trying to find an inexpensive way to build
large solar energy collectors to turn the country's near-constant sunlight into power. In Pabal, India, a
small community more than 100 miles outside of Mumbai, lab users developed diagnostic instruments
to help fix tractor engines with timing troubles. And at the lab in Norway, users are working on GPS
systems for boats and de-icing machines for windmills.
Ultimately, Gershenfeld wants to build a machine that can make any machine -- one that can "print" 3-D
objects that include all the circuitry and mechanisms they need to move around, heat up, make noise,
connect to the Internet, or do whatever it is they're designed to do. Such a machine -- think of the
"replicators" on "Star Trek" -- doesn't yet exist, but Gershenfeld and others say there will be a version of
it in a decade.

...

In 1998, Gershenfeld started teaching a class at MIT called "How to Make (Almost) Anything" as a way to
introduce technical students to the expensive, industrial-size machines like laser and water cutters that
he and his colleagues were using in their research. At first he gave formal lectures on each machine. But
the students -- many of them artists, architects, or science students without a technical background --
"responded passionately to the tools," he says. Soon they stopped asking him for help. They worked
alone and with each other to learn what they needed to build what they wanted -- things like a portable
"scream machine" that saves your screams and plays them back (a kind of high-tech stress release); an
alarm clock that won't shut off unless you prove you're awake by winning a game against it; a bicycle
that recharges batteries when you ride it.

Though Gershenfeld liked his students' designs, he says, "they were making things for a market of one."
He began to wonder how the fabrication tools could make a difference outside of Boston and decided
that the mandatory outreach component of the National Science Foundation grant funding the CBA
should be used to deploy field labs away from the "cluttered, intrusive technology" of cities. (That is not
to say the Boston fab lab, which started a year ago, isn't important: Lab users, mostly inner city kids,
learn valuable technology skills.)

Though personal fabrication research was still young, the technology had reached the point at which, for
example, a relatively inexpensive ($4,500) table-top milling machine was precise enough to get down to
the millionths of a meter (roughly the resolution of a CD player) necessary to build circuit boards with
tiny components.

Technology, in other words, was becoming sufficiently cheap and sophisticated to make the labs useful.
Gershenfeld describes the shift from large-scale, expensive machine tools to personal fabrication as
analogous to the evolution that began 40 years ago from room-sized mainframes to personal
computers. Instead of personalizing the ability to do digital computing, we're now able to digitize and
personalize the ability to manufacture our own tools and machines.
As it currently exists, however, the technology imposes limits on what can be done. The fabrication
machines used in the fab labs today can't produce anything larger than themselves. (The milling
machine, for example, is the size of a printer.) The laser cutter cuts no longer than two feet. Nor can it
cut very deeply: It would take a day for the laser to slice through an inch of plywood (they now use a
saw when necessary).

The labs also face other, social challenges depending on where they are. In Boston, it is sometimes
difficult to keep kids interested in learning after they're told, for example, they can't yet build life-sized
robots. In South Africa, whose government is considering starting a fab lab, the challenge is apathy.
"People don't want to be scientists or engineers anymore," said Riaan Coetzee, an information officer at
South Africa's government-backed Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, at the user meeting in
Boston. He believes a fab lab might get people excited about technology.

And there is the question of sustainability. The labs are relatively inexpensive to create, and so far MIT
pays the start-up costs. But after a year or so, the labs are on their own. The ultimate goal is for the labs
to be financially self-sustaining. To that end, Gershenfeld has met with people from the National
Academies, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum about funding, and though they like the
idea of the lab, they all say it doesn't quite fit into their agendas.

"It's an animal the likes of which hardly anyone has seen," says Michael Jensen, director of Web
communications at the National Academies. Gershenfeld, as always, has a novel solution: to create a
different kind of funding organization, "somewhere between philanthropic aid, basic research, and
business development," he says.

But the fab labs, Gershenfeld emphasizes, are research experiments and are still very much works in
progress. So far, the reaction in the field labs has been encouraging. In Ghana, says Amy Sun, a grad
student at the Center for Bits and Atoms who helped set up the fab lab there last summer, they ran an
average of six classes a day for locals aged 4 to adult. She estimates that nearly 1,000 people came
through the lab during her six-week stay.

The other encouraging sign is current lab users' desire to collaborate, even though they're in far-flung
countries. Most of the labs, for example, want to build antennas for various communications purposes.
Recently, the lab in Norway -- where farmers and engineers are collaborating to build a wireless radio
network to track sheep and reindeer -- built an antenna and posted photos and instructions on the Web
for the others to see.
Gershenfeld is impressed with how the lab users have taken the tools and made them their own. "I
know how to do the technology," he says. "These labs are teaching me what it's good for."