Maker production
As part of this project we would like to explore and work towards the potential of maker production (often called decentralized/local manufacturing, desktop fabrication, digital fabrication) The idea of being able to make the things we want and need either in our own homes or in labs/workshops and small businesses in our local communities.
Glyn soldering up emontx's
What is the manufacturing chain required to make an energy monitor?
An energy monitor is made up of standard electronic components assembled together on a custom PCB and then encased in a custom enclosure.
The Maker ecosystem
Making services:
Its possible to get custom PCB's and enclosures made using manufacturing services such as ponoko, razorlab, pcbtrain, pcbpool and spirit circuits. Its really amazing to see what people are doing with ponoko/razerlab laser cutting services, there is some really high quality work being done and the web based software front end for these services are progressing really fast.
Kit businesses
Shared labs: hackspaces, fablabs, equiped with open source lasersaur laser cutters and reprap 3d printers..
Lasersaur + Reprap
Further reading
Kevin Carson has written a very thorough analysis on this emerging way of doing things and the larger historical background in his book: The Homebrew Industrial Revolution, a low overhead manifesto.
Reprap
The Reprap project - a project to create an open-source self-copying 3D printer. A great example of free and open source hardware and a technology that will really change the way we do things.
The open source ecology project is a really exciting project in that it attempts to look systematically at the tool chain required to make most of the things we want for modern living:
The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.
Fablabs
Neil Gershenfelds personal fabrication and fablabs: TED Talk
p2pfoundation manufacturing page.