Community Fabrication

Presented at The Last HOPE (2008), July 19, 2008, 10 a.m. (60 minutes).

In the 1970s, computers were still the foray of big business and government. They were known to be powerful tools, but they were beyond the reach of individuals. Though several other home computers came out in the early 70s, the MITS Altair 8800 is generally credited as sparking the home computer revolution, which in turn sparked computers everywhere. The base of another revolution in fabrication powered by hobbyists will be revealed here. The Fab@home, RepRap, and other projects will (hopefully) do the same thing for fabrication. This talk will cover community based fabrication, why it's so cool, and how it could fundamentally alter the global economy for the better.


Presenters:

  • Far McKon
    Far McKon has been involved in technology and community organization since the first day of A.V. Club in high school. During college, he helped run the computer house CoRE at SUNY Binghamton. During his short, dark years in Rochester, he co-founded Ant Hill Cooperative (a housing cooperative), and helped get RocWiki.org running. In the summer of 2007, he found himself in Philadelphia and soon became involved in The Hacktory and Make:Philly.

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