FABtotum: a brief background story
The following post was originally a brief presentation I wrote as an introduction to personal fabrication and social/technological aspects of it.
In this presentation I discussed the origins of computer assisted machining from a social standpoint, tracing a line to the present and the future.
This “documentary” is a tribute to the work being done worldwide in the field of rapid prototyping, personal fabrication and open source development.
I thought it would be nice to share, enjoy!
I. Personal? Fabrication?
When you about it, “personal” and “fabrication” are two words very far from each other. When you think at the factory processes of mass produced goods the last thing that comes to mind is “personal”. Modern products are not in any way “personal”. Yes they can be customized, they can have different colors to suit your preferences, you can choose which one suits you the best, but they are not created from the ground up to suit your needs, and you are not involved in the making.
From the industrial revolution, mass production gave people the access to a wide range of goods at a low price. It also made possible breakthroughs in various fields thanks to standardization, leading to more and more segmentation in labor specialization, a key element in modern society.
The man from industrial revolution paid a high price for this achievement but also made possible a huge step forward in the life of many, especially after the 2 wars. At that time most of the workers were involved in the making of goods only by a small fraction of the total assembly. This was (and still is) necessary due to the complexity of the products and the production sequence. The alienation of the production chain is always referred as a prime example of de-humanization in the production process. The lack of interaction with the whole production process created a detachment of the man from the creative side of manufacturing.
Let’s skip a couple of centuries ahead.
With the rise of the computer, we reached new heights in complexity, and these so called industrial robots making goods can do more in less time, more precisely and tirelessly, working all day and night long. But the main advantage lied not just in the fabrication possibilities but in two separate aspects of the manufacturing paradigm itself.
- The life management: allowing to control the production line and the life of a product, a key element for competitiveness
- Coordination: Producing a product worldwide , available to the masses, can be done today only if all the people working on it share a common framework and workflow.
Those two aspects are the main reason CAD/CAM processes where chosen over the regular ones in the early 70‘s. This might sound silly, but what is important is that CAD/CAM processes have a tendency to make collaboration between different people easier than it was before. That’s because CAD/CAM allows a common ground of design, testing and prototyping.
If I want to build a complex object the usual way I have to draw it and be sure all the contractors understand every aspect of it. With the rise of parametric design and information models, today we are able to make a virtual object that contains most of the information to be replicated in different conditions, notably physical proprieties.
A contractor cannot be wrong about the specification you gave him, he just need to execute the manufacturing process.
You can then really say you have a virtual prototype in your USB pen drive, and that’s a huge difference because it changes the way you approach to the design process.
Today engineers, designers, artists, scientist can work simultaneously on a single product or component as a virtual prototype and then foresee the impact on the production chain, raw materials stocks,simulations, etc. All the work is done inside a framework of software products that can be used in concert to design, simulate and produce.
When the change is finalized the production line automatically start to produce new products with that component, updating the stock, making figures on production times, schedules for new materials orders etc. All that is what a shared framework makes possible in the industry: fast adaptability to the market and product updates both as way to maximize income improving efficiency in the production process and checking the integrity of the production line.
The CAD/CAM technologies united with a digital information set of tools are basically what makes possible the complexity of modern-day manufacturing not because of the manufacturing capabilities but because of the way these tools can adapt to the people around it, both creating and consuming.
We talked about digital prototypes. The computer was made to make possible a huge amount of calculations, in order to simulate complex behaviors. Since the 60’s the main concern for engineers and scientists was to replicate complex environments and behaviors in a calculator. They became obsessed in what was a great step forward in the fabrication process: being able to digitally prototype and virtually test everything. If you are old enough, in the 70’s and 80’s and early 90’s everybody was talking about virtual reality. Virtual reality was seen as the next logical step to expand our world, and somehow we got just what we wanted, minus holograms or plugs in our skulls: the internet as we know it today is the virtual mirror of reality,filled with organized informations. Today on internet you can find anything, from instructions on how to operate the large handron collider to movies, news, people, governments, etc.
However ,when we talk about fabrication we needed to move in a different direction…
After the rush to digitalize the word we live in and the information or objects it contains, looks like the 21st century big challenge will be about the exact opposite: Manipulate and populate the real, physical word with digital informations: a “real virtuality”.
With this key novelty more possibilities are becoming possible for both the real and the physical word. We have groundbreaking technologies going in that direction already, like Augmented reality,Computer vision, smart cities, internet of things, autonomous drones and cars…etc
What that means is that there is a serious need to make the digital world interact with the physical one, being it an artsy 3d model or a complex component we need to inspect.
We discussed that the dawn of computer numeric control (or CNC for short) made possible realizing what was once just a digital drawing albeit with some limitations. Starting from planes cars and boats, ending with cellphones or a simple paperclip, CAM processes and numeric control are involved in a way or another.
In the last decade the price of 3d printers and CNC machinery drastically dropped.The first open source 3d printers around works like this for most peoples: a tool to make physical objects from virtual designs.
But we should not stop at the “what this technology is capable” debate.
This technology carry however some interesting ideas already well expressed by numerous authors and scientists…
Remember what we said earlier about the need of control of the production process in the big industry? the CAD and the CAM drawing process was not just a need to “make virtual things real” where a specific attempt to improve the production procedure and maximize profit and coordination. What they did was to trace a unique workflow to implement any design change into a machining procedure.
In small scale, such a set of tools has started to become available to common people only recently. Rhino, Sketchup for example, they can be adapted to support a CAD/CAM workflow entirely in one application.
I’m talking about affordable computer programs where you can design a component with or without parameters (parametric CAD), program the production method you would like to use among the one you have access to, produce a standard machining code such as GCode and send it to a CNC machine and print a solid object. The complex workflow and coordination to accomplish complex manufacturing procedures are now becoming widely popular among CNC enthusiasts and are no more restricted to a factory environment.
We saw the results of this technology applied in a “forced” production environment.
What would become if those tools will be widely available to the masses?
The thing that I love about recent years is that we, as consumer, are starting to want more customized goods.Our entire society is starting a fragmentation process in so many fields, causing the market to have a lot of niche costumers. What is happening out there in the internet, is that people started sharing ideas or designs to overcome personal necessities. And guess what? these people also started developing ALSO the tools to support the need to customize and personalize the goods needed.
II. An unfinished revolution.
Today over 200 years have passed from the first industrial revolution, but most of the premise of the first industrial revolution is still not completely expressed.
This is a very long road with not so very clear goals, but we have just passed the first half , and what’s near us NOW is far more exciting and less studied. I’m not talking about improvements in technology but how the society will drive this revolution to a new, unforeseen direction. Because in the end it all comes down to people.
Technology is here to serve society, not the opposite, and even if the industrial revolution started in the worst possible way for the peoples involved, the conclusion of this journey is much more brighter than we can imagine today.
In other words, bringing your designs to reality on your 3d printer in 2030 is cool but that’s just the top of the iceberg of a bigger scheme. There are people out there working on what they believe is the next paradigm of manufacturing. Not just a new tools to make more things, but a new way of conceiving manufacturing itself.
TodayCAD/CAM is a powerful manufacturing tool within society, tomorrow society could be based on the manufacturing paradigm that is personal fabrication.
One of the key technologies for the so called third industrial revolution is the distributed production of goods. People will start to design, download and print out simple mechanism ,tools and objects from their personal fabricators devices. This is not going to happen in a single day, and complex technologies will still need dedicated factories.
As Neil Gershenfield said,You don’t need a personal fabrication device to produce commercialized goods, but to produce what suits your own needs.
As personal fabrication technologies improves people will have access to better tools every year. Now we are just timidly scratching the surface.
Personal fabrication is equal to democracy and freedom? As usual it’s not about the tools , but people. Distributed manufacturing is a technology capable of shaping society.
With some exceptions if I want to build something I just need 2 things: working tools (this includes the fuel or the power to operate them) and the raw materials I need. I assume we already have the knowledge to operate the tools and understand the project, since the knowledge is easily shared and accessible on most of the planet today.
With shared and accessible knowledge and production tools accessible to everyone it will be harder to mass control populations, and easier for them to rise the quality of their lives. In other words The de-localized production of goods and tools is a key factor for democracy and wellness,and the Personal fabrication pushes in that direction.
This would apply to emerging countries and to “first class” developed countries too.
Don’t underestimate people creativity, even if someone does not have a degree in quantum physics does not mean he is not able to understand and exploit the world around him. That’s the best of human adaptability and ingenuity at work.
The bare concept in personal fabrication is that you are given the tools to build something that suits you. A parametric pair of glasses mount are useful for both a London citizen and a farmer in a poor country. Personal fabrication is the way to push the boundaries of creativity to millions of people that are currently unaware of their potential,or just need the right tools.
Let’s focus a little on the communication aspect of personal fabrication.
In the past centuries we had huge technological and social improvements thanks to new tools and new way of communicate or sharing. All major improvements in society came with a new communication device, able to share knowledge. Being able to communicate directly and information in the complete form also. If you live in a big city or in a small forgotten village personal fabrication could be the answer of your particular needs,or maybe just a communication device to teach how thing can be made.
Personal fabrication Is also a way to make humanity keep in touch with the technologies it creates. Today we don’t know how things are made, where do materials came from, how to grow food or build basic tools. For that matter most of us don’t know how most technology works at lower levels, because we are not involved: we just buy them. If every country 50 years from now will keep pushing consumes an consumerism, in the end who is going to be able to produce? The loss of how-to in western countries is already happening now. I’m not waving the western supremacy flag here, I’m just making a point. Technology is becoming like magic and it’s scary because we are not involved with the production process. It’s not necessarily our fault since we are taught to accept the reality we live in.
We live consuming but man’s noblest attribute is creativity.Creativy is that attribute that makes us equal to each other and at the same time uniques.Never before in human history a technology existed with such a huge social and development potential, the one able to nobilitate man, promote collaboration and progress at the same time.
Personal fabrication vs Serial production?
The most basic error everybody does when forecasting the future developments of society or technology is that it’s wrong to assume that a new paradigm cancel an older one just because it’s newer.
Such technologies will not change the hunger for energy or raw materials like precious minerals, wich are a different problem all together.
Self replicating a printer is still not viable and will not be so for a long long time, even if that’s something absolutely worth studying.
The Personal fabrication society of the future will not be an utopian society, people won’t be able to replicate everything and factories will still be there unless some ground breaking replication technology is discovered along with free energy and endless material resources…
What will change in my opinion is that we as citizens of a bigger, international society will be able to produce ourselves new tools and learn more of the world around us, we will need less work to achieve the same results, meaning less work hours and more free time.
Some goods could be created from scratch,or downloaded paying or for free, others could be semi-assembled,but we will still need factories.
Personal Fabrication is not always a press&print process in wich you download a component from Thyingiverse (TM) and print a copy.
Personal fabrication takes time and effort from the single user, time invested in creating a “perfect-fit” product. Factories cannot offer that kind of costumization not because the CAD/CAM processes aren’t fast or flexible enought (actually the opposite) but because the whole production process (from design to manufacturing) was based on efficiency and big volumes.
Today’s personal fabricators are not designed with this in mind.
As for the future, we’ll probably see smaller companies more attached to their user base, allowing for debate and customization of their products, open to crowd sourcing and shared designs.
We will pay a cost for digital delivery of goods directly in your fabricator with some premium features like free upgrades, or we will be able to choose to print open source components. There will also be bad things like hardware piracy, involving people printing protected designs. The debate around 3d-printed weaponry hs already started, and for those reasons there will be lot of debates around the topic of personal fabrication.As a tool, I believe, it can be used for good or for evil purposes, it’s up to us.
Overall, Educational wise and society wise, I think the personal fabrication era will be remembered as the payback from the industrial revolution.
Personal Fabrication is, therefore, not the act of manufacturing.
I’ts not about the tecnology or who uses it.
it’s not even “the tool”.
it’s in the process and the interactions.
III.A tool to rules them all
So why we don’t see those “personal fabricators” everywhere?
The fact is that…they don’t really exist.
You can have a set of tools that can make “almost” anything but not one tool to build everything. On one hand we have very expensive CNC machinery that are not easy to assemble, operate and carry, which are dangerous for the operators. On the other we have 3d printers which are bound to one material, (usually polymers) and are not very sturdy. The problem with current CNC machines is that they are usually expensive, too complex to operate, not very flexible to operate in . The most affordable ones comes into kits, they are not really reliable in the long run, and generally not user friendly. With one single machine you are also usually limited to a set of machining operations. You can make laser cuts and engraving but not 2d or 3d milling, you can make holes but not turning, you can make freeform layered components with polymers but you cannot use widely available materials still needed for some applications, like wood and metals. Those machines were a starting point, not because they lacked vision or technology, but becase were built around the tech instead of the possibilities of interactions and experiences.
In real life I’m an architect student, I did some paper research on integration between CAD/CAM and production of building components.
I’m a CNC enthusiast, I built myself various CNC machines in the years.
When I talk with friends and colleagues about the merits of personal fabrication I usually end up with a blank stare, at least untill they stop me and say “are you talking about 3d printed stuff, right?”. For them, these technologies are all about what you can do.
We needed a new paradigm, exposed in a device both simple to use, solid, modular, customizable and flexible, and useful if you are a geek, an engineer, a designer, a jewel maker, a 3d modeler, or just interested in 3d printing .
We need to teach about personal fabrication from the ground up, giving tools and possibilities, giving our fellows humans a credible scenario in wich they can apply those technologies for more than “3d printing”.
That’s when we realized we needed a reference framework to explain this paradigm: thus the FABtotum was born.
FABtotum is a new open source CNC device made to push forward the concept of low cost personal 3d printer to a “multipurpose desktop personal fabricator” paradigm, with a set of features never seen on any desktop 3d printer.
that’s why FABtotum has been designed to promote the usage for personal fabrication purposes more than just 3d printing objects.
Doing so we hope to push the boundaries of personal fabrication and to make people aware (and part of) the groundbreaking social changes personal fabrication will bring in the future.