Click And Print Your Order - In 3D?

Do you remember watching "Star Trek", seeing a replicator and thinking "I wish I had one"? Well despair no longer, current technology is starting to turn that dream into reality, only instead of the term "replicator", it's really "fabber".

Hook a fabber up to a computer with CAD software on it, feed it the necessary materials and you can produce almost anything (or parts for products that would be too big to assemble inside of the fabber). The best part is that these machines do in fact exist.

The definition of the term fabber encompasses a series of different types of machines that all follow the concept of 3D printing, a branch of Rapid Prototyping (RP). Various companies have been using RP technology for years to reduce cost of production. RP machines tend to be big and bulky and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase and upkeep, however when you are mass-producing, that cost is relatively low compared to your profits. 3D printing machines which are basically smaller counterparts of the RP machines have also become available commercially at approx $15,000 - $25,000 dollars (initial purchasing price, of course), and are intended for the "office environment". That chunk of money is still a bit pricey for personal use though, and that is why a couple of scholarly and Do It Yourself communities have come up with various DIY solutions for students and the home enthusiasts.

One such community is the Fab Lab program, a subdivision of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA). They host an MIT class involving fabbers and RP machines called "How To Make (almost) Anything" for their students, however they also are involved in a number of outreach programs to get more people involved in science and technology.

Another, differently structured community is Fab@Home. Unlike MIT's Fab Lab program where people go to a central lab to work on projects, Fab@Home brings the concept of the laboratory to one's home. It is an Open Source community where people post blueprints and models for home-made fabbers and projects they can be used for.

At this point in time a home-made fabber will still cost approximately a couple of thousand dollars in parts, however it does come a lot cheaper than its commercial counterparts and ultimately you will have the benefit of knowing a lot more of how the technology works. DYI fabbers is can be fed a wider range of materials. The BSD Open Source licensing that the Fab@Home community uses takes a lot of proprietary constraints out of the equation, and so people can experiment more freely with the technology. Hmmm... I wonder how long it will take for gourmet meal fabber recipes to come out...