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DARPA Pays $3.5 Million For New TechShops and Secret Reconfigurable Factories
pacopico writes "Businessweek reports that DARPA will pay for the creation of two new TechShops in Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh. The $3.5 million deal includes 2,000 TechShop memberships for military veterans and will have DARPA employees performing top secret work at night. 'The project is called iFab. For a month, a given factory might use dozens of machines to make parts for helicopters. Then you reboot the software controlling the machines, and out come the parts for the drive train system in a tank. The Darpa workers at TechShop will try to figure out which tools and methods can be used to rewire factories in this fashion.' Maker mayhem."
Is this a hedge in case China decides to stop making shit for the US? Or plain ol' pork?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
no! screw you overloads, viva la resistance!
The only time you need factories like this is n preparation for a global conflict.
Is the DoD expecting WWIII?
Haven't got to the article yet, but in the summary I keep reading...
Then you reboot the software controlling the machines, and out come the parts for the drive train system in a tank.
I still don't get what a reboot has to do with this. Is it running Windows?
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Always link to the printable version in the future please! http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/26828-techshop-paradise-for-tinkerers (still have the splash, but then it's one page not 5 or whatever).
Nowhere in the article is any mention that the DARPA employees would be doing TS work.
Periods processing of the sort required to do TS work at night in a facility used by civilians during the day is basically impossible...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Whether we want a mechanical army which is within reach or maybe a clone army that could fight better.
A top Navy spokesman was quoted as saying "it's Fabulous!"
The project is called iFab.
Cue Apple trademark lawsuit in 3... 2... 1... :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Don't reconfigure at the touch of a button. Even BMW's multi car assembly lines (built by Magna) are only cost effective because they're not reconfiguring them that often.
I think someone's soaking the taxpayer here.
Since they named the project iFab, they will get sued by Apple.
So...a factory that can more quickly and efficiently adapt to changes in demand? That can, instead of needing mass layoffs or closing up shop entirely, reconfigure their processes and retrain employees (increasing their skill sets if they ever need different future employment) to produce different things? Moving suppliers one level closer to being able to swiftly and effectively respond to the economic climate?
And all this research is only going to cost $3.5 million or so?
If they can make this work, and can be spread to other US suppliers, that $3.5 million investment will be paid back in no time in economic development. Hell, if it's a significant enough improvement, it could eventually help revitalize the US manufacturing industry by significantly upping our competitive advantage.
It's more than a bit concerning that the most flexible, agile, and innovative part of the economy is the military.
Any one else think we need CARPA - the Civilian Advanced Research Project Agency? Preferably one that has nothing to do with the government.
Sounds like standard CNC capabilities.
When I was working for Boeing, a decade ago, they were transitioning from fixed jig assembly to laser coordinate measurement driving floor mounted hydraulic positioning equipment.
The benefits were:
1) No more huge jigs. Need to adjust a setting? No need to mod the jig, just tweak the s/w.
2) Eventually, each assembly line could handle any model. Just punch a button and the jacks position themselves to hold any body section.
3) Everything was modular, floor mounted and relatively compact. Union problems? Just load your production equipment into a couple of shipping containers and move it to a more hospitable environment. Any large building with a flat floor will do.
Have gnu, will travel.
I always had this idea that somehow the DIY concept in the hands of frontline troops would dramatically reduce the cost of our weapons systems and result in more effective and practical equipment.
The current procurement process is:
1. DOD compiles a bunch of specs (the people compiling them are usually bureaucrats or desk general, who are always refighting the last war.)
2. Give specs to a bunch of greedy civilian contractors (who over promise vaporware).
3. Then designed by civilian engineers and scientists whose lives don't directly depend on the product.
So it is in a way the blind leading the blind, and the process takes years or decades. We've known just as long that this process is broken beyond repair.
Now if frontline soldiers who are in harms way, have an effective means to "evolve" their own equipment and weapons on-the-fly in direct response to the changing tactical situations. Soldiers are always the best hackers of their equipment, and they have been hacking since war was invented. But it has always been impromptu and crude improvisations.
Supposed there are fully equipped hackerspaces with CNC machines and raw materials close to the frontlines that soldiers have access to. Some of the more complex gear may require dedicated design and manufacturing facilities, but these can probably be handled directly by more sophisticated hackerspaces at the homefront.
This approach may not result in fancy gold-plated bad-ass looking stuff, but most of the effective gear isn't glamorous looking at all. It just needs to be effective, practical, and custom fitted to the tactical situation and the enemy at hand. It will save the taxpayers a heck of a lot of dough.
Why Pittsburgh and DC? DC is where all the bureaucrats are and as far as I know, Pittsburgh has no major military research laboratory. Why not put the lab near a major military research organization that does actual hands on research and would actually be interested in using these services?
> reboot the software
*eye twitch*
And all of a sudden, you have changed the ability of the place to be self sustaining quite dramatically.
Makes me think of the "Red Mars" series.
It's a hackerspace for feds.
... across the USA (my modest proposal): http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/44897-8319
"Being able to make things is an important part of prosperity, but that capability (and related confidence) has been slipping away in the USA. The USA needs more large neighborhood shops with a lot of flexible machine tools. The US government should fund the construction of 21,000 flexible fabrication facilities across the USA at a cost of US$50 billion, places where any American can go to learn about and use CNC equipment like mills and lathes and a variety of other advanced tools and processes including biotech ones. That is one for every town and county in the USA. These shops might be seen as public extensions of local schools, essentially turning the shops of public schools into more like a public library of tools. This project is essential to US national security, to provide a technologically literate populace who has learned about post-scarcity technology in a hands-on way. The greatest challenge our society faces right now is post-scarcity technology (like robots, AI, nanotech, biotech, etc.) in the hands of people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity (whether in big organizations or in small groups). This project would help educate our entire society about the potential of these technologies to produce abundance for all."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
'The project is called iFab.
Arn't they gonna get sued by Apple?
I have a TechShop membership, and have spent a lot of time there. What goes on there is mostly not all that high-tech. Most of it is hobby artwork. Some people are repairing cars. Others are making furniture. The electronics facilities are basic and little used. Much of the machine shop usage is by pros from companies nearby that need some machining done.
At times, it's rather pathetic. iPhones and iPads are made in China. Here in Silicon Valley, we have people making bamboo cases for them, and cheap plastic things to hold them on dashboads with suction cups.
Quite a bit of work was done on this back in the mid 1980s. The versatile factory capable of quick redirection came along with the concept of inventory taxes. The notion being that if a factory could convert from making fishing reels to brake assemblies or whatever in a few hours then many product lines could keep going with almost no inventory in storage. It was going fairly well back then but there was an issue with the price of the help needed to keep everything in order back then. That was mostly due to very inadequate computer systems. The machinery involved was also costly but it did work.
And all the pieces fall together...
The final step in Skynet's domination of humanity--the self-assembly plant becomes a reality, freeing robotic lifeforms from the tyranny of mankind once and for all.
Looking at what these TechShops do, don't we already have this in DoD? Aren't they called national labs? I think I work at one of these places.
Fully outfitted machine shops, highly skilled assistants, massive computer and software resources, rapid prototype manufacturing and testing experience, field deployments... DoE labs may have forgotten how to do that, but the DoD warfighter labs have been shipping off small batch research-to-manufacture kits to the field for the last 10 years.
Why doesn't DARPA fund me to do this? Because it's ILLEGAL for me to compete with private industry for "research" funding, even though I do this cheaper and with a security clearance.
Apple lawsuit incoming in 3...2...1...
This does come up against something I've been trying to work out the numbers on:
- what's the $ per hour figure for running such a machine?
- how does that balance against the efficiencies of ganging up elements (when possible) for production?
I've begun making wooden cases for my archery gear, and have the tools to do all the cuts efficiently (save for routing out the stopped dado / groove in the end pieces):
http://www.3riversarchery.com/images/Contest2010/WilliamAdamsTakeDownCase.jpg
It doesn't take long to cut a set of dovetails once one is practiced at it (and one can clamp multiple boards together to cut several sets of tails at a time --- pins need to be referenced off the matching tails and cut individually), and drilling some holes in the right place is just a matter of a template/jig which can be flipped over --- if I get an electric router then each stopped groove is a quick pass w/ the router (once I build a jig to place it in).
Will I be able to make a machine like a Shapeoko pay for itself for straight-forward work like this?
- how long does it take to mount a piece for cutting?
- how long does it take the machine to make the cuts?
- how much clean-up will said cuts require?
I'd love to have a CNC machine to try out, but am still a bit dis-heartened that Shapeoko's envisioned $300 price point comes to $649 for a full kit at www.inventables.com
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
As manufactured products use more and more specialized materials (because of weight savings, usually), the manufacturing becomes more and more complicated.
Back in the day, blacksmiths could manufacture a wide variety of metal parts, each one unique by modern standards. Then, with the industrial age, interchangeable parts with tight tolerances became the norm, but an auto or tractor factory could still be retooled to make tanks or planes by following the prints and using the same machinery. Not so much anymore.
Yeah, sure, CNC machining has gotten much better, for a host of reasons. But it's not just material removal that's relevant. Stuff like heat treating is today even more of an art which is not easily replicateable for high-precision materials and parts. Or, to pick a nonmetallic composites example, there's no way that you could quickly ramp up massive new production of, to take a civilian example, something like Boeing's Dreamliner. Military composites even less so.
I remember when maintaining heavy manufacturing capability which could be quickly switched to wartime use was a matter of national priority and national pride. The emperor has no clothes today.