Slashdot Mirror
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."
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).
No, it's applied research to advance the state of manufacturing. It looks like a natural step in the movement toward just-in-time manufacturing and supply-chain efficiency, probably aimed at replacement parts rather than whole vehicles and equipment. They apparently want the ability to retool factories for military production much as was done in WWII, only faster and more selectively hopefully on a much smaller scale. So instead of shutting down car production to make tanks, industry will be able to make tanks on one shift and keep making cars for the other two (for example).
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.