The Future of 'Fab Lab' Fabrication (wired.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 1965, tech pioneer Gordon Moore noticed a trend: The number of components on an integrated circuit was doubling every year. Long story short: The world of bits was transformed. Could the same thing be happening now -- to the world of atoms? Neil Gershenfeld thinks it is. He's the MIT professor who in 2003 helped create the first "fab lab": a roomful of computer-guided fabrication tools, like laser cutters and mills for carving materials, that allows everyday people to create things with a precision normally available only to a Boeing or Siemens.

In 2009, Gershenfeld helped set up the Fab Foundation in part to help people make products they needed that the mass market wasn't providing. It took off. Indian farmers used fab labs to create instruments to verify the quality of milk; a Kenyan engineering student made "vein finder" tools for doctors. By 2016 there were more than 1,000 fab labs worldwide. Then Sherry Lassiter, who leads the Fab Foundation and is known as "Lass," noticed that the global total was doubling every year. It looked just like Moore's law! Now there's Lass' law -- the prediction that the number of fab labs, or such tools, will double roughly every year and a half. Why would this be happening? It's part inspiration (people hear about the labs and want their own) and, as with Moore's law, technical progress: The machinery has gotten cheaper and more digitized. If Lass' law continues, custom fabrication will explode.

Comments

"Law"

[Khyber]

It's a fucking conjecture. Law has an actual definition in scientific terms.

Re:"Law"

[Spy Handler]

So what you're telling me is that Zuck's law that says Facebook users double every year isn't a real law??

Re:"Law"

[HornWumpus]

The expanding surface of the mass of facebook users would exceed the speed of light in a relatively few years.

Re: "Law"

[Anonymous Coward]

Parasitic shitty smelly H1B hindu-chimps infesting the universe on the back of a working man might do just that.

Re:"Law"

[radarskiy]

"Law has an actual definition in scientific terms." ...which is a statement about observations that has descriptive qualities, e.g. Moore's Law.

A conjecture is a proposed explanation, which Moore's Law does not provide.

Re:"Law"

[PlaynBass]

Typical of the rigid, constricted thought patterns to be expected of someone who has never progressed past concrete thinking.

I forsee

[Anonymous Coward]

The rise of the cyber-men!

Not the Same At All

[EndlessNameless]

Moore's Law relied on technological advances in the semiconductor industry to fuel its projected growth. There is no practical or predictable limit on such growth until you run into a wall dealing with fundamental physics.

Lass's Law relies on adoption of a technology by commercial, state, and private entities for its growth---of which there are a limited supply. We are most likely looking at the beginning of an S-curve and mistaking it for an exponential or geometric curve. It is quite conceivable that the market for these devices will be saturated in time.

Re:Not the Same At All

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, that so-called 'lass's law' counts the number of 'fab lab' which has to have entities with deep pockets to support

Joe Sixpack would not have the means to purchase a laser cutting tool, nor a precision drill bit

TFA is a fluff, much like most of the articles /. is carrying nowadays

Re:Not the Same At All

[Anonymous Coward]

That's good and all that people are getting into DIY fabrication. I love that sort of self sufficiency.

Though... Lass' Law? Does anyone else find this eager promotion quite awkward? I propose anon's law, which states that this term won't become popular.

Go look right now at what machines are actually in fab labs. These were also called maker spaces, which once upon a time were just called shops.
This is the arduinofication of hobby manufacturing. Enthusiasts were dabbling with cnc machines and microcontrollers ~20 years ago (I remember) but it wasn't "cool." It's cool now that there is workshop/building-block homogeneity prescribed by businesses.

Re:Not the Same At All

[DanielRavenNest]

Lass's Law can function if a collection of smart tools can produce the parts to copy themselves. Factories that produce machine tools and robots already use their own products to make more of them, so it is feasible in principle that a starter set of those and other needed machines can make a copy on a time scale of ~18 months.

Re:Not the Same At All

[Anonymous Coward]

But _making_ those, and tooling up? Yeah, I could see that, but that takes skills that likely mean either way underemployed/too much time on hands, or already working in said industry, and not wanting to 'efficiency' themselves out of a job by providing the tools to every kid with a GED.

Also: "So the only bottleneck is the motors. Need to work on fabbers than can make motors." Yeah, if you can make ICs with 1990's tech, in your garage, you're well on your way to material equivalent of a universal Turing machine.

Re: Not the Same At All

[Malc]

And theyâ(TM)ve miss-quoted Mooreâ(TM)s Law by 100%. Presumably reality was a little inconvenient given that this isnâ(TM)t much of a story even with the attempted Mooreâ(TM)s Law connection.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re:Not the Same At All

[enriquevagu]

I agree. Besides, there are many people arguing that Moore's law is a psychological law: Each manufacturer knew in advance what was expected from the industry and what would the competition achieve, so they struggle to get to the foretold integration level. This is simply not available in fab labs, where there is no such "competition".

Wired wank

[Anonymous Coward]

The first "fab lab" was not created in 2003 ffs. That just when some MIT celebrity academic thought up a name for the product of his grant money. This has been going on in many places, long before 2003 and far outside Wired's little bubble, by people Wired wouldn't know how to find or care to speak with.

More Moore's Laws Law:

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of Moore's Law ripoffs will double each year.

Niggers and Jews

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like any of them.

Well, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

So fabbers consist of structural parts, computer parts, and motors.

Moore's law already applies with the computer parts.

Fabbers can make structural parts for new fabbers.

So the only bottleneck is the motors. Need to work on fabbers than can make motors.

Fabulous

[PopeRatzo]

Here in my sleepy little California town, there is a maker space with a full-blown "fab lab". Just the other day, I was talking to a guy who has developed high-precision harmonica combs using some of these tools. He says they're some of the most air-tight ever made and he has a patent. Oh yeah, and they're made of hemp. I love California.

Clearly a joke setup

[fibonacci8]

They're just trying to get someone to claim that "Lass is Moore", or that they're "doing Lass with Moore".

Re:Clearly a joke setup

[FatdogHaiku]

They're just trying to get someone to claim that "Lass is Moore", or that they're "doing Lass with Moore".

Moore or Lass...

Its called

[rkordmaa]

Machinist workshop or more modernly, machine park and it's been a standard since before industrial revolution really got going. Many businesses do nothing else but manufacture custom parts as ordered, some machine parks are part of a larger business but still take outside orders. If you have entire product design there are companies willing to source the parts and manufacture that too.
Jeez, the guy talks as if he came up with something new, when in fact the entire bloody world has operated like that since forever.