100K Garages – A Nation of Fabbers

Posted by on under shopbot cnc, nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp, laser cutters, equipment checkout, checkout www, endless possibilities, creative folks, cnc mills, rsquo, water jet, cool website, finger tips, medium size, garages, milli, router, fab, website www, cy, capability |

At first I thought this website was all about tricked out garages that cost more than $100,000 to build, which also would have been a cool website. However that is not the case for www.100kgarages.com  which is actually a site dedicated to the small fabricators across the country.

The idea is that a network of small and medium size fab shops all connected together would allow any crazy eyed individual within the network to have the capacity of a large manufacturing plant at their finger tips. For instance if you prototyped a product (you don’t even need your own equipment, checkout www.columbusideafoundry.com in Central Ohio) and wanted to sell a million of that product through a website, you could load the plans on the network and those from all over with capacity could manufacturer the product. This helps the person who needs manufacturing capability and also those with down time, to utilize their equipment and make a few extra bucks.

So far the network is centered around the Shopbot CNC router machines which makes sense but could, in the future, be applied to CNC Mills, Laser Cutters, Water-Jet, etc. There are endless possibilities to the technology and as it develops, new possibilities will continue to arise. The website www.ponoko.com brings everything together with material suppliers, creative folks and even buyers.     

      

Tagi: shopbot cnc, nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp, laser cutters, equipment checkout, checkout www, endless possibilities, creative folks, cnc mills, rsquo, water jet, cool website, finger tips, medium size, garages, milli, router, fab, website www, cy, capability

Techcrunch: WITN: Extraordinary Chickpeas and the Madness of Crowdsourcing

Posted by on under charles mackay, creative endeavor, creative folks, madness of crowds, science art, chickpeas, lamotte, viral videos, herds, typewriters, puppet, side of the fence, senses, crowd, literature |

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." Not our words, but those of Charles Mackay, author of the 1841 classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Still, it would be safe to say that we’ve always been a little skeptical of the benefits of crowd sourcing, whether for science, art or literature. On the other side of the fence, sits Peter LaMotte. Peter is president of GeniusRocket, a platform that allows brands to crowdsource commercial and (they hope) viral videos from a closed (but vast) community of filmakers, animators and other similarly creative folks. We like Peter - for reasons outlined here and here - and so we figured if anyone could convince us that the future of creative endeavor lies with monkeys and typewriters it would be him. Did he succeed? The video is below. (And do watch to the end - there’s a bit with a naked chickpea puppet.)
Tagi: charles mackay, creative endeavor, creative folks, madness of crowds, science art, chickpeas, lamotte, viral videos, herds, typewriters, puppet, side of the fence, senses, crowd, literature