John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

“Unfortunately, the ability to make things as well as ideas didn't make the
cut; that was relegated to the artes illiberales, the "illiberal arts," that one
pursued for mere economic gain. With art separated from artisans, the
remaining fabrication skills were considered just mechanical production.
This artificial division led to the invention of unskilled labor in the
Industrial Revolution.” (Gershenfeld, 2005, p.34)
Gershenfeld points out that industrial mechanisation has meant that skilled
workers that once used to do many things now do only one and that thinking
about how to make things became the business of specialists:
“Designers design things, engineers engineer them, and builders build
them. There's been a clear progression in their workflow, from high-level
description to low-level detail to physical construction. The work at each
stage is embodied in models, first of how something will look, then of
how it will work, then of how to make it. Those models were originally
tangible artifacts, then more recently became computer renderings. Now,
thanks to the convergence of computation and fabrication, it's possible to
convert back and forth between bits and atoms, between physical and
digital representations of an object, by using three-dimensional input and
output devices that can scan and print objects instead of just their
images. These tools are blurring the boundary between a model of a thing
and the thing itself…” (Gershenfeld, 2005, p.103)
Gershenfeld claims the proliferation of personal fabrication will bring about a
‘continuum from creators to consumers’ that will bring individual expression
back into mass-manufacturing through the implementation of 3D machining
and microcontroller programming. In industry computer-based design and
fabrication tools are used to make prototypes: precursors of items they intend to
manufacture. Personal fabrication repurposes CAD/CAM and RP&M
technologies from the creation of prototype parts one at a time and uses them as
a manufacturing process. At MIT engineers are developing machines that not
only create polymer and metal parts layer by layer, but that also print electronic
circuitry, and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) - simple printed circuit
boards. The expected result will be machines that create functional products
with embedded circuitry.
Gershenfeld’s book is full of examples where the Fab Lab programme has
brought fabrication capabilities to underserved communities that have been
beyond the reach of conventional technology development and deployment. He
points out that any solutions arrived at can be developed and produced locally,
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