From Fab @ Home

Please list all major events and contributors here. The most recent events should be added to the bottom of the page

History

Originally, Hod Lipson did not set out to revolutionize fabbing. Rather, while attempting to design a robot that could “evolve” by reprogramming itself and producing its own hardware, he realized that he needed a rapid-prototyping fabrication machine, or “fabber”. Although, this technology had existed for about two decades, they were extremely expensive, could only print one material, and were restricted to high-tech labs. Therefore, Lipson, with then PhD student Evan Malone, decided to encourage experimentation and develop a low cost open source fabbing system.

In December of 2006, Fab@Home released Beta Version 0.17a - making it possible to reload tool files during execution -, released a new Model 1 Bill of Materials, and witnessed a High school freshman from Kentucky experiment using a Fab@Home to build objects made of chocolate. Following these early successes, in February 2007 several media outlets caught wind of the innovative open-source project and published articles about the Fab@Home (New Scientist Magazine’s NewScientist Tech.com, Wired Magazine’s Beyond the Beyond Blog, Technovelgy.com, and Newsweek International).

In the following months, Fab@Home released numerous improvements including Solidworks Assembly files, electronic pinout and schematic files, and a 2-syringe tool system. Following this progress, the Fab@Home Model 1 was officially unveiled at the Solid Freefrom Fabrication Symposium in Austin, Texas in August 2007.

After its official release, Fab@Home collaborated with the Krafmark Company and developed a new 2-part epoxy material called “FabEpoxy” and updated the Bill of Materials for the Model 1 incorporating the 2-syringe system. Then, in October and December of 2007, Fab@Home achieved two landmark milestones by winning the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award as well as being nominated for The International Academy of Science as one of the Outstanding Technologies of 2007.

Returning to work on the project, the team released Beta version .21 of the Fab@Home application and Version 0.23 with the help of Centro de Tecnologia da Informação Renato Archer (CTI) in Campinas Brasil. Kenji Kondo then of Koba Industries developed depositions systems for an ultraviolet-cure adhesive that works in conjunction with a UV LED array and created the first wooden fabber.

In the summer of 2008, Max Lobovsky, Dan Cohen and Hod Lipson and a team of undergraduates from the Cornell Computational Synthesis Lab (CCSL) on new mission – “the cheaper, faster, better” Model 2. While CCSL was working to finish develop the Model 2, McGill University’s Center for Intelligent Machines labored to bring about Ice printer by developing a novel printing tool.

Back at the lab, Hod Lipson and Jeffrey Lipton created the Cornell University Fab@Home Student Team. They created the student team with the goal of assisting the community and helping the development of the Fab@Home platform. The student team released the Model 2 Beta in October 2009. In early 2010 the team release the Model 2.0 and launched the new website which will act as the central hub for all things Fab@Home. At the same time CCSL and the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education teamed up to start the Fab@School project. The Fab@School’s goal is to use engineering and digital fabrication to teach children science and math.