Digital Fabrication

Digital fabrication tools have revolutionized the way designers, engineers, and artisans express their creativity. With the right resources, you can learn to use these powerful instruments in no time! Whether it’s 3D printing or laser cutting that interests you, these articles will provide useful tutorials and inspiration for makers of all levels. Discover how digital fabrication can open up new possibilities so that your craftsmanship is truly extraordinary!

What is the New Industrial Revolution?

What is the New Industrial Revolution?

3D printing is great, but it’s only a small part of the solution. The real thing is much larger than any one process. It’s the digitization of manufacturing in general – from CNC milling, to factory floor automation and all the way to system-wide integration beyond today’s primitive quoting sites. By applying the ideas of software to this field: automation, abstraction, standards, etc…you give access to a far wider group of people and create many more possibilities for solving the world’s problems.

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How CAD Empowers Kids: Carl Bass at Maker Faire

How CAD Empowers Kids: Carl Bass at Maker Faire

The chief executive at Autodesk obviously prepared this talk for kids, and he arrived at Maker Faire dressed for the part: wearing a baseball cap, t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Not what he wears when he’s talking to shareholders about fiscal year 2013. But Bass can pull it off: he has a marvelously casual style, and a real passion for making. The result: this is a fantastic primer on computer aided design (CAD) for kids — and for anyone who would like a very easy-going intro to some of the most basic, free tools and services available.

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Is This 3D Machine a Printer or a Fabber?

Is This 3D Machine a Printer or a Fabber?

Are 3D printers a continuation of developments in a modern technology that started over 500 years ago with Gutenberg? Printers use a variety of materials and processes, and now you can print in 3D. Or will we look back one day and think that these fabricators represent the beginning of something entirely new, and we might consider 3D printer such as MakerBot the start, not the end, and that’s there’s generation of 3D machines we haven’t seen yet. Maybe we should have been calling them something other than printers, a better name such as “fabbers.”

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Details from the MakerBot/Stratasys Press Conference

Details from the MakerBot/Stratasys Press Conference

The announcement that industrial 3D printer company Stratasys has acquired the consumer-focused start-up MakerBot has sent shockwaves through the Maker world in the last 24 hours. This morning at MakerBot HQ in Brooklyn, NY, Bre Pettis and David Rice, principles in the two companies, gave a press conference to talk more about the deal, and what it means for the burgeoning 3D printing home market.

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