Principles and practices, project management

Assignment For week One (January 23, 2013)
The assignment for this week was to plan and sketch a potential semester project.

*Automatic 2way controlled gate

*The FAB-IN-A-CASE

Having tried in the past few years to build a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Machine has been very challenging. During the quest into building / making CNC machines, I had to learn on my own without stopping. My first attempt into making a CNC machine did not work at all due to the fact that I was not good with any of the Computer Aided Design / Drafting (CAD) programs. My second attempt went more than half way through. Below you can see where I came to a stop. With the few comments made on the design and the knowledge gathered so far, I would like to work on my third CNC machine. And now with help from the FAB LAB world.

The CNC

My project plan is to make FAB-IN-A-CASE.

Why the name  FAB-IN-A-CASE?

This is an IDEA, was perceived during some Fab Lab activities back in Ghana and during some of the presentations during some of the Fab Conferences. The Idea aims at making a highly efficient CNC that can be transformed and packed into a portable suitcase and moved around without harming the machine. During boot camps and some external programs, we sometimes need to send some of these machine for demonstrations. Getting the machines to the demonstration sites is most of the time alarming. Especially when you are fighting to protect the machine from getting damaged and at the same time struggling with these same machines for space.

FAB-IN-A-CASE

My main idea for this whole project FAB-IN-A-CASE, is to make it possible to in the near future, Create something  portable for a MOBILE FABLAB. Something able to hold neatly packed CASES that can easily be transformed into various machines found in the research fields within a just a few minuets. Maybe by just putting it on a transformed table and then getting it to set by the press of a button on the case.
This sounded to me like and impossible Idea, but when I cast my mined back to how the FAB LAB WORLD started,   where it has gotten and where it is getting, then I realized it was not impossible. So in other to prove this, I plan on building the first FAB-IN-A-CASE, and I know with all the engineers around me, it will workout just as expected