Week 17: Invention, Intellectual
Property, and Income
5.27.2015 - 6.2.2015
Lecture Notes:
Homework:
- Develop a plan for dissemination of your final
project
Resources:
Project Application:
The modular vacuum former (MVF) I document in my final project is meant to be a proof of concept fabrication tool for application within a fab lab environment.
The proof of concept is intended to demonstrate the feasibility
of a vacuum forming machine with the following
characteristics: 1) a forming area on the order of
1m^2, 2) a material cost on the order of 10^2 - 10^3 USD, 3)
reproducibility using core fab lab machinery, 4) incremental
expandability.
The MVF utilizes a fab lab's core fabrication capabilities
including milling, 3D printing, laser cutting, and electronics
fabrication in its construction and provides the new lab
capability of plastic film thermo-forming. Additionally it
is intended to supplement existing secondary fabrication
capabilities (derived from core lab capabilities) including
molding and casting (mold fabrication) and potentially composite
layup/bagging (vacuum table only).
Audience:
The MVF's capabilities are targeted serve those individuals
that use and operate fab labs and thus its plans are suited for
distribution within the fab lab network.
Purpose / Objective of Project Dissemination:
As with all preliminary designs, there are opportunities to
improve the function and performance of MVF proof of
concept. Through distributing the MVF's design
within the fab lab network, it is hoped that numerous lab users
can collectively share and modify the design to further improve
its functionality.
Tools for dissemination:
Online project sites tailored to fab labs such as FabShare with its GitFab/Fabble tool are enabling
individuals to share projects, share instructions, and provide
opportunities for distributed project collaboration. Additionally inter-lab project databases such as the United States Fab Lab Network's (USFLN) PBworks database, the FabWiki, and Fab Academy's project database provide other channels to distribute lab-specific project information.