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Exploring the frontiers of digital fabrication
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Exploring the frontiers of
digital fabrication
What if:
• Doctors could
‘print out’ an endless supply of organs for
transplant?
•
• You could create objects from
sand and sun?
•
• People could easily make guns
in their own home?
•
•
All these things are
happening now on an experimental scale.
With advances
in technology and maker networks across the world, ordinary
people are starting to use 3D printers and other modern
means of invention. In New Zealand, Massey University’s
new Fab Lab is spreading access to this technology beyond
the handful of leading-edge companies and research
institutions that have owned such equipment to date. But
even as basic equipment becomes affordable, the frontiers of
digital fabrication are expanding. The possibilities are
both exciting and challenging.
On Monday August 27,
the Fab8NZ public symposium in Wellington will give
attendees the opportunity to hear from some of the world’s
experts in digital fabrication of human organs,
post-disaster buildings, self-replicating machines,
essential items for refugee camps, scientific gadgets in
outer space, and other topics.
Amongst the more than
twenty speakers at the symposium:
• Dr Anthony Atala
(Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, USA) will
talk by live video link about growing new human cells,
tissues and organs. [For a previous talk by Dr Atala:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120621-printing-a-human-kidney]
•
• Markus
Kayser (MIT) will present his Solar Sinter project,
involving solar-powered production of objects in the Sahara
Desert. [For video of the project:
http://vimeo.com/25401444]
•
• Michael Hopmeier
(Unconventional Concepts Inc) and Benjamin Mako Hill
(MIT/Harvard) will discuss the security implications of
rapid prototyping.
•
•
The symposium is part
of a week-long international digital fabrication conference
and 8th annual meeting of the global Fab Lab network, being
held at Massey in Wellington.
Date & Time: August 27,
8.45am to 5.30pm (Registration opens at 8am)
Venue: Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
Registration: $175
adults / $50 students and
unwaged.
ends
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