Fab Lab

This is just a throw away, but it should clear my head.

Based on MITs 'How to make anything', what would you need.

Electronics

Ability to make circuit boards. Polymer ink based plotter (even using robot arms) on copper clad board. We should be able to get away with very few components; choose a microcontroller, capacitors in a few sizes, resistors in a few sizes, linear power regulator. To manufacture the boards, we would need pick-and-place, something to print solder paste and a reflow oven.

Physical Structures

A combination of additive and subtractive is going to be most powerful. I'm kind of interested in using cheap, dissolvable materials to build frames for carbon fiber then using carbon fiber thread and epoxy to build the shell. Finally, dissolve the supporting structure.

Random Thoughts

It may make sense to power everything off air. If we can print air-motors and valves, then we can drive everything with very simple electric motors. We may even be able to produce them in-house.