Automated Tabletop Cutter Brings Manufacturing Home
The Microfactory can cut patterns uploaded via Bluetooth
A new tabletop cutting device promises to make at-home fabrication as easy as Ikea. Microfactory MOW is a portable tabletop cutter that can cut patterns from thin sheet materials, including cardboard, wood, and polypropylene. Even better, designers can share their patterns online and also upload new designs to MOW via Bluetooth.
The device is the brainchild of DK Ahn, a designer and graduate of London’s Royal College of Arts. She hopes that MOW can help people reuse materials at home, and avoid the current supply chain required to bring products to consumers. Fast Company remains a bit skeptical about whether people will jump onboard with that agenda, but adds that MOW could take advantage of many good designs which are already flat-pack.
Such technologies may herald a new age when manufacturing leaves the industrial assembly lines and moves into the home for DIY, create-on-demand production. We’re eager to see this, along with 3-D printers and other desktop factory technologies become the norm.
[via Fast Company via Core77]
