Some time ago, I talked about 3D Printing (or Additive Manufacturing to give its proper name). It's a quick and cool way top create one-off designs or prototypes. Well, apparently this is part of a whole new movement called Personal Manufacturing, and Google SketchUp seems to be one of the ideal tools to get involved.
At the Maker Faire held recently in sunny California, Google were giving away kits to make their very smart SKPR Bot. Not only was this robot designed in SketchUp, it uses the Android operating system on your phone to make it work - here is a video of the bot in action...
But what if you couldn't make it over to the US of A to visit Maker Faire? How do you get your hands on one of these little fellas? How Well, Google have posted this fantastic blog about how to make your own - using Personal Manufacturing techniques.
But the interesting thing is how this might change what we do for a living. Imagine how this could revolutionise concept design - the ability to quickly create working prototypes, for a lot less money than you might think.
banjohat
Now we only need native support for the STL format. With that done, reprappers can get going as well :)