Geek Gestalt

Win a Maker Faire package including four tickets and a T-shirt by submitting your best 150-word idea on how to use do-it-yourself to remake America.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

In just 16 days, Maker Faire, the annual do-it-yourself nirvana, will be returning to San Mateo, Calif., and you could be there courtesy of CNET News.

Last month, I posted an entry here offering 20 free Maker Faire passes for the best 150-word submissions on how you would use DIY to remake America. Unfortunately, I didn't receive enough submissions to make it a particularly competitive contest. So we're changing the game a little bit.

Instead of offering 20 people one free pass to the May 30 and 31 event, I'm going to offer five packages of four tickets plus a Maker Faire T-shirt. And if you are one of the people who sends in one of the five most impressive submissions, one of those packages will be yours.

The challenge remains the same: Give me 150 words on how you'd remake America the DIY way. If you've already sent me a submission, don't worry, I still have it.

For everyone else, please send me your submissions by the end of the business day on Monday, May 18.

If you're within striking distance of the Bay Area and you've never been to Maker Faire--I've been to all three in San Mateo, plus the 2007 edition in Austin, Texas, and I can tell you that it's nothing short of a blast--or even if you have, you should definitely be there. And you could either pay $30 in advance for a weekend pass (or $50 at the gate) or you could get in for free.

It's up to you.

Well, not entirely. The actual decisions will be made by my celebrity judge, Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone. But if you've got a great idea, I'll do my best to nudge him in your direction.

On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

The Neverwas Haul, a mobile, steam-powered Victorian house, on display at Maker Faire 2008. You could join the crowd at the 2009 edition of the DIY celebration in San Mateo, Calif.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

During the past few years, the world has rediscovered the joys of do-it-yourself (or DIY) projects, and everywhere you look these days, you can see people building things themselves rather than buying them from others.

A big part of this revolution has been Make magazine, and its Maker Faires, festivals--which celebrate the DIY spirit in all its manifestations--which take place each year in San Mateo, Calif., and Austin, Texas.

To date, I am not really a maker myself, though that's something I regret and am ever exhorting myself to change. But I have been to four Maker Faires, and I've seen some of the wonderful things that people show off there: Steam-powered mobile Victorian houses, incredibly soft Flying Spaghetti Monsters made from felt, wooden iPods, watermelon-launching trebuchets and much, much more.

Well, Maker Faire is coming back to San Mateo on May 30 and 31, and you could be there.

The event's organizers have given me 20 passes to award CNET News readers. And all you have to do to win one is tell me, in 150 words or less, how you would use DIY to remake America (the event's theme).

It's a broad topic, I admit, and I'm sure there are an infinite number of ideas that could win. But in order to pick the best 20, I'm going to turn to my celebrity judge, Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

So, send your 150-words-max ideas to me at daniel(dot)terdiman-*at*-cnet(dot)com by May 8 (please include the words "Maker Faire contest" in your e-mail subject line, as well as your full name in your e-mail), and maybe I'll be seeing you at Maker Faire.

It appears that an agreement has been reached between Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories and Klutz, the publisher of a book called the 'Invasion of the Bristlebots,' to give credit for the creation of the concept of a bristlebot to the original makers.

(Credit: Windell H. Oskay, www.evilmadscientist.com)

A kerfuffle that exploded online in the past few days over who created the concept of a "bristlebot," a small robot mashed up with a toothbrush, looks like it has a happy ending after an agreement between a New York publisher and two Silicon Valley "makers."

The controversy arose when a forthcoming book called "The Invasion of the Bristlebots" was discovered at the recent New York Toy Fair, raising the hackles of many who were deeply familiar with the concept of bristlebots, which had first been spread in late 2007 by the Silicon Valley makers, Lenore Edman and Windell Oskay, otherwise known as Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

In a post on how to create a bristlebot on the Make magazine blog in December, 2007, Edman and Oskay wrote:

The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun. The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) motor. Some neat varieties include the mint-tin version, as seen in Make Magazine...and the kid's art bot: a vibrobot with pens for feet.

Since that post, Edman said, bristlebots have become one of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories' most popular creations, one that has spurred people all over the world to work on their own bristlebot projects, a development that Edman said was "fantastic." The original post also linked to a video (see below) on making one of the little robots that has since been viewed on YouTube more than 2.1 million times.

Given that, and the fact that the book from Klutz publishers (a division of Scholastic) had neglected to offer any credit to Edman or Oskay, or any acknowledgment that someone else had previously worked on bristlebots, upset a lot of people.

In a post on the Make magazine blog Thursday, senior editor Phil Torrone called the Klutz book project, which was authored by Pat Murphy, a "sad day for makers." And Edman and Oskay wrote on their own site: "We were never contacted by Klutz (or Scholastic), which we find surprising, being that we are the instigators of the current brush-based vibrobot movement, and the coiners of the term bristlebot."

For its part, Scholastic initially took a wait-and-see attitude. Kyle Good, vice president of corporate communications, told CNET News in an e-mail: "Klutz is genuinely surprised by this reaction to our book. The development of 'Invasion of the Bristlebots' by the Klutz creative team dates back to at least early 2007 and was developed internally, like other Klutz products. In light of this misunderstanding, we're contacting the folks at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories in the interest of addressing the concerns that have been raised."

On Friday afternoon, the two sides talked, and according to Edman, it appears that a resolution was reached.

The book 'Invasion of the Bristlebots,' by Pat Murphy, will be published by Klutz and Scholastic in April. While the publisher says the book was already in the works prior to the December, 2007 blog posts in which Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories first wrote about bristlebots, it will give credit to the original makers.

(Credit: Scholastic/Klutz)

"I think they want to do the right thing," Edman told CNET News. "It sounds like they want to give us acknowledgment and work with us to make things right."

Edman said that there were still details to be worked out with Klutz, and that she couldn't go into specifics of the agreement, but she characterized the conversation as a "good call."

In a statement issued by Scholastic late Friday, Murphy, the book's author, also said that the discussion with Edman had been "good" and productive.

"We spoke about our shared commitment to making science and technology accessible to children," Murphy's statement began. "We began a discussion of ways that Klutz could acknowledge the exceptional work that Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories had done in bristlebot research--starting with this message and continuing with acknowledgment in the next printing of the book and on the Klutz Web site."

Murphy also said that her bristlebots project did begin inside Klutz.

"At Klutz, the toothbrush robot evolved from the work of another editor and content developer on vibrobots....Sometime in early 2007, his efforts to shrink a vibrobot to a size that would fit on a book led him to strap a pager motor on a well-worn toothbrush. When he left Klutz, I worked on a tight deadline to refine his work and develop ways that kids ages eight and up could play with these Bots. Unfortunately, when working on a tight deadline, I tend to focus inward, rather than looking outward for others who might be able to help. And publishers, unlike the maker community--or the education community, where I spent many years--tend to keep their research under wraps until we're ready to publish."

Still, many in the maker community will find it improbable that bristlebots were created by anyone except Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Yet, even if true, Edman and Oskay didn't have much, if any, of a legal complaint against the publisher, said Michael Barclay, an intellectual property attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

"Concepts are kind of fuzzy things," said Barclay, who was speaking generally and not about the specifics of the bristlebots controversy. "The generic concept of putting a robot together with a toothbrush would be pretty hard to protect....It's very hard to protect an idea."

But to Edman, the dispute was never about the law.

"I'm not at this point concerned with any legal situation," Edman said. "I'm much more concerned with the maker community, and that their rights are protected to continue to do projects like this and not feel that if they put a project out there that somebody's going to come along and use that project for financial gain without contacting the maker. So, is it a legal right? It's more a community ethos, the morals of the community and the community behavior that I'm interested in."

To people like Torrone, who is a passionate advocate for the maker community, the apparent resolution between Klutz and Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories seems like a good thing.

"This is great news for makers," Torrone said. "It means there are huge companies interested in what makers create. I'm sure (Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories) will show how traditional business can work with the maker community to the benefit of both."

Torrone added that he, like Edman, hadn't been looking at the dispute from a legal perspective. Rather, he too had been concerned that the situation might mean that makers can see their work appropriated by others without proper credit, something that might shut off the inspiration of future creators.

"My concern...was about what type of company Scholastic and Klutz wants to be, what world they want kids to grow up in," Torrone said. "They can credit makers and work with them or they can choose to hijack unique inventions without crediting makers. I'm pleased to see Scholastic and Klutz re-evaluated their position once they rediscovered the overwhelming clear-cut evidence that bristlebots came from (Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)."

For Edman, the agreement with Klutz is an example of "an opportunity for a company like Klutz to collaborate with a community...and develop ideas with them, rather than the other way around. If we can work in concert, it will be much more successful."

A 'bristlebot' is a combination of a small robot and a toothbrush. There is now a controversy over who created the concept, as an inventor called Evil Mad Scientist first wrote about bristlebots in late 2007, and there now comes a book from Klutz and Scholastic titled 'Invasion of the Bristlebots,' which makes no reference to Evil Mad Scientist.

(Credit: Windell H. Oskay, www.evilmadscientist.com)

When it comes to whimsy, there's no doubt that the concept of a "bristlebot," a combination robot and toothbrush, is dripping with it.

But there's little whimsy going on right now over a controversy that has arisen with the appearance at the recent Toy Fair in New York of a book from Klutz publishing called "Invasion of the Bristlebots."

That's because in December 2007, the inventors at Evil Mad Scientist posted a how-to entry on the Make blog about something they called "BristleBots," a combination of a robot and a toothbrush:

The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun. The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) motor. Some neat varieties include the mint-tin version, as seen in Make Magazine (check the video) and the kid's art bot: a vibrobot with pens for feet.

But as was discovered at the Toy Fair, a new book from Klutz and Scholastic publishing by author Pat Murphy, called "Invasion of the Bristlebots," is covering what seems to be exactly the same ground.

The book 'Invasion of the Bristlebots,' by Pat Murphy, is set to be published by Klutz and Scholastic in April. The publisher says the book was already in the works prior to the December 2007 blog posts in which Evil Mad Scientist first wrote about so-called BristleBots.

(Credit: Klutz/Scholastic publishing)

So far, it's unclear what the true origin of the bristlebot is.

In response to a request for comment on this story, Kyle Good, Scholastic vice president of corporate communications, wrote in an e-mail on Thursday that "Klutz is genuinely surprised by this reaction to our book. The development of 'Invasion of the Bristlebots' by the Klutz creative team dates back to at least early 2007 and was developed internally, like other Klutz products. In light of this misunderstanding, we're contacting the folks at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories in the interest of addressing the concerns that have been raised."

Afterwards, Scholastic put the same statement up on its public blog.

However, the folks at Evil Mad Scientist seem to be insisting that the bristlebot was their invention. As they wrote on their site Thursday, "We were never contacted by Klutz (or Scholastic), which we find surprising, being that we are the instigators of the current brush-based vibrobot movement and the coiners of the term bristlebot."

For now, this is all the information that is available. Stay tuned, however, as I plan to have a more in-depth story on this controversy on Monday morning.

Following on the success of their hit do-it-yourself magazine, the people behind Make will now bring their efforts to public television.

On Saturday, Make: Television will debut, a partnership between the magazine, Twin Cities Public Television, and American Public Television. All episodes will also be available for DRM-free download in HD, on YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes, and Blip.tv.

"Make: is the DIY series for a new generation," a release about the new show began. "It celebrates 'makers'--the inventors, artists, geeks, and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels. The series encourages everyone to invent, revent, recycle, upcycle, and act up. Based on the popular Make magazine, each half-hour episode inspires millions to think, create and, well, make."

The show will focus on the same kind of activities and people that have filled the pages of Make magazine. Among those featured in the first episode, for example, are Cyclecide, a group that travels the country putting on a bicycle rodeo; the maker of a cat-feeder built from an old VCR; and the man behind the "laser harp," a musical instrument played by strumming laser strings.

For some time, Make has been producing video content that has been available online. But now, for the first time, it is creating all-new content that is intended for television.

Make is also behind Maker Faire, a two-day DIY festival that takes place each year in both San Mateo, Calif., and Austin, Texas.

The launch of the show comes at a difficult time for media, what with layoffs across the industry and a weakening environment for advertising. But Make senior editor Philip Torrone said that things are going well for the magazine and that it is doing as well as it ever has.

One explanation for that would seem to be that as the economy falters and people struggle to make ends meet, Make helps them learn to do things on their own, without spending a lot on pre-produced goods. And, because it fosters a do-it-yourself ethos, the magazine--and its related media--is attractive to those interested in becoming more self-reliant.

Whether the TV series will be a success is unknown. But the fact that Twin Cities Public Television and American Public Television have decided that now is a good time to launch the show is a sign that people, there at least, believe that the time is right to promote DIY to a larger audience.

Two days before tens of thousands of people will stream into the third annual Bay Area edition of Maker Faire, the art projects were still few and far between, and the ones that were already in place were only partially done. Here, the Neverwas Haul, a steam-powered, mobile, Victorian house sits waiting to be completed.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

SAN MATEO, Calif.--The best thing about going to Maker Faire a couple of days before the gates officially open is watching it grow.

Walk a couple of times around the fairgrounds here, where the do-it-yourself bacchanalia will welcome tens of thousands of people starting Saturday, and you'll see new projects appear each time you go around: A stream of trucks keeps coming through the gates, each one hauling a new group of people and whatever fantastical art, heavy machine, oddball musical instrument or other insane contents it might be carrying.

Over on one side of the fairgrounds, a large steam-powered, mobile, Victorian house called the Neverwas Haul sat all alone, a single person inside it doing some work. Its guts were visible on one side, something I wasn't used to after seeing the wonderful Neverwas Haul twice at Burning Man and at Maker Faire last year.

Over on the other side, a giant booth was being built for Microsoft, expertly packed boxes and exhibit infrastructure standing out from the rougher, more artistic fare around it.

And then there were three giant human figures made from chains, wood and other industrial detritus in various poses of worship. These were by artists Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito and were originally part of their incredibly ambitious Burning Man 2007 project called "Crude Awakening."

This was Maker Day, a day for the many, many makers whose individual DIY projects are Maker Faire to meet and greet and hear a series of talks on issues near and dear to their hearts: extreme crafting, the future of making, how to make money with open-source hardware kits and much more. And to see these projects come to life.

I was surprised, despite having been through this process last fall at Maker Faire Austin, at how barren the fairgrounds were only two days before the gates open on Saturday. In Austin, I had wondered if a bunch of makers simply wouldn't show up when, even the day before the event began, there were vast swaths of empty space.

Artist Karen Cusolito works on the hair of this giant human figure made from discarded metal during the set-up for Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

But, my experience then was that somehow, overnight on Friday night, the makers magically materialized, and by Saturday's opening, Maker Faire Austin was fully functional and operational. I have little doubt the same will be true this year.

At the very first Maker Faire, here in San Mateo, about 30 minutes south of San Francisco, in 2006, 20,000 people showed up. Last year, for the second go-round here, that number doubled. Now, as the organizers--the event is put on by Make magazine publisher O'Reilly Media--get ready for the third Bay Area iteration, no one knows how many to expect. But given that someone told me that pre-sales for this year's event were double last year's, I think it's safe to say that anyone heading out here this weekend should expect a packed house.

Still, that doesn't mean you will have a bad time. The fairgrounds are huge, and there's plenty of space for everyone. Plus, there will be endless dozens of makers on hand to showcase their insane creations and their brilliant minds.

For Maker Faire organizers like Louise Glasgow, the best thing about doing the event over and over again--this will be the fourth time they've done it, counting Austin last fall--is watching it grow and watching the birth of new makers.

"We're making makers," Glasgow told me Thursday. "There's so many new makers who were (Maker Faire) volunteers last year, or assistants (on other people's projects) or attendees who learned something here in a class."

Indeed, that is one of the great things about this event: people come for the first time, take a tutorial in something like making things with felt, and the next year they return with their own felting business. That was the experience of a friend of mine, who first came to Maker Faire here in 2006 and returned in 2007 with her new concern, NifNaks.

There's something for everyone at Maker Faire, including the many children who will be amongst the tens of thousands who show up in San Mateo, Calif., for the event this weekend.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

For me, seeing Glasgow pull up on a golf cart, her level of energy cranked way up, was a fun reminder of the several hours I spent with her in Austin last fall as she raced around during the set-up of Maker Faire there, making sure everything was going smoothly. It takes a lot to put one of these events together, and Glasgow and the whole Maker Faire team really seem to have this process nailed down.

Yet, to Glasgow, it's a whole new event each year.

And for the thousands of people who show up here this weekend--even those who have been here before--that's sure to be true. Especially for the many children who will never have seen anything like this stuff before.

One of my favorite people in the world of tech culture has always been Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

Over the years, I've done a number of stories about his various exploits, including Roomba Frogger at South by Southwest 2006, his laser-etching business, his jamming of TVs at a hotel in Austin, Texas, and his work in helping organize Maker Faires. Beyond that, I've always enjoyed talking with him, as he's a world traveler, a top-notch intellect, and a world-class culture jammer. He's just my kind of guy.

'Make' magazine editor Phil Torrone playing with a TV-B-Gone at a hotel in Austin, Texas in October, 2006.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

And there's certainly one thing about Torrone that is evidenced in the things he does for fun and for work: he is not shy about pushing social and cultural boundaries. In fact, based on my personal observations of him, he kind of revels in doing so.

So when I saw a Boing Boing post on Tuesday reporting that Torrone was seen at this week's ETech conference in San Diego with a carry-on bag that has a fully formed imprint of a handgun on it, I was both shocked and not at all surprised.

What I would have given, I thought, to have seen him take that bag through airport security; to see what I'm sure was his straight-faced gaze as Transportation Security Administration personnel encountered the bag.

At the ETech conference in San Diego, Torrone was spotted carrying this bag, a model from Dutch firm Vlieger & Vandam

(Credit: David Pescovitz/Boing Boing.net)

As Boing Boing blogger David Pescovitz put it in his entry, "Fortunately, (Torrone) made it through security with enough time to catch his flight."

I bet he did.

To be fair, Torrone's bag is a production model from the Dutch firm Vlieger & Vandam, and I'm sure he's not the only person traveling around with one. In fact, the firm makes the bag in three colors and also has one with an embossed knife.

But holy cow! What chutzpah. Especially because we all know that airport security don't take things that make them think of weapons lightly. Witness what happened to MIT student Star Simpson when she wore a shirt with some home-made electronics built-in to the Boston airport last year.

And I'm not at all surprised. If you recall, during this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the gadget blog Gizmodo caused a huge uproar when it ran a prank turning off TVs at the show, including those being used for a major Motorola presentation.

Gizmodo took a massive amount of flak for the prank--though its profile was also raised immeasurably--but one thing was lost in the mix.

As Gizmodo itself reported in its initial story on the prank, "when Make offered us some TV-B-Gone clickers to bring to the show, we pretty much couldn't help ourselves...Thanks to Phil Torrone for the gear."

When I read that, I had to smile, especially after the firestorm of controversy that erupted afterward, not one single bit of which was targeted at Torrone. But I knew that somewhere, he was laughing his behind off at what he had wrought.

The reality is, Torrone is one of those people worth watching, no matter where he goes because he's always up to something interesting.

I'm sure there are those who think his brand of humor and sense of boundaries is anti-social and even dangerous. Having been there for the Roomba Frogger episode and having read the many, many comments readers left after I wrote about it, I actually know that for a fact.

But at the same time, I think that society's conventions need a little tweaking from time to time, and it takes people with a little chutzpah to do so, people who aren't afraid of the kind of response their actions will engender. And I also know that Torrone would never actually put anyone in danger.

So all I can say is, if you happen to be heading to Austin later this week for this year's South by Southwest conference--where I know Torrone will be--keep an eye on him. You never know what might happen.

Botanicalls has figured out a way to get plants to Twitter when they need to be watered.

(Credit: Botanicalls)

If you thought it was bad enough that all your friends, and even your mother, want you to keep up with them via their Twitter pages, your plants could now do the same.

That's because the folks at Botanicalls, a group that formed at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program that figured out how to get plants to make phone calls when they need to be watered, have now extended that functionality to Twitter.

"Botanicalls Twitter answers the question: What's up with your plant? It offers a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates that reach you anywhere in the world," says the Botanicalls site. "When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know, and send its thanks when you show it love."

And if you want to know how to make your plants Twitter their thirst, then hop on over to the Make magazine blog, where Geek Gestalt's good friend, Phillip Torrone, has the how-to information for you.

Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the idea that you can get a plant to Twitter. But, at the same time, I'm a little worried about where this might lead. After all, my cat gets hungry several times a minute. I simply won't be able to handle if he gets ahold of a Twitter account.

AUSTIN, Texas--If you've never seen a machine that makes 3D models out of sugar, you should.

But unless you're part of a relatively small group of people who went to the Maker Faire in California in May, or are one of a few other people who know the machine's creator, you probably have never even heard of the device.

Similarly, you may not be aware--or at least the general public probably isn't--that there is a whole movement going on right now to build advanced, digital, relatively inexpensive personal fabrication and robotics tools that can do or create some very cool things like laser etchings on laptops or iPods, 3D models of virtual world avatars, Lego models of almost anything, and many other kinds of projects.

A primary example of the places that offer these kinds of tools and project support is MIT's Fab Lab.

As Wikipedia's entry on such fab labs puts it: "While fab labs cannot compete with mass production and its associated economies of scale in fabricating widely distributed products, they have the potential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production."

On Thursday, as many of the organizers of Maker Faire Austin and the so-called "makers" themselves began gathering to prepare for this weekend's event, they took time out for what they called a "fabrication summit," a discussion of such tools, and more importantly, how to get them into the hands of and in front of a larger number of people.

Hosted by Make magazine editor and publisher Dale Dougherty, the meeting--attended by some of the most accomplished people in the personal fabrication field--became a referendum on what it might take to get the masses interested in these kinds of tools and machines.

No conclusions were reached, but there were some insights that might help the group reach its goal--particularly about why most people may not know about this kind of technology.

On Thursday, some of the organizers of Maker Faire, as well as some of the 'makers' themselves gathered for a 'fabrication summit' in Austin.'

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

"By far the biggest obstacle is fear," said Jim Newton, the founder and managing director of TechShop, a business in Menlo Park, Calif., that offers drop-in access to a wide range of fabrication tools. "People are afraid to try this. Very few people want to make things anymore because they've built up this fear. Aside from providing the actual tools, (it's necessary) to get people past the fear. It's (about showing) people that they can do this: 'You don't have to be an engineer. You can do this yourself.'"

Another meeting attendee, Make senior editor Phil Torrone, suggested that the way to getting people interested in using these kinds of tools, particularly young people, is to show them how to use the technology on their favorite devices.

"People under 18 want to (laser) etch their iPods and cell phones," Torrone said. "But the people that have this equipment are engineers. It's like a drug (though). You let them try it and get them addicted. You have to have a gateway drug. You have to give them something interesting first. And there are a hundred million iPods."

Lifehacker.com editor Gina Trapani had 'Make' magazine senior editor Phil Torrone etch a symbol of an Irish knot on her PowerBook. Here, the machine is still doing the etching.

(Credit: Gina Trapani/Lifehacker.com)

But as Ted Hall, president of computer-controlled machine tool company ShopBot put it, "There's still very little awareness of digital fabrication capabilities. It's amazing to me how little awareness (there is) of how much can be done."

Part of the problem, Hall added, is terminology. For example, one important term in the personal fabrication field is CNC, or computer numerical control, which is part of the system that ShopBot uses. Hall said tools must have more accessible names.

For example, he pointed to concept of the 3D printer, a device that can build a three-dimensional physical model based on digital images. "Printer," Hall said, offers "a word of explanation that conveys everything that it is going to do. And for many of the other tools, that's not the case."

The meeting ended without specific resolutions or recommendations, but it appeared that those involved left inspired to promote their movement and to help bring the new tools to the public in a way they feel will empower the masses to do whole lot more creating on their own.