RepLab/fr
RepLab is a proposed digital fabrication workshop. It would be a room with computer-controlled tools that could mould metal into any shape, mould plastic into any shape, print circuit boards, scan 3D shapes, melt down metal to pour it into moulds and do a few other basic tasks in a highly flexible way, with the result that you could make any electronic or mechanical device. In go scrap metal, plastic and silicon - out come bicycles, saucepans, tractors, medical equipment, mobile phones, laptop computers, Internet nodes, solar turbines, sculptures, robots and whatever else you can imagine. And one of the things it would be able to make would be another RepLab, as all the fabrication machines would use open-source designs. This would allow the labs to multiply like rabbits.
