Assembling electrical and mechanical parts is a costly and error-prone step in the process of making electronic devices. The Fab@Home team at Cornell is pursuing the holy grail of personal fabrication, the ability to manufacture, on a single 3D printer machine in a single “print job,” an object that contains a battery, actuators, sensors, and a physical “body.” In other words a robot. Today’s 3D printers are already capable of combining and manufacturing previously incompatible materials, namely simple electrical components and mechanical parts, called electro mechanical devices. Your cell phone or laptop (or Roomba) is.
