Chris Anderson, at Supernova 2009, starting at minute 11, on the new open and distributed manufacturing trends, well worth listening to; or rather I would say, a ‘must see’.
Lots of details about the first open source “Rallye” car of Local Motors, amongst the interesting examples.
(thanks to Charles Collis for the suggestion)
Are you familiar with this?
The Product Realization Laboratory [at Stanford U.] is a teaching facility affiliated with the Mechanical Engineering department. Our lab supports design, creation and innovation through traditional machining, woodworking, foundry, plastics molding, welding, finishing, and metrology tools. State-of-the-art computer-aided drawing, manufacturing, and prototyping systems are also available.
We are committed to turning ideas into reality, and creating a nurturing community in support of that goal. Our doors are open to students from all disciplines, and the range of projects completed in the lab reflects this diversity.