Dubbed Fab-Fi by it's creators at the MIT Media Lab, this rusty contraption is actually a handmade reflector for a wireless internet network in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. While traveling in the region, members of the Bits and Atoms Lab showed locals how to build the reflectors from scraps of metal, wires, and tin cans. Since then, members of the community have built enough reflectors and, in conjunction with wireless routers, have boosted the range of internet connection to many locals who would have no access otherwise with 25 simultaneous live nodes in Jalalabd.
When compared to a similar World Bank funded initiative to install internet infrastructure in the region - which took 7 years and millions of dollars worth of investment to achieve similar results - the idea that teaching concepts is sometimes the best solution. Imported infrastructure is often expensive and highly sophisticated, whereas a piece of technology developed from a concept that uses local materials and methods can evolve into an extremely potent solution. By using materials that already exist at hand, the users are most likely tapping into a material stream that is both local and readily available. As these materials are probably common to their makers, their use and manipulation is that much more of a familiar process. Furthermore, the possession of imported infrastructure is often kept to the supplying entity. With locally created technology, the process can become part of a user-generated economy - something that will do more good for a distressed region than any type of imported technology.
Seen on Gizmodo.
photo by chris bobkoEngineer's at MIT have discovered the cause behind concrete to deform and weaken over time due to stress. called concrete creep, a rearrangement of structure at the nano-scale, professor Franz-Jozef Ulm's paper suggests that, if slowed by 2.6%, the result would increase the effective lifespan of concrete up to 16,000 years. Although I understand BLDGBLG's hesitation at a material synonnomous with parking structures being able to last for 16,000 years, there may be practical uses for this. Aside from the ecological benefit of only producing the concrete once, extended-use infrastrcutre such as bridges and foundations would require less maintanence and replacement over the material life-cycle. Also, by micro-engineering the material, a complete re-imagining of construction methods with the material is possible. Working at a nano-scale it becomes possible to engineer into the concrete certain nano-structures or formulas that would allow for easy assembly/disassembly and manipulation. If the material does indeed have such durability, the ability to re-engineer that actual piece of concrete, whether to repair or reform, could yield infinite solutions. Ironically, the material that defined 'modularity' could be re-engineered to be modular at a molecular level. Could actual 'curable' concrete be created where the atomic structure is re-energized and given a molecular tune-up? A structural member is tested and the calculations reveal it's structure has decomposed to an unsafe level. A specific electrical current is applied to the material and particles are jostled back into place and the original strength is again realized.
Dubbed Fab-Fi by it's creators at the MIT Media Lab, this rusty contraption is actually a handmade reflector for a wireless internet network in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. While traveling in the region, members of the Bits and Atoms Lab showed locals how to build the reflectors from scraps of metal, wires, and tin cans. Since then, members of the community have built enough reflectors and, in conjunction with wireless routers, have boosted the range of internet connection to many locals who would have no access otherwise with 25 simultaneous live nodes in Jalalabd. 
