Interesting project packs an entire makers workshop into a shipping container — as the post describes, it “works as a tinkerer’s paradise, but it’s also meant to cost-effectively produce meaningful quantities of real products.” From Instructables. Thanks to Luke Iseman for the tip!

I’ve built 2 off-grid, digital, open-source factories out of 20′ shipping containers, and I want to help others build their own.

Shop-In-A-Box #001 operates in Bungoma, Kenya; #002 lives at American Steel in Oakland, CA. #002 travels: it’s been to Maker Faire (while under construction), The Gates Foundation Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, and Burning Man in the last year. Here’s an article Gizmodo did on this project; we cut their logo out of 18-gauge mild steel while on the playa.

Each factory cost ~$30,000 in total, including power generation and tooling. This means that for around the price of a nicer new car, you can make many aspects of a car: sub-millimeter-precision cuts through 3/4″ metal, welding steel up to 1″ thick / aluminum up to 3/8″, a wide variety of metalworking / woodworking tools, and a lot more.

Read more.

Each week on the Adafruit blog we post up about amazing companies, people and articles about being a MAKER and a business. Over the years we’ve shared how we run Adafruit, published code from our shopping cart system and given presentations on running an open-source hardware company. Every Monday we’re going to try to collect some of these resources and tag them #makerbusinessmonday & #makerbusiness. They’re in our popular Maker Business category as well, enjoy!