For $5,000 US, you can purchase a small CNC machine. This small Computer Numerically Controlled milling machine can do amazing work. The ShopBot cuts aluminum, plywood, plastic and lots of other materials. Google SketchUp can direct the cutter to make almost anything you can dream.

Here’s an excerpt from the Boing Boing article:

I work at Stanford’s design school — called the d.school. We designed and made much of the furniture we used in our new building space in Google’s Sketchup and machined the material using a 4′ x 8′ ShopBot owned and operated by Rob Bell. The process was very fast, and relatively cheap. ShopBot + Sketchup allowed us to do many cycles of design/build/test, which ultimately yielded some very refined artifacts.

This tool will create some great opportunities for some creative construction folks. If you think about the projects you do, then how a tool like this could change things. Then think about a way you could get paid to be the person that makes those changes happen. For someone, this will be a wonderful opportunity.

Do you have any ideas how this could be used in construction?