By Laya Anasu
Article
Hacking in a factory
The view of the backside of a digital knitting machine is beautiful in its chaos and fragility—and more than a little daunting. As one of seven students who traveled to Shenzhen, China, last August for Hacking Manufacturing, a course started by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, I got a firsthand look at that view—and a chance to see how a long-practiced manual skill like knitting translates to a piano-size machine.