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He Who Has No Name writes: A little over a week ago, Thingiverse user Loubie posted Sad Face! to Thingiverse, protesting the use — without permission — of their designs and those of others by JustPrint3D, an Ebay seller marketing physical prints of the designs in question (over 2,000 by some counts). Despite a terse and legally shaky denial of any wrongdoing by JustPrint3D, there are obviously multiple violations of various iterations of the Creative Commons licenses (several forms of the CC license are options for Thingiverse uploaders to assign to their Things when uploading, and one is the default). Now MakerBot itself is wading into the uproar firmly on the side of its users, and has released a statement mentioning potential legal action.

Last week you had a chance to ask Dr. Tarek Loubani about his 3D-printable, 30-cent stethoscope project, and other open source, ultra-low cost medical equipment. Below you'll find his answers to your questions. What about patents?
by ciaran2014

Most activities that can be performed commercially but which can also be performed non-commercially are either exempt from patents or never get prosecuted. Fixing other people's bicycles, writing a book, and performing music come to mind. (Software development is a grey area.) But 3D printing is taking an activity where efficient production on any reasonable scale was pretty much the exclusive domain of businesses, and making it accessible to DIY-ers and people who would do it while doing their job or performing some task at home, without any direct commercial aspect. Any idea what stage the debate is at regarding patent restrictions on printing or distributing designs for things more complicated or more modern than stethoscopes?

Tarek: This project does not aim to innovate as such. We aim to drop the bottom out of the costs on devices whose patents have long since expired. We might be trolled, harassed and sued into oblivion, but not because we are in violation of any patents. Indeed, the patents that cover the stethoscope we made are long expired US3168160, filed in 1962; US3108652, filed in 1960; US3515239, filed in 1968. The patents that cover a few small innovations in the Littmann Cardiology III expire in just a couple of years US5945640, but fundamentally the tech is ancient.

It's the same for pulse oximetry. Same for electrocardiograms.

Regarding your overarching question, brilliant minds like Geist, Doctorow, Stallman, etc. might be better positioned to answer. My hope, of course, is that the copyright bargain turns in favour of users and citizens sooner rather than later.



Was your stethoscope 3D printed in Gaza?
by mrops

It seems there are a lot of restrictions on what can be imported into gaza as there is a risk technologies might fall into terrorist hands and used for nefarious purpose. Under this, is it really possible to import a 3D printer into gaza for such tasks?

Tarek: There are already 3D printers in Gaza. Those who have made Prusa i3 printers know that it's trivial to make one from salvaged parts taken from old inkjet and laser printers. These printers will be used in the production of prosthetics and medical devices.

Those who support the blockade or oppose the rights of patients in Gaza to access health care might contend that 3D printers could be used to make weaponry. This is a ridiculous claim: Gaza has hundreds of CNC routers, and most of the weaponry currently in the hands of the Palestinian resistance was either captured from Fatah forces during an “attempted coup” (David Wurmser's words) in 2007 or smuggled, mostly via tunnels under the Egyptian border. The armed resistance groups in Gaza are not waiting for us to bring in 3D printers. If they wanted them, they'd have brought them in with the last batch of rockets.



Are medical devices restricted?
by Anonymous Coward

I see lots of stuff blamed on the import restrictions, but are medical devices actually blockaded, or are they stopped because they're used as a cover to smuggle in other things?

Tarek: According to Gisha, an Israeli NGO, the blockade is “not in order to protect against security threats ... but rather as part of a policy to apply 'pressure' or 'sanctions' on the Hamas regime.” Your question assumes that the blockade is security instead of sanction, which is not the case. Even so, there has never been smuggling of illicit items into Gaza under the cover of medical supplies.

Israel does not declare the list of banned items, but claims that medicines are not banned (see this partial list of banned items, but MSF and others report chronic severe shortages of medical supplies. The World Health Organization reported in 2011 that “shortages of the 190 medical disposable items include some basic and very critical items such as: syringes, Central Venous Pressure devices, ECG and CTG paper, X-Ray film, gauze, disposables used in laparoscopies, and filtration cartridges used in haemodialysis for patients with kidney failure.”

Frankly, I have never cared about why. In Gaza, it's blockade. In Democratic Republic of Congo it's war. In Rwanda, it's poverty. The end result is the same: The denial of health care to the world's most vulnerable people. Everyone deserves health care. This project is about ensuring that doctors and patients in Gaza and elsewhere can alleviate their own suffering without waiting for international law and public goodwill to catch up with illegal occupations, collective punishments and colonial legacies.



3D Printing, catalyst for Intermediate Technology?
by Anonymous Coward

Your 30-cent stethoscope seems to be an excellent example of "Intermediate Technology" (or “Appropriate Technology“) as popularized by Dr Hans Schumacher in his influential book, Small is Beautiful. Do you think that 3D printing will become increasingly important in the third world with regards to improving basic medicine, agriculture etc?

Tarek: I see my 3D printer as a portable factory. It can't do all the same things at the same scales, but it is possible for people in very poor places to create high precision plastic parts that were previously impossible. Because these parts are created from digital models, it also allows collaboration via open source models, as we see on various model repositories. Open source models and repositories are where I think exponential achievements are happening today.

3D printing then becomes one of the ingredients in the empowering of disenfranchised people to take control and come up with indigenous solutions to problems.



Local making of tools
by fortunatus

While reviewing the online repository for the stethoscope design, I saw that mainly it's the sound gathering part that is 3D printed. The rest is - reasonably - made out of regular stuff. So then, with some regular stuff, can't local people figure out how to make stethoscopes? They really can't figure out that one sound gathering piece? It takes a doctor/hacker to come from some land far away bearing the URL to a 3D printable part to solve the problem?

Tarek: You're right - there is nothing special here, and I embrace my mediocrity as a doctor and geek. Somebody just had to do a bit of work and spend a bit of money. I don't consider myself to be from some “land far away”: I am Palestinian and lived as a stateless refugee the first 13 years of my life in Kuwait where I was born, and then in Canada. However, I now have the luxury of a Canadian passport, a first-world academic post at the Division of Emergency Medicine in London, Canada, and the ability to connect two disparate worlds.

When I saw the problem while trying to treat wounded patients in the 2012 war in Gaza, I didn't ask myself “why not somebody else?” I asked: “why not me?”



non alergenic materials for printing
by McLae

With all the allergies to various materials, such as nickel and latex, what materials can be 3d-printed that are medically inert? Surgical instruments are stainless steel, implants are titanium, how do you print these? It seems another whole line of questions to find proper materials that can be printed.

Tarek: A few plastics come to mind. ABS is FDA approved, as is Nylon 680 and some PETT. For now, underserviced populations will not be able to receive 3D printed metals – it's too costly and out of scope. However, there can be some creativity. 3D4MD, a group in Toronto, Canada has successfully developed and published on 3D printed surgical instruments made from ABS. Because their models are not published online and I believe are not open source, we have started our own surgical tools project, which will have tremendous impact when completed.

Your answer, then, has two parts. The first is that we should aim at the low-hanging fruit of medicine. Off-patent, ubiquitous devices like stethoscopes, pulse oximeters, electrocardiograms, and hemodialysis are good examples.

The second part is that we in the global south accept that some people will die because of the lack of proper supplies. Given latex gloves or no gloves at all, the choice is obvious. This is not academic: physicians and policymakers have been forced to make this decision in Gaza at the Shifa hospital's emergency department, where most of our gloves are latex.

We're talking about basics like gloves and gauze. Nobody here is talking about custom-printed titanium implants.



Challenges
by Anonymous Coward

What do you see as the main challenges in getting your devices to the regions that need them?

Tarek: I guess the main challenge by far is buy-in. Once a ministry of health or hospital buys into the idea, then the technical parts are trivial and inexpensive.



What else is out there?
by ciaran2014

I've read there are other 3D-printed stethoscopes. Is yours (the Gila 3D stethoscope) attracting attention because it's better, or cheaper, or because it's actually getting used? Or is the Gila 3D stethoscope getting attention not for what it is but for it being an example from a domain where 3D seems set to bring radical change?

Tarek: I know of a few other stethoscopes. In that sense, what we're doing is not unique technically. Our innovation is taking the technology and mixing it with the politics of Free hardware and enfranchisement and the science of verification and validation. Then, as you noted, we put it to use in the real world.

Our stethoscope is as good or better than a Littmann Cardiology III. I can prove it. You can build it today, all of the models are available to modify, and soon it will be Health Canada approved as a Class I device. A peer-reviewed publication is hopefully forthcoming.

The attention is indeed because of the idea and the promise, not the stethoscope. However, the stethoscope has created a model and a high standard that we and other groups must meet when working on future projects of this kind.

Last week you had a chance to ask Dr. Tarek Loubani about his 3D-printable, 30-cent stethoscope project, and other open source, ultra-low cost medical equipment. Below you'll find his answers to your questions. What about patents?
by ciaran2014

Most activities that can be performed commercially but which can also be performed non-commercially are either exempt from patents or never get prosecuted. Fixing other people's bicycles, writing a book, and performing music come to mind. (Software development is a grey area.) But 3D printing is taking an activity where efficient production on any reasonable scale was pretty much the exclusive domain of businesses, and making it accessible to DIY-ers and people who would do it while doing their job or performing some task at home, without any direct commercial aspect. Any idea what stage the debate is at regarding patent restrictions on printing or distributing designs for things more complicated or more modern than stethoscopes?

Tarek: This project does not aim to innovate as such. We aim to drop the bottom out of the costs on devices whose patents have long since expired. We might be trolled, harassed and sued into oblivion, but not because we are in violation of any patents. Indeed, the patents that cover the stethoscope we made are long expired US3168160, filed in 1962; US3108652, filed in 1960; US3515239, filed in 1968. The patents that cover a few small innovations in the Littmann Cardiology III expire in just a couple of years US5945640, but fundamentally the tech is ancient.

It's the same for pulse oximetry. Same for electrocardiograms.

Regarding your overarching question, brilliant minds like Geist, Doctorow, Stallman, etc. might be better positioned to answer. My hope, of course, is that the copyright bargain turns in favour of users and citizens sooner rather than later.



Was your stethoscope 3D printed in Gaza?
by mrops

It seems there are a lot of restrictions on what can be imported into gaza as there is a risk technologies might fall into terrorist hands and used for nefarious purpose. Under this, is it really possible to import a 3D printer into gaza for such tasks?

Tarek: There are already 3D printers in Gaza. Those who have made Prusa i3 printers know that it's trivial to make one from salvaged parts taken from old inkjet and laser printers. These printers will be used in the production of prosthetics and medical devices.

Those who support the blockade or oppose the rights of patients in Gaza to access health care might contend that 3D printers could be used to make weaponry. This is a ridiculous claim: Gaza has hundreds of CNC routers, and most of the weaponry currently in the hands of the Palestinian resistance was either captured from Fatah forces during an “attempted coup” (David Wurmser's words) in 2007 or smuggled, mostly via tunnels under the Egyptian border. The armed resistance groups in Gaza are not waiting for us to bring in 3D printers. If they wanted them, they'd have brought them in with the last batch of rockets.



Are medical devices restricted?
by Anonymous Coward

I see lots of stuff blamed on the import restrictions, but are medical devices actually blockaded, or are they stopped because they're used as a cover to smuggle in other things?

Tarek: According to Gisha, an Israeli NGO, the blockade is “not in order to protect against security threats ... but rather as part of a policy to apply 'pressure' or 'sanctions' on the Hamas regime.” Your question assumes that the blockade is security instead of sanction, which is not the case. Even so, there has never been smuggling of illicit items into Gaza under the cover of medical supplies.

Israel does not declare the list of banned items, but claims that medicines are not banned (see this partial list of banned items, but MSF and others report chronic severe shortages of medical supplies. The World Health Organization reported in 2011 that “shortages of the 190 medical disposable items include some basic and very critical items such as: syringes, Central Venous Pressure devices, ECG and CTG paper, X-Ray film, gauze, disposables used in laparoscopies, and filtration cartridges used in haemodialysis for patients with kidney failure.”

Frankly, I have never cared about why. In Gaza, it's blockade. In Democratic Republic of Congo it's war. In Rwanda, it's poverty. The end result is the same: The denial of health care to the world's most vulnerable people. Everyone deserves health care. This project is about ensuring that doctors and patients in Gaza and elsewhere can alleviate their own suffering without waiting for international law and public goodwill to catch up with illegal occupations, collective punishments and colonial legacies.



3D Printing, catalyst for Intermediate Technology?
by Anonymous Coward

Your 30-cent stethoscope seems to be an excellent example of "Intermediate Technology" (or “Appropriate Technology“) as popularized by Dr Hans Schumacher in his influential book, Small is Beautiful. Do you think that 3D printing will become increasingly important in the third world with regards to improving basic medicine, agriculture etc?

Tarek: I see my 3D printer as a portable factory. It can't do all the same things at the same scales, but it is possible for people in very poor places to create high precision plastic parts that were previously impossible. Because these parts are created from digital models, it also allows collaboration via open source models, as we see on various model repositories. Open source models and repositories are where I think exponential achievements are happening today.

3D printing then becomes one of the ingredients in the empowering of disenfranchised people to take control and come up with indigenous solutions to problems.



Local making of tools
by fortunatus

While reviewing the online repository for the stethoscope design, I saw that mainly it's the sound gathering part that is 3D printed. The rest is - reasonably - made out of regular stuff. So then, with some regular stuff, can't local people figure out how to make stethoscopes? They really can't figure out that one sound gathering piece? It takes a doctor/hacker to come from some land far away bearing the URL to a 3D printable part to solve the problem?

Tarek: You're right - there is nothing special here, and I embrace my mediocrity as a doctor and geek. Somebody just had to do a bit of work and spend a bit of money. I don't consider myself to be from some “land far away”: I am Palestinian and lived as a stateless refugee the first 13 years of my life in Kuwait where I was born, and then in Canada. However, I now have the luxury of a Canadian passport, a first-world academic post at the Division of Emergency Medicine in London, Canada, and the ability to connect two disparate worlds.

When I saw the problem while trying to treat wounded patients in the 2012 war in Gaza, I didn't ask myself “why not somebody else?” I asked: “why not me?”



non alergenic materials for printing
by McLae

With all the allergies to various materials, such as nickel and latex, what materials can be 3d-printed that are medically inert? Surgical instruments are stainless steel, implants are titanium, how do you print these? It seems another whole line of questions to find proper materials that can be printed.

Tarek: A few plastics come to mind. ABS is FDA approved, as is Nylon 680 and some PETT. For now, underserviced populations will not be able to receive 3D printed metals – it's too costly and out of scope. However, there can be some creativity. 3D4MD, a group in Toronto, Canada has successfully developed and published on 3D printed surgical instruments made from ABS. Because their models are not published online and I believe are not open source, we have started our own surgical tools project, which will have tremendous impact when completed.

Your answer, then, has two parts. The first is that we should aim at the low-hanging fruit of medicine. Off-patent, ubiquitous devices like stethoscopes, pulse oximeters, electrocardiograms, and hemodialysis are good examples.

The second part is that we in the global south accept that some people will die because of the lack of proper supplies. Given latex gloves or no gloves at all, the choice is obvious. This is not academic: physicians and policymakers have been forced to make this decision in Gaza at the Shifa hospital's emergency department, where most of our gloves are latex.

We're talking about basics like gloves and gauze. Nobody here is talking about custom-printed titanium implants.



Challenges
by Anonymous Coward

What do you see as the main challenges in getting your devices to the regions that need them?

Tarek: I guess the main challenge by far is buy-in. Once a ministry of health or hospital buys into the idea, then the technical parts are trivial and inexpensive.



What else is out there?
by ciaran2014

I've read there are other 3D-printed stethoscopes. Is yours (the Gila 3D stethoscope) attracting attention because it's better, or cheaper, or because it's actually getting used? Or is the Gila 3D stethoscope getting attention not for what it is but for it being an example from a domain where 3D seems set to bring radical change?

Tarek: I know of a few other stethoscopes. In that sense, what we're doing is not unique technically. Our innovation is taking the technology and mixing it with the politics of Free hardware and enfranchisement and the science of verification and validation. Then, as you noted, we put it to use in the real world.

Our stethoscope is as good or better than a Littmann Cardiology III. I can prove it. You can build it today, all of the models are available to modify, and soon it will be Health Canada approved as a Class I device. A peer-reviewed publication is hopefully forthcoming.

The attention is indeed because of the idea and the promise, not the stethoscope. However, the stethoscope has created a model and a high standard that we and other groups must meet when working on future projects of this kind.

ErnieKey writes: A youth club in Germany, called Toolbox Bodensee, has created an unusual musical organ. It is constructed of 49 floppy disk drives all of which combine to play quite a unique sound. It has the ability to be played manually or act as a playback device. If you have a bunch of old floppy drives and want to assemble your own organ, the 3D print files are available for free download on Thingiverse.

An anonymous reader writes The MeArm is a flat-pack robot arm. It has been developed in a very short time frame as the creators have been able to tap into crowd development by open sourcing all of the designs. Because of this it's exploded around the world with builders on every continent (bar Antarctica) and there are even people manufacturing them to sell in Peru, Taiwan and South Africa. MeArm manufacture them in the UK and export to distributors around the world, including Open Source pioneers like Adafruit and Hackaday in the USA. They're currently running a Kickstarter for a controller to take it out of the 'Hackersphere' and into the living room. They doubled their target in the first week and are still going strong so it's looking like they will be the first consumer flat pack robot kit in the world! Controller or not, you can download the arm from Thingiverse, and follow the project at Hackaday.

An anonymous reader writes The MeArm is a flat-pack robot arm. It has been developed in a very short time frame as the creators have been able to tap into crowd development by open sourcing all of the designs. Because of this it's exploded around the world with builders on every continent (bar Antarctica) and there are even people manufacturing them to sell in Peru, Taiwan and South Africa. MeArm manufacture them in the UK and export to distributors around the world, including Open Source pioneers like Adafruit and Hackaday in the USA. They're currently running a Kickstarter for a controller to take it out of the 'Hackersphere' and into the living room. They doubled their target in the first week and are still going strong so it's looking like they will be the first consumer flat pack robot kit in the world! Controller or not, you can download the arm from Thingiverse, and follow the project at Hackaday.

In June, we discussed news that JPL and MakerBot were teaming up to host a competition for designing a futuristic Mars base. The competition is now over, and the top three designs have been chosen. First place went to Noah Hornberger, who designed a base with hexagonal rooms and shielding made of depleted uranium. Second place went to a martian pyramid with an aquaponics system on top, mirror-based solar collectors, central water storage, and compartmentalized living spaces. The third place award went to Chris Starr for his Mars Acropolis, which was styled upon the ancient Greek Acropolis. It has a water tower at the top of the structure, a series of greenhouses at the bottom, and living quarters in between. The full list of 227 entries is browse-able on Thingiverse.

In June, we discussed news that JPL and MakerBot were teaming up to host a competition for designing a futuristic Mars base. The competition is now over, and the top three designs have been chosen. First place went to Noah Hornberger, who designed a base with hexagonal rooms and shielding made of depleted uranium. Second place went to a martian pyramid with an aquaponics system on top, mirror-based solar collectors, central water storage, and compartmentalized living spaces. The third place award went to Chris Starr for his Mars Acropolis, which was styled upon the ancient Greek Acropolis. It has a water tower at the top of the structure, a series of greenhouses at the bottom, and living quarters in between. The full list of 227 entries is browse-able on Thingiverse.

In June, we discussed news that JPL and MakerBot were teaming up to host a competition for designing a futuristic Mars base. The competition is now over, and the top three designs have been chosen. First place went to Noah Hornberger, who designed a base with hexagonal rooms and shielding made of depleted uranium. Second place went to a martian pyramid with an aquaponics system on top, mirror-based solar collectors, central water storage, and compartmentalized living spaces. The third place award went to Chris Starr for his Mars Acropolis, which was styled upon the ancient Greek Acropolis. It has a water tower at the top of the structure, a series of greenhouses at the bottom, and living quarters in between. The full list of 227 entries is browse-able on Thingiverse.

In June, we discussed news that JPL and MakerBot were teaming up to host a competition for designing a futuristic Mars base. The competition is now over, and the top three designs have been chosen. First place went to Noah Hornberger, who designed a base with hexagonal rooms and shielding made of depleted uranium. Second place went to a martian pyramid with an aquaponics system on top, mirror-based solar collectors, central water storage, and compartmentalized living spaces. The third place award went to Chris Starr for his Mars Acropolis, which was styled upon the ancient Greek Acropolis. It has a water tower at the top of the structure, a series of greenhouses at the bottom, and living quarters in between. The full list of 227 entries is browse-able on Thingiverse.

An anonymous reader writes "MakerBot, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is hosting a competition for the design of a future Mars base. The competition is open to any Thingiverse account holder regardless of professional or educational background. Winners will be chosen by a subjective panel of JPL and MakerBot employees based on scientific feasibility, creativity, and printability. Contest ends June 12, and contestants have to be at least 13 years old. The first place winner will receive a MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D printer and three spools of MakerBot Filament. The second place winner will receive two spools, and the third place winner will receive one spool. All three will have their design featured on Thingiverse." You can also browse the entries so far.

An anonymous reader writes "MakerBot, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is hosting a competition for the design of a future Mars base. The competition is open to any Thingiverse account holder regardless of professional or educational background. Winners will be chosen by a subjective panel of JPL and MakerBot employees based on scientific feasibility, creativity, and printability. Contest ends June 12, and contestants have to be at least 13 years old. The first place winner will receive a MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D printer and three spools of MakerBot Filament. The second place winner will receive two spools, and the third place winner will receive one spool. All three will have their design featured on Thingiverse." You can also browse the entries so far.

Affordable 3-D printing is still young; just a few years ago, it would have been nearly impossible to have an arbitrary three-dimensional piece of plastic (or resin, or sometimes metal) created from a software description in a box that fits on your desk. But in the several years the printing of *things* has moved fromquaint, quixotic, futzing-about hobby into something that works (fairly) reliably in ever more garages, schools, and hackerspaces, it's gotten good enough that you can now download and print quite a few objects that are available for download, or scan small items to replicate, or scan your friends to print out as statuettes. However, for the most part, these printed pieces are static, and finished. With care, you can print things like a chain, or even a ball joint, but you're still limited mostly to one basic material at a time. (Printing with multiple colors is getting easier, though.) If you want to print a flashlight or a robot, you'll need to add wires and other circuitry as a separate step. That's what the folks at Rabbit Proto (get it?) are trying to change. With the system they're working on, a filament printer is used to fabricate the object itself, but at the same time, both capacitive and conductive features can be baked -- or rather printed -- right in, with a separate print head. We talked with Alexandre Jais and Manal Dia of Rabbit Proto about how the system works, and why you might want to use it. (Alternate video link.)

coop0030 (263345) writes "Noe & Pedro Ruiz at Adafruit have created a pair of open source near-eye video glasses combined with a Raspberry Pi. Their 3D Printed design turns a pair of 'private display glasses' into a "google glass"-like form factor. It easily clips to your prescription glasses, and can display any kind of device with Composite Video like a Raspberry Pi. They have a video demonstrating the glasses, a tutorial on how to build them, along with the 3d files required to print it out."

As co-founder and CEO of MakerBot Industries, Bre Pettis is a driving force in the Maker and 3-D printing world. He's done a number of podcasts for Make, and even worked as an assistant at Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London after college. Makerbot's design community, Thingiverse, boasts over 100,000 3D models, and inspires countless artists and designers by allowing them to share their designs. Bre has agreed to set aside some time from printing in order to type answer to your questions. Normal Slashdot interview rules apply.

It goes up, it goes down, it goes upside down and keeps on flying. We're talking about Curtis Youngblood's latest quadcopter prototype, but as his website says, "Curtis has been flying and competing with RC Helicopters since the early 1980s and is a Multi-time World Champion and Multi-time 3D Champion." This lucky dog has managed to turn his hobby into a business; he makes and sells radio controlled helicopters -- not the $60 ones from Harbor Freight, but sophisticated aerial beasts that can carry still and video cameras and could easily be used as short-range drones, except that these are hobbyists' toys -- for hobbyists who can afford to spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars, anyway. There are plenty of quadcopter kits on the market for lots less than Youngblood's creations, along with build-it-yourself guides. But these won't fly upside down. For that, you need variable-pitch rotors and sophisticated control systems. "But what about 3-D printing?" you ask. Of *course* you can use a 3-D printer to make a quadcopter. That was an inevitable development. Here are open source instructions for building one. Enjoy the ride!

Daniel_Stuckey writes "At the start of this year, President Obama nicely summed up the grandiose promise of 3D printing — or rather, the hype surrounding it. In his State of the Union address the president suggested the fledgling technology could save manufacturing by ushering in a second industrial revolution. That shout-out inspired a spate of buzzkill blog posts pointing out — rightly enough — that despite its potential, 3D printing is still in its infancy. It's not the panacea for the struggling economy we want it to be, at least not yet. Apparently the naysayers weren't enough to kill the 3D-printing dream, because, with support from the federal government, MakerBot announced its initiative to put a 3D printer in every school in America. The tech startup and the administration are betting big that teaching kids 3D printing is teaching them the skills they'll need as tomorrow's engineers, designers, and inventors." Caveat: Makerbot no longer produces open hardware, and they are pushing proprietary Autodesk software and educational materials as part of the free 3D printer. Makerbot also launched a call for open models of math manipulatives on Thingiverse (you might remember them from elementary school) so that teachers have something useful to print immediately.

nk497 writes "Police in Manchester have arrested a man and seized what they claim are 3D printed components to a gun. They made the arrest after a 'significant' discovery of a 3D printed 'trigger' and 'magazine,' saying they were now testing the parts to see if they were viable. 3D printing experts, however, said the objects were actually spare parts for the printer. 'As soon as I saw the picture... I instantly thought, "I know that part,"' said Scott Crawford, head of 3D printing firm Revolv3D. 'They designed an upgrade for the printer soon after it was launched, and most people will have downloaded and upgraded this part within their printer. It basically pulls the plastic filament, and it used to jam an awful lot. The new system that they've put out, which includes that little lever that they're claiming is the trigger, is most definitely the same part.'"

upontheturtlesback writes "As part of developing the next open source science tricorder model, Dr. Peter Jansen of the Tricorder project has released the source to an inexpensive 3D printable visible spectrometer prototype intended for the next science tricorder, but also suitable for Arduino or other embedded electronics projects for science education. With access to a Makerbot-class 3D printer, the spectrometer can be build for about $20 in materials. The source files including hardware schematics, board layouts, Arduino/Processing sketches and example data are available on Thingiverse, and potential contributors are encouraged to help improve the spectrometer design."

An anonymous reader writes "Have you ever been sitting there, quietly computing something and thinking to yourself, 'If only this process were somehow billions of times slower, less reliable, and involved lots of physical labor?' If so, the Turbo Entabulator is the machine you've been looking for! It's a (nearly-entirely) 3D-printed mechanical computer. With three single-digit counters for memory, it's driven by a hand-cranked, Jacquard-style punch card reader. You can even download the files and build your own."

New submitter Zeussy writes "While looking around Thingiverse for something to 3D-print, I found this awesome public domain prosthetic hand designed for a 5-year-old child called Liam, who was born without any fingers on his right hand. The design is based on parts either 3D-printed or bought from your local hardware store. It's body powered via cables and bungees; see it in action in this video. They are currently running a Fundly Fundraiser."

MrSeb writes "In its continuing mission to build a 'Wiki Weapon,' Defense Distributed has 3D printed the lower receiver of an AR-15 and tested it to failure. The printed part only survives the firing of six shots, but for a first attempt that's quite impressive. And hey, it's a plastic gun. Slashdot first covered 3D-printed guns back in July. The Defense Distributed group sprung up soon after, with the purpose of creating an open-source gun — a Wiki Weapon — that can be downloaded from the internet and printed out. The Defense Distributed manifesto mainly quotes a bunch of historical figures who supported the right to bear arms. DefDist (its nickname) is seeking a gun manufacturing license from the ATF, but so far the feds haven't responded. Unperturbed, DefDist started down the road by renting an advanced 3D printing machine from Stratasys — but when the company found out what its machine was being used for, it was repossessed. DefDist has now obtained a 3D printer from Objet, which seemingly has a more libertarian mindset. The group then downloaded HaveBlue's original AR-15 lower receiver from Thingiverse, printed it out on the Objet printer using ABS-like Digital Material, screwed it into an AR-57 upper receiver, loaded up some FN 5.7x28mm ammo, and headed to the range. The DefDist team will now make various modifications to HaveBlue's design, such as making it more rugged and improving the trigger guard, and then upload the new design to Thingiverse." Sensible ammo choice; 5.7x28mm produces less recoil than the AR-15's conventional 5.56mm. I wonder how many of the upper's components, too, can one day be readily replaced with home-printable parts — for AR-15 style rifles, the upper assembly is where the gun's barrel lives, while the lower assembly (the part printed and tested here) is the legally controlled part of the firearm.

paroneayea writes "MediaGoblin and LulzBot have teamed up to bring 3-D model support to MediaGoblin! The announcement shows off a live demo of the new feature... it uses Blender on the backend to render stills and thingiview.js to show realtime WebGL previews. This means MediaGoblin is becoming more useful for 3-D artists and people interested in 3-D printing, especially those looking for a free-as-in-freedom alternative to Thingiverse."

Four years ago, there were around ten hackerspaces across America; today, Hackerspaces (Techshops, Makerspaces) are within driving distance of a good chunk of the population. The RepRap can be assembled for a moderate price, and those with a bit more cash to burn can get one preassembled from multiple sources. Makerfaires are held in most major cities, sites like Instructables and Hackaday are thriving, and all things "Maker" are cool. Far McKon was at HOPE 9 giving an update on how far community fabrication has come since his 2008 presentation at the The Last HOPE (mp3 of the talk), what threats lie on the horizon, and where we might find ourselves in another four years.

Update: 09/20 21:02 GMT by U L : There's an audio recording of the talk available.

Much has improved in the last four years. 3D printers for one have gone from being rare and expensive items to something you can build with a reasonable effort, or purchase for a mere arm & leg instead of your first born. The copyleft nature of the 3D printer community and active competition between folks selling them is certainly reminiscent of the early days of commercial Free Software (making things quite exciting).

Hackerspaces have spread like wildfire, encouraging cooperation and granting access to DIY manufacturing tools to the masses without forcing everyone to shell out lots of money.

McKon admits that electronics kits are only a bit more accessible than they were in 2008 — Arduino, Beagleboard, Raspberry Pi, et al are certainly welcome — but we're nowhere near the "building hardware being as easy as software" dream McKon predicted in 2008. He predicts that four years from now will see about as much incremental change; hardware is hard.

On the other hand, Laser cutters haven't really budged in cost (they were around $8000 then, and ... surprise, $8000 now). But, hey, what's your local Hackerspace for? McKon speculated that laser cutters have been produced by entrenched proprietary vendors which have no profit-motive to decrease prices. Entering the market is far more challenging than jumping into a market with open hardware participants, something echoed later in the talk when McKon noted that Open Source ideals more easily infiltrated upcoming industries than entrenched ones generally (where's my Open Source fridge?).

Software for 3D printing still sucks. OpenSCAD is workable but difficult, Blender isn't really suited for the task, and in any case the bar to generating a model that can actually be printed is way too high. During the Q&A someone mentioned that Autodesk was adding features aimed at 3D printing; McKon noted that Open Source design tools were encroaching on Autodesk et al's turf. Proprietary software packages are going to have to improve (great for their users), but Open Source development has distinct advantages that, at least in this area, are leading to ever-accelerating development. Still, he emphasized that the only way Open Source tools would win is if people contributed. So go and contribute, or else.

The Hackerspace community has spread the ideals of Free Culture into device manufacturing. McKon sees two business models: Seed and Feed. In the Feed model, you are a consumer and the device is closed. You can see this in proprietary additive printers where the extrusion material often comes in closed cartridges ala inkjet printers and the manufacturer doesn't release information on controlling the device. The Feed model prevails in the world today.

The Seed model is a mixture of DIY and peer to peer sharing of knowledge. Makerbot Industries might sell you an additive printer, but what you do with it is produce, and everything is out in the open so you can make your own repairs, source your own supplies, etc.

The Internet had the promise of expanding P2P and Seed culture, but has become more about consumption (a theme that proved prevalent at HOPE9). Home manufacturing similarly pushes us toward a producer culture; the change this may bring is not all so rosy.

Four years ago "You wouldn't pirate a car would you?" was an absurd parody of itself; now replicating an army of RPG miniatures isn't really stretching the imagination. This poses a possible threat to the revenue models of some rather profitable businesses; and thus the threat that we may see lobbying from those entities similar to what the RIAA/MPAA have done for the last decade.

The pace of innovation in open hardware might be threatened by patents in the way they have affected software: as the twenty year term seems infinite in the software world, the pace of development in the hardware world seems to have caught up. McKon especially feared a patent arms-race like we've seen with Smartphone companies leading to crippling lawsuits for everyone. Luckily, McKon reports that this certainly has not begun, but notes that a few "hey, we've got these patents and you might be violating them, thought you might want to know" letters have been received by some.

Right now Makerspaces and Maker culture are the hot thing; McKon believes that Maker culture is well on its way to the peak of inflated expectations, and that a crash is inevitable. Some funded hackerspaces may lose funding, some will disappear, device manufacturers will consolidate, etc. But, eventually things will level out to a sustainable Hackerspace population. What that level is remains to be seen, but what is known is that something is brewing.

Brietech writes "'Behold the FIBIAC! It's loud! It computes! It uses actual punch cards!' The FIBIAC is a simple, stepper-motor based, (mostly) 3D-printed electromechanical computer. The program is stored on a loop of paper punch-cards, and the machine uses three, 3-digit electromechanical counters for storage (which could be expanded to support more complicated programs) Watch a video of it computing the Fibonacci sequence, or jump on Thingiverse and build your own."

dangle writes "F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab have officially released their Free Universal Construction Kit, allowing builders to freely interconnect parts from Lego, K'Nex, Fischertechnik, and other common building sets. ZomeTool and Zoob patterns will be available after related patents expire. The makers have also spent considerable effort investigating and anticipating legal complaints from manufacturers, using an Inverse Think of The Children Argument: Some may express concern that the Free Universal Construction Kit infringes such corporate prerogatives as copyright, design right, trade dress, trademarks or patents of the supported toy systems. We encourage those eager to enforce these rights to please think of the children — and we assert that the home printing of the Free Universal Construction Kit constitutes protected fair use." Model files are available over at Thingiverse. The designs are all covered by the CC BY-SA 3.0.

lukehopewell1 writes "The Pirate Bay is offering users the chance to download and print out real objects using 3D printers in what the pirate site is hailing as 'the future.'" Amir Taaki mentions that among the new "physibles" uploaded to the Pirate Bay are "plans for a tabletop replica for a Warhammer 40k dreadnought that got taken down in December with a DMCA request." Downloadable 3D models have been around for a while; MakerBot users are probably all familiar with the Thingiverse. Couple TPB with a cheap method of accurate 3D scanning, though, and I wonder what illegal shapes will emerge.

An anonymous reader writes "A research scientist at Georgia Tech has created a 3D scanner app for the iPhone which uses the phone's screen as a light source to quickly capture digital 3D models of faces and other objects. The app, called Trimensional, can output directly to a 3D printer to make physical copies of objects, which a few people have already tried. An Android version is in the works."

An anonymous reader writes "A research scientist at Georgia Tech has created a 3D scanner app for the iPhone which uses the phone's screen as a light source to quickly capture digital 3D models of faces and other objects. The app, called Trimensional, can output directly to a 3D printer to make physical copies of objects, which a few people have already tried. An Android version is in the works."