Towards Self-Replicating Rapid Prototypers

Neil Halelamien writes "Researchers at the University of Bath are developing a rapid prototyping machine capable of making copies of itself and other products, reminiscent of the Universal Constructor proposed by von Neumann. The so-called Replicating Rapid-Prototyper (or RepRap) would produce items from raw materials and small components like microchips. If successful, this could make rapid prototyping cheap enough for regular in-home usage, especially since the project's lead, Dr. Adrian Bowyer, will be releasing his project's designs under the GNU GPL. It's previously been proposed that a similar system would be useful for space exploration and industrialization."

Comments

What they really did

[Animats]

Basically, they spent some time playing with a rapid-prototyping machine that builds solids up from ABS. Then they made what's basically a printed circuit board. But they did it by making a blank board with slots for the "wires" and metal parts, then pouring in a low-melting-point metal to create "wiring".

All this was done in a very crude way, as if they were developing a process for home use. Their metal casting technique is scary. They used "Wood's Metal", which is a solder-like alloy of tin, lead, cadmium, and bismuth. All of which are toxic. Lead and cadmium cause heavy-metal poisoning, and the body won't clear either of them. No serious precautions seem to have been taken against inhalation - they just used gloves. At one point they tried powdered metal, which is much more of an inhalation hazard than molten liquid. They need to run their people through the usual checks for heavy-metal poisoning.

There are rapid prototyping machines that deposit metal, and that's probably a more useful direction.

All this is a long, long way from self-replication.