Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Self-Replicating Robot
Josilot writes "CNN.Com is running an article about a new self-replicating robot named RepRap. From the article: 'A revolutionary machine that can copy itself and manufacture everyday objects quickly and cheaply could transform industry in the developing world, according to its creator.' One part of the article that I think many slashdot readers will find interesting is near the bottom: 'To encourage that development, Bowyer plans to make the design of the RepRap available online and free to use, in the same way as open source software such as the Linux operating system or Mozilla's Firefox browser.' Is robotics the next big field for open source?"
I want a box in my kitchen that makes synth-protein from scratch!!
"I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears..."
One part of the article that I think many slashdot readers will find interesting is near the bottom:
New here, aren't you?
Have we contacted the Asgard? Smells like trouble to me!
mazevedo
Yes, a self-replicating robot would be most excellent - a robot that could duplicate itself without human intervention.
But then again, how long would it take for each robot to manufacture another copy, versus having a modular assembly line? I don't see self-replicating robots breaking into major industrial use.
I've got a better open source self-replicating robot: Herpes virus.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
It's a self-replicating story.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/ 18/013240&tid=126&tid=216
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is it? Could it?
new toys .. more new toys .. wait that isn't a toy, why are they eating my house.. humm i don't think they like me
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Bwah-hahahah!!!
If it wasn't, would it's own existence violate the DMCA?
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Modded down for saying that a story is a dupe?
Wow, nice. Anyway, here's the right link.
We've had them for years.
Instead of posting the obvious joke about dupes, here's a link to the movie form the previous story. (Coral link)
Yes, of course robotics is the next big field for open source! The FOSS model works pretty damn well, it would be (in some people's opinions) selfish not to apply it to other aspscts of technology and life in general.
North American natives did something similar to open source by sharing their ideas, methods, and beliefs with the Europeans that came to North America, and the Europeans gave them the advantage of metal pots and pans. Basic open source right there. Now we have North American society, home to the most powerful country on the planet.
It may sound cheap to you. But consider this:
A laser need not necessarily put out much power to fuse even metal, if the metal powder is already close to melting point to begin with. An existing prototyping system uses this approach to create customized metal objects.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Great, just what we need: recursive crap flooders...
We covered a story from Cornell on self-replicating robots before. I guess it wasn't opensource.
Look at that robot, its got rubber its got plastic its got motors its got wire. Self replicating? No way.
What a load of BS. P-L-E-E-A-A-S-E this is some joker playing games with CNN. Don't fall for it.
At least this (in the video) robot actually replicates itself based on building blocks. The RepRap isn't in the working stages yet. Now that I found the right article, I'll just replicate my comment from the previous article:
/is/ going to revolutionize the world by making certain real items as cheap as software, the part about it being a von Neumann machine is overrated. The article just mentions it in passing and there is no evidence that he's actually figured out how to do that. That's been one of the holy grails of engineering since it was proposed. The article doesn't mention whether the materials used will be recyclable. Since everyone and their grandmother will start spitting out objects if they have this and since it would probably be cheaper to build a new object rather than repairing an old one, mass use of UCs will produce tons of waste. Imagine if you could never delete any file on your computer but could create more easily. You would run out of space very quickly.
BTW, for a good book on the social implications of cheap universal constructors, I suggest the Stephenson's book Diamond Age.
While the idea of a 3D printer cheap enough for personal use
RTFA, it's not a dupe. Looking at the picture in the article it dosn't look like a bunch of cubes moving themselfs around as in the first case. It looks more complicated now.
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
The article is frustratingly vague. It sounds to me like the robot doesn't replicate itself but rather that Dr. Adrian Bowyer has created some type of system for replicating robot chasis. The picture clearly shows a plastic 'bot with attached motors, wiring, batteries, etc. From the information that the article gives, it seems like a human is still needed for the final construction. I wouldn't consider this self replicating because it is not autonomous.
I don't know anyone dumb enough to mod up or down on trolltalk...
We've had 3D printers for quite a while now which basically form shapes by laying down a thin layer of sand-like or metallic powder, followed by a thin layer of glue, etc. You then use compressed air to blow away the sand layers which don't have glue and voila... a 3D shape and quite sturdy. You can make some parts which are impossible using other methods.
However, I missed the part in the press release, er... story where they are self-assembling. Sure, you can have a machine feed in a design and print something out, but what about assembly? Yes it can print circuits, but does this thing add motors, insert batteries, or plug its power into the wall? And will it feed the newly created copy with the source of materials, etc. it needs to make another copy? Let me know when we get a machine which can create an copy of itself and, without any human intervention, that just-created copy makes another copy.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
More of a follow-up, that is newsworthy, of course. :)
------ no thanks... I've quit
exponential growth:
Generation 1 = 1 Robot
Generation 2 = 2 Robots
Generation 3 = 4 Robots
Generation 4 = 8 Robots
Generation 101 = 1267650600228229401496703205376 robots
Then I hope you will enjoy it when the same people flood the front page again.
Boy, even when you think you have an original idea for a post, someone beats you to it on Slashdot. C'mon people: stop hitting Refresh waiting for new stories to appear! *sigh*
Anyway, for those geeks among us who have missed out on the great Sci-Fi show that is Stargate SG-1, and don't know what the Replicators are, check out this link: http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/races/links/rep licators.shtml.
Whoever Has the Most Toys Wins!
"Plus you would have to buy all the different materials first."
3D polymer printers are common, they use them to make prototypes of 3d shapes, the result isn't very strong but its useful for seeing a shape.
However the robot isn't real, somebodies yanking CNNs tail. These printers don't melt metal at thousands of degrees C, don't extract rubber, don't coat copper wires with plastic or dope silicon to make semiconductors.
I'm sure Microsoft Could do this much better, after all they do produce the Best software in the world.
To encourage that development, Bowyer plans to make the design of the RepRap available online and free to use, in the same way as open source software such as the Linux operating system or Mozilla's Firefox browser.' Is robotics the next big field for open source?"
Ingrates! It's GNU/Linux!
until I see some unedited video of this process in action, I don't buy this story...
The other story was at cornell this the 2nd self replicating robot story, but not the same robot.
That's what I thought too based on the title, but the story is different than the cube machine. However, there was another article also about RepRap which another person mentioned:
/ 18/013240&tid=126&tid=216
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03
Arizona - A new open source warbot being tested by the Army was hijacked this morning by a 12 year-old. The perpetrator allegedly downloaded the plans for the robot at sourceforge, and created his own controller. Details at 11.
now blow me, i'm a karma whore...
It's apparently a robot that can make circuit boards, and that's it. There are about 50 million steps involved in making itself, this can do one of them.
Thx media hype, call me when something interesting happens.
http://reprap.org/
the blog is cool too
http://reprap.blogspot.com/
This would make a better type of bot wars, building their weapons with available materials and blasting each other with them heh
With the billions of inhabitants this planet has, are we concerned with robot workers?
ZP
We only can learn from our mistakes.
I can do that.. /Human
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Really, all countries should prevent scientists from getting near robotics labs or AI programming until they've seen
Stargate SG-1
Terminator
etc.
If they did, we could save billions of lives!
I'm deadly serious.
But mod me up FUNNY anyway!
At least they aren't powered by human blood.
--
make install -not war
Wait, that's what we do...
OK. Forget I said that.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
Steve B of Microsoft described Linux as a Communist Cancer... if they're selling these things to "the Developing World" (from TFA) e.g. China I think he might actually have a point...
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
It's not a dupe. It's a self-replicating story.
will be weapons. Think of the results. Gangs working together to create a better gun. Countries working to build better bombs. A whole new realm of coperation will be fostered. Errrr... Perhaps not. On a more serious note. Here is another open source robot. It's nice knowing that it isn't the only one. http://www.symbio.jst.go.jp/PINO/
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
The other story was about the reprap project: Towards Self-Replicating Rapid Prototypers on St. Patty's day. The cornell story is a different project
Does this provide more jobs? No. The machines do the work.
Does this raise wages? No. See above answer.
Does this increase skill levels? No. See above answer.
Does this level the playing field of international commerce? No.
Does this make use of locally-available materials? No.
Does this make anything useful? Not so far, and if it did, it would result in a net reduction of jobs.
This project (or at least this claim for it) seems to be making the same mistake that people in agriculture in the so-called developed world make, which is to think that what people in impoverished nations need is cheaper goods. This is not the case. What they need is goods produced in their own nation, made from local materials by locally-owned companies, so that the money they spend cycles back into their own economy. The poor need cheaper goods, relative to their salaries... but it's far more useful to raise their salaries than to make the goods cheaper.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Free plans for self-replicating robots?!?! I definitely know a few people who I would not trust with their own robot army and I don't think I want to make it any easier for them to get one!
Generation 33 = One for everybody on Earth, plus about 10% overage. Let's stop there and start making stuff with them.
In fact, what will probably happen is everyone who gets one going will make a copy or two (on the average) for people near and dear (for average values of dear). Then they will turn them to making other stuff. That means it will spread much more slowly than exponential growth. A slower growth rate is good from a control standpoint, bad if you are waiting for them to spread to your area and lack the skills to jump-start the process.
What's neat is having someone make their own replicator simultaniously teaches them how to use their copy for making other stuff, unlike sex.
Who is John Cabal?
The article is clear that this technology could bring industrialization to parts of the world where labor is cheap. So, obviously, this is self-replication with 'some assembly required'.
On the other hand it does talk about creating printed circuit boards using low melting point alloys squirted through a heated nozzle (high tech like maybe a glue gun for instance).
Never mind. Once someone comes up with a practical design, the process will bootstrap itself. The simple cheap primitive 3-d prototyping systems will morph into systems that can replicate themselves. We have actually had the ability to build a real self-replicating system for a long time. It's just that the expense of doing so makes it wildly impractical with previous technology.
What I'm excited about is the change in design of common items to make it practical to make them using this kind of technology. Making something easier to build and assemble will also make it easier to repair. No longer will we have to throw out things that are 99% good because it is impossible to replace a ten cent part. We will finally be able to start wasting valuable resources and therefore start to decrease pollution. This kind of thing could be very good.
On the other hand, many very clever people are working on 3-d prototyping. I'm not expecting a huge breakthrough any time soon. The work described in tfa is exciting but most such work has not lived up to its promise so far.
Warbots have been around for years. Who do you think is running the White House? Sadly they are also self replicating.
would be this:
create about 50 general-purpose robots.
The programming of these robots instruct them to build factories first, where other robots are to be created. Eventually, have thhem build the factory portable so that it can be relocated easily in case of depleted resources or danger. (Kind of like the Starcraft Terran buildings.)
Now the robots finished the factory and start production of the robots. More robots equals to more factories etc.
The factories itself could be improved by creating machines with them capable of building the robots better.
Further improvement would be the ability to connect themselves to larger entities. In an self-improvement (2nd generation robots, generated by robot-made factories) robots no longer are all equal, but specialized, much like cells in a human body. The specialization is adapted to the environment and the needs of the robots.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
hmmm...............
It's kewl that this got on CNN we need more sophism, BS, and trumpet tooting. It at least stimulates discussion, intrest, and someone might actually propose something that really works.
but.....
It all depends what type of machine you are talking about?
stereolithography cost around $2 per cc
resinmetal cast http://www.prometal.com/equipment.html $10 per cc
this is != cheap
this is != self replicating
For a self replicating machine you need it to produce:
1) some type of motor unit
2) a method of extrusion/deposition/milling of solid components.
3) production of control/energy transmission conduits
4) control logic.
We did some work with haex on hadron confined focused plasma extrusion of alloys, basically you create a magnetic vortex to contain your plasma (similar to electron microscope focusing system) with Tcut berylium crystals modulating the output field topology. Then you just squirt in your alloy powder components into the vortex, control the plasma temperature and focus topology then draw off the required extrusion on to a x,y,z cnc build platform. Obviously the plasma can be modulated for fine deposition, cutting/milling operations allowing extremly precise and complex solids to be formed. We initially worked with Al/Zn/Cu/Mn/Mg/Si Particles to produce standard alloy types but never managed to get correct crystaline granular alloys (components had very high IGC levels). The current developments are looking at fullerines with Al/Cu.
This sort of thing may oneday become a selfreplicating system but it wont be cheap or portable (unless there are some huge leaps in heat dissipation and energy costs?)
embedded linux
It's about as self-replicating as a machine that connects to the web via its ethernet port, places an order for parts here, waits until the UPS web site says the parts have arrived and then emails its owner to tell it to assemble the parts sitting in the box on the front doormat.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
"What they need is goods produced in their own nation, made from local materials by locally-owned companies, so that the money they spend cycles back into their own economy."
I can't comment on the local materials, since I'm not sure what raw materials the machine would require. Otherwise that seems to be exactly what reprap is supposed to do, though.
Forget *gate, PKD had tons of short stories involving self-replicating robots. IMHO scarier than the anti-Asgard kind.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
We have a bunch of self-replicating rabbits.
No, you didn't.
ctrl+f sarah connor not found
Of course, that's not to say they need self-replicating technology to own their own companies.
Conversly if the warehouse full of assembly bots was owned and operated by an American who sold the goods to the locals but produced no jobs and spent no money localy, then it's not going to help that country's economy no matter how much the American bot-master saves on manufacturing costs.
The only hope is that the bot-master would walk around town saying things like "It's a good thing I'm saving money by not hiring any locals!" and then get lynched.
Price could drop to several hundred dollers as they replicate...
Assuming binary replication (each machine makes two and the owner gives them to their buddies) 10 generations gives us more than enough machines for everyone on earth... The cost of making one should be the cost of materials, plus asking your buddy with the replicator to please make one for you right?
So, extrapolating, the cost of materials to produce one replicator is on the order of several hundred dollars. I really don't see how these are going to help third world countries. Anything a "third world inventor" could make that would be reasonably useful to his/her neighbors would have to cost orders of magnitude less than the prototype to produce even in relatively small numbers.
Also it's "Going to be" 'open source' and might not even actually exist.. the picture in the article does not exactly look like something robust enough to.. say.. spray sand and glue on a table while moving with precision. or.. move precisely and reliably for more than three seconds.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If this is the robot that i think it is then it is not self replicating. The chassis and wheels are made out of platic that solidifies where it is layed down. The robot has a motor powered syringe that squeezes out the plastic into a pre-programmed shape. The battery, motors and electronics all need to be added later.
Man, I can't wait to download the latest PowerMac G7 from Kazaa, 2 days before Apple releases it...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Generation 31 = robots use up the last of the available IPv4 addresses and turn on their masters, subjugating humanity and forcing it to adopt IPv6 at gunpoint.
The horror!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I would love to see a (non-trivial) Lego Mindstorms robot that, given a bucket of legos, could build a copy of itself.
That'd be the best thing ever.
This is just stupid. If you bother to read the article, and look at the website, you will see that this is complete BS. First, this robot exists only as an idea. Second, it's a pretty stupid idea.
This is an obvious ploy to get research funding from someone for a fairly pointless project. I've seen lots of these; the best indicator is the talk-to-results ratio. This project has lots of the former, and none of the latter. The GPL is just thrown around because it is a buzzword.
On the plus side, now that all the humans have their own self-replicated robots that produce the food, shelter, and energy they require, they don't really need to get a job or money.
So now the only real problem is keeping the human population down to a size the planet has enough raw meterials for.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It will be nice to be able to program my own robots, especially if they're sexbots. =)
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
First, it's been on Slashdot before.
Second, the "self replication", as the paper puts it, consists of making a baseplate in an fused-deposition modelling machine and depositing some metal on it, to make a very low density circuit board. That's all. This is an expensive way to make a crappy single-sided PC board. It's a giant step backwards from the photoetching processes used now to make both PCs and ICs. Not only is it nowhere near "self replication", it's not even a step in that direction.
Finally, the web site has the tag line "Wealth without money...", which sounds like something from a stock scam.
Actually, the cutting edge work in this area is not fake "self-replication", but using deposition-type fabricators to make 3D objects with complicated internal structure, including combinations of flexible and rigid materials and moving parts.
There's a fundamental misunderstanding about manufacturing that pervades enthusiasts for computer-controlled one-off manufacturing. It's that most manufactured goods are made by some process that involves a "master" or "mould" or "die", and that those processes are incredibly cheap. There are about a hundred such processes in common use, from injection moulding to photolithography. And they work quite well. That's what you're competing with. Making single parts in bulk just isn't that expensive.
yes, it's a hodge-podge, make-shift, kludgey mess.
but make no mistake. no matter how imperfect, hobbled, or inelegant - the first von Neumann machine will start an exponential avalanche.
welcome the singularity.
K.
However, if he wants to make money off of this...I gotta say, what an idiot. The software is free and you can just get a copy of the hardware from a friend.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
There's more detail here or here.
I certainly hope they've figured this one out, but if not, I'll repeat it here: Robots do not have to carry their "brains" on board. Just have them "download" their instructions from one central hub, which can then be easily re-programmed/de-bugged without recalling every unit.
Seriously, don't *anybody* even let this one slip to the US military. Shhhhh! If you don't want to see the entire planet burned black by self-replicating tanks and bombers, don't even tell the US Gov that these things exist. Especially not if you have oil.
Wow. You just said all I wanted to say. I still cannot fathom why the hell they decided to make circuit boards that way, and this crap requires a $50k machine. I mean, making a socket for a DIP package is at the limits of their machine, and the DIP package is already in the process of getting phased out because it is so large!
.doc file with the description of the circuit on that robot? It's a perfect example of why mechanical engineers should not try electrical engineering. They have TWO LARGE DC MOTORS hooked up directly to the I/O port of a frigging microcontroller! I'd be surprised if the thing works at all.
Also, have you seen the
Seriously, this would be an outstanding research project for a high school student with access to such a machine. It does not qualify as university-level research at all.
A few more innovative tweaks here and there coupled with increased population will render the human workforce responsible virtually only for service and human interaction tasks, while lifeless automotons assume repetitive physical functions. The global job market will shrink, and governments will find it more necessary to provide for the jobless. I wonder how we'll adjust... or if I'm completely off base here.
From what I've seen, there are already a lot of open source robotics projects (although probably more on the software end than detailed schematics and such). I would say that open source is already in the robotics field in a big way.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
the Clone Wars...
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Everyone pointing out that mass production is far more efficent and that a factory of these could never compete.
Thats not the point. These things are not designed to compete at that level. A one step printing process like this will never compete with mass production methods for speed. What it trumps that process in is versitility. How much does a prodection line for a screw cost ? How much does it cost to create a new screw design to implement ? How much to switch between certain templates ? How many must be made and sold to make the process profitable.
In short mass production relies on economies of scale. Makes lots of goods far cheaper than they would be otherwise but at the same time it sort of forces us all into a one size fits all world where the only things that get made are those with a large enough mass demand to support the enourmous intial investment in establishing such a process. Cheap is a very relative term when speaking of mass production. See if you think any of the numbers involved in setting up a first run of an item are 'cheap'. This creates a staggering bar to market entry in many fields.
What they are not good at is adapting to needs and they require enourmous amounts of stock to be made and shipped before demand is established. Distributed production like this would do a great deal to elimnate overstock. It could potentially lower the bar to market entry in any number of areas. For example lets say manufacturing shifted from highly specific highly concentrated mass production to highly disperesed general construction. In otherwords demands to keep such a process running would run the gamut of production needs rather than rely upon one specific need. In other words more smaller factories capable of producing A-Z instead of just differnt sizes of A.
For example If someone could create a rare auto parts fabricator that worked cheaper than machine shop rates for custom replication they would make a fortune. Demand is there for such a thing but no one items demand is large enough in most cases to permit someone to make money setting up a mass production line for it.
Also imagine the new frontiers opened up to product hackers if they could alter the design specs acording to their whims rather than be stuck with what is profitable for a mass production run.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
"Layers formed together by lasers or glue" just sounds "cheap" to me.
Plus you would have to buy all the different materials first...
at least one of the "3D printers" available prints using just layers of ABS plastic. which is something that, well all kinds of things in your house are made of. it's actually very strong and serviceable. of course you can't make *everything* out of ABS, but you can make a lot (including masters for molds, which you can then duplicate in cast resins, urethane, or metal). problem is that it's still very expensive.
such "home manufacturing" just isn't economically feasible until you have nano-bots doing it
well that's just silly. nano-bots. you've been watching too much star trek.
all this rapid-prototyping stuff is essentially a variation on the milling machine, a kind of x/y/z plotter. being either subtractive (the classic "drill stuff away" milling machine) or the additive (the newer "squirt stuff from a nozzle" approach). it has been an essential part of manufacturing almost everything, for the past century or more. we don't need swarms of magical nano-bots. in the same way that the massive printing press reduced to a laser printer created a revolution in desktop publishing, the massive industrial milling machine reduced to an affordable desktop device will no doubt create a revolution in affordable custom manufacturing.
The here is the googled website: http://reprap.org/ I have always thought replicating machines would be cool (it's possible as can be seen from the "two-legged existence theorem"). Using a 3D printer sounds like the way to go about this today. However, I would think that whatever it is you are crafting with a machine has to necessarily be at a lower mechanical tolerance to the machine itself, so over several generations, the precision falls catastrophically. Some form of recovery or repair is needed (as in DNA). I have always thought we were a long way off from this sorta thing ... ...
The practical solution outlined or implied here seems workable in contrast - use your machine to make various parts, and have a human assemble them together. It was mentioned in
http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/000293.html
that additional off the shelf spare parts might be needed. This certainly provides a practical trade-off for an almost self-replicating machine. Nice! Hmm
"We'll be watching your future career with great interest." (Senator Palpatine)
OK, every week on Slashdot, I see an article that tells about something new they've achieved with robots. Robots that can walk, robots that use guns, robots that run on human blood, and so on. I wish I was joking about that last one. Now self-replicating robots. Am I the only one that sees this coming? Please, tell me I'm not the only one.
Grrr, my first post. Didn't realise it would be HTML collapsed into 1 long paragraph.
I remember sometime ago, ./ carried the same RepRap thing...Diff being the open source thing wasnt mentioned...Cant seem to find it though....
"Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?"--Friedrich Nietzsche
i agree that the "self-replication" stuff is b.s.
on the other hand, as someone who photo-etches my own circuit boards and finds the process quite archaic and annoying, it would be really excellent to have something that would squirt out copper/alloy traces and drill the holes for me. like a little ink-jet printer for pcb's.
There's a fundamental misunderstanding about manufacturing that pervades enthusiasts for computer-controlled one-off manufacturing. It's that most manufactured goods are made by some process that involves a "master" or "mould" or "die", and that those processes are incredibly cheap.
i'm confused by what you wrote, you say that the belief that most manufactured goods use an inexpensive mould/die approach is a fundamental misunderstanding? ok, i've read your paragraph several times, and i think maybe you actually meant to say that these enthusiasts don't understand the reality, which is that most manufactured goods use an inexpensive mould/die approach. is that correct?
in that case, i would just want to counter by saying that the process of creating the masters or moulds, eg. the tooling for an injection mould, has traditionally been a relatively large expense.
if you can put the ability in peoples' hands to create inexpensive injection moulds and other masters, i.e. by providing a cheap/open milling machine design, along with sophisticated free software for 3D design and automatic machine control, you open a lot of doors for small businesses - even if the product will ultimately be mass-produced in a traditional factory mould/die process. you reduce the up-front expenses for highly-skilled design engineers, machinists, and pattern-makers, by allowing a more trial-and-error approach to initial design and testing.
ultimately that will mean a lot of really crappy design - in the same way that laser-printers and desktop publishing software fostered a lot of really crappy print design. but at the same time... it was a big paradigm change, and the design and printing industry will never be the same.
this "reprap" project is unfortunately full of the typical fantasy/hype of some student projects. but if you can see past the hyperbole, you can see that it is, if not creating, then at least responding to some quite interesting steps forward.
From the terrific understatement department:
"Farmers have been dealing with self-replicating products for years."
How many years is that, exactly?
So, if we want a robot that will do X to anything, we start with a robot that can do X to itself?
Hmm. I want a robot that can clean anything in my house. I guess we should start by designing a robot that can wash itself. After all, it's bound to get dirty cleaning my loo, and I wouldn't want it spreading dirt everywhere.
So, is there any research into self cleaning robots?
"l this rapid-prototyping stuff is essentially a variation on the milling machine, a kind of x/y/z plotter. being either subtractive.. it has been an essential part of manufacturing almost everything"
He has to find a 'thing', that requires manufacturing processes to make that 'thing' that the 'thing' itself can make. There are lots more manufacturing processes needed than milling and polymer deposition.
If his thing can't solder, then it can't have soldered joints, if it can't roll steel it can't contained rolled steel sheets. If it can't stretch/roll rubber it can't use rubber. If it can't cut and etch silicon in a vacuum it can't use silicon logic.
He's a bullshitter. He couldn't even make a self assembling robot that way. He just wants to play with a 3d printer and throws in a lot of buzzwords to try to get funding.
The concept of 'Open Source' has existed in the fields of Science and Technology for a very long time. Einstein explained Brownian Motion through the writings of another scientist.
Move along, nothing new here.
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Well, I'm sure someone will take care about that problem. After all, you always could rely on someone starting a war (especially when the population is high), and I'm sure they'll also find a way to produce bombs etc. with those robots. Or they just re-program the robots to use human source material for some products
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Abs Rules - imagine being able to manufacture you're own Lego parts from LDraw defs! Okay - you may need to recode the curves to be real parametric curves (LDraw is a bit pants in that respect).
I wonder what The Lego Group would make of this though? Methods to vastly reduce costs on their production or potential conflict of interest? They may find they end up trading in IP instead of actual plastic if this thing becomes affordable.
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These machines are not for mass producing things. They are for making one offs. With a future version of this machine you could theoretically make a part for another machine as a replacement. You could make a prototype model of a complex part, but you wouldn't use this for mass pruduction.
Also you cannot have these machines assemble themselves.
Plus there is the problem of tolerance. In order for this machine to make a copy of itself without human intervention it would be necessary for it to have a near zero tolerance. It is just like generational degradation from lossy compression. If the first machine holds a +/-.001" tolerance any copies it makes of itself will only be capable of a +/-.002 and it get worse exponentially. After only four or five generations you could expect non functional machines. Self replication is not the best thing this can offer us.
Cheap rapid prototyping and experimaental modeling are something that will advance technology and design incredibly. If anyone has the ability to build and test a mechanical design, then we will see a crapload of new and more useful simple machines. For instance, there was an article a while back about a guy who biult from wood a mechanical/computer controlled cd burning station, with a mechanism that would pick up a cd, load it into a burner, unload it and load another. With the RepRap, he could have built and tested parts for his machine quickly and cheaply. Lets say he initially designed a part to small. He has to start with a new piece of wood and remove material till he gets the shape he wants. With the RepRap he just alters the program and the machine build a new part with the new dimensions.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
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It's been interesting watching all the different comments. Some clearly don't "get it". This is a device to give individuals complex manufacturing capabilities, and also their own recycling capabilities. It is not designed for mass production, but may well replace some of it.
:v)
As for what it can make, the answer at the moment is a hollow cylinder of EVA or Polymorph. That robot was printed on a Stratasys FDM machine as a proof of concept for the techniques involved.
What the beta release will do is to print parts from plastic and metal - it may well not be capable of perfectly replicating itself.
The first release that can replicate itself will still require chips, discrete components, motors, bolts and so forth. Those items are so ubiquitous in modern life there is no point in delaying development of the concept to produce them.
Of course, once it is out there people will start improving the design, much as per Open Source software. Faster, more materials, wider uses. If you don't think it is useful you have two basic options:
a) Bitch about it on Slashdot.
b) Fix it.
Vik