reprap and personal fabrication at opencommunitycamp 2010

RepRap, open source hardware and the future

@ErikDeBruijn

Personal, domesticfabrication

• Science fiction or inevitable?• Why will it happen?• How fast will it happen?• Tension between ease of copying

and obsolete but powerfulindustries?

Personal, domesticfabrication

• Science fiction or inevitable?• Why will it happen?• How fast will it happen?• Tension between ease of copying

and obsolete but powerfulindustries?

fab@home

Founders: Adam, Zach and Bre. Photo: Courtesy of Makerbot Indutries.

CC-SA-BY Webca

Founders: Adam, Zach and Bre. Photo: Courtesy of Makerbot Indutries.

CC-SA-BY Webca

What's theRepRap?

A "3D printer"or

"object fabricator"

Prints in (bio)plastics(currently) 

Makes objects on-demand of arbitrary 

shape.  

Movie / Demo 

SKIPPING!

Nature

• Grows

• Regenerates

(heals)

• Evolves

Adrian Bowyer Vik Olliver

Not just copies of itself...

Video: From Darwin to Mini Mendel (YouTube)CC-SA-BY Erik de Bruijn

version 1.0CC-SA-BY Erik de Bruijn

- version 2.0

CC-SA-BY Erik de Bruijn

mini

RepRap version 3.0?

Video

Self assembly

Download: www.thingiverse.com/thing:978

RepRap version 4.0?

Video

RepRap

Evolving mechanics

Print yourself: 50 cents vs. 88 euros commercially

ModularUseful for experimentation and custom setups 

IntegratedTurn-key solution 

Evolving electronics

Parametric design(OpenSCAD)

Evolving software

Parametric design(OpenSCAD)

Evolving software

thingiverse.com/thing:591

Evolving software

Free 3D Modeling Software - Blender (GPL) - Art of Illusion (GPL) - OpenSCAD (GPL)- HeeksCAD (BSD) - TopMod3D (GPL) - Wings3D (GPL) - StructureSynth (GPL) - Google SketchUp

From: SketchUp Keynote speechhttp://vimeo.com/11322333

Users

Evolving output quality

From my400 euro RepRap

DarwinFrom a 20,000+ euro

Stratasys Dimension 1200SST

Evolving output quality

2006 2008

New materials & scales

Pottery 2.0

Grootschaliger printenComplete meubels

Digital pottery

Evolving infrastructure Thingiverse

Two categorieshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8SewJ2lyf4

The big picture

- Many positive feedback loops

- Leads to exponential growth...

Sampling the exponential growth rate

Printer operator joined n years ago -->

The community is doubling every 6 months and increasing 10-fold in 20 months!

*Actual number of operators is an order of a magnitude higher, sample is 1/10 of population.

*Faster than Moore's Law:

transistors double in ~ 2 years

*

Evolving infrastructure

Thingiverse

Content

iPhone Dock (Belt) buckle & strap Tiny Open Source Violin

Working whistle (with pea printed inside)

Art and gifts LED candle covers

Collaboration

"Physical content-reuse"

• ArduinoPopular open source microcontroller tool chain

• SanguinoArduino compatiblesystem created for the RepRap project

• Now used in dozens of other projects!

Conventional Making• Mostly inefficient.• Quality is lacking! Non-replicable.• Do's and Don't of Making!

Conventional Making• Mostly inefficient.• Quality is lacking! Non-replicable.

 Do Don't!

Do Don't!

thing://1672

Spare partsThreat or opportunity?

Making: Replacements or extensions

Replacement parts

schaakstuk kwijt?        

onderdeel stuk?

The commons repositories

Examples:• Wikipedia.org  > Knowledge• Youtube > Information and entertainment• Thingiverse.com > Things  Features:• User-generated • Consolidation and codification of knowledge• Reduces duplication of effort• Non-restrictive nature maximizes value creation

Content or innovations?

Toys (for all ages)

Content or innovations?

Coffee belt clip iPhone tripod mount

Web 2.0 Mashups are soo 2006!

Content or innovations?Robot modules or even complete robots

Micro 'factories' and complete 3D printers

Personal 3D Printer

Content or innovations?Parts for self assembling systems that can be 3D printed

Open Source Fusionpowered by 

3D printed parts

• Online proposal for an open source standard construction kit

• Extruded aluminium beam• Suitable for mass production:high up-front costs

• Crowdfunded by 132 people• > 17k in pledges received in months

Thank you!

More info

Main project:

www.RepRap.org

Companies:

www.Makerbot.com

www.BitsFromBytes.com

Other projects:

www.makerbeam.com

,

www.Thingiverse.com

Videos:www.youtube.com/erikdb

Twitter:http://twitter.com/ErikDeBruijn

My Company:www.BudgetDedicated.com

References

• Discussion• Further infomation 

o My blog: http://erikdebruijn.nlo p2pfoundation.orgo RepRap project: www.RepRap.orgo RepLab.org - creating open replicable FabLab'so Democratizing Innovation (By Eric von Hippel) and user innovation literature

o Kerstin Balka - On the open design of tangible goods o Thingiverse objects:

Personal 3D printer (thing:815) mail-me@ErikDeBruijn.nl 

My vCard: