Talk:RepStraps
I have a question concerning the statement "A RepStrap is a open-hardware rapid prototyping machine that doesn't make its own parts". I am a Wikipedia editor who is working to improve the RepRap Project Wikipedia page. A question has been raised on the Wikipedia RepRap Project Talk Page concerning whether we should classify a MakerBot as a RepStrap. It can make some RepRap parts, but does not meet the "doesn't make its own parts" criteria above. So my question is this; is not making its own parts a necessary attribute that defines a RepStrap, or is making RepRap parts enough? If the MakerBot isn't a RepStrap, what should Wikipedia call it? Guy Macon 04:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Ah. Arguing about definitions. :D ... fixed our RepStrap page.
Making RepRap parts is sufficient to designate a machine a RepStrap.
And calling CupCake a RepStrap should be sufficient for our fellow Wikipedia readers and editors, until it becomes common practice to print CupCakes.
Generally, if the particular built instance of the machine was not made via a tooling method under reprap's umbrella. We probably should call it a RepStrap. Even the "open-hardware" requirement gets fuzzy; a closed-design benchtop mill with an extruder bolted on is still a RepStrap. (And RepRap wants, nay, needs the files to make the benchtop mill.)
And, more importantly, RepStraps (like WolfStrap are great and we heartily endorse their use them to make beautiful, useful, and fun things which are not RepStraps. They're not single-purpose machines we toss once we've reached the near-godlike state of having a working Mendel. :D We also try to host as many of them as we can, because they tend to evolve into classic-definition RepRaps. (I've got my eye on ORE-Bot to cut its own parts.)
Hope that helps. Thanks Guy!
By the way; two quibbles with Wikipedia's RepRap page.
- It reads too much like a press release. (Not my fault, I didn't write it either!)
- "To date, the RepRap project has released two 3D printing machines: "Darwin", released in March 2007, and "Mendel", released in October 2009. Developers have named each after famous biologists, as "the point of RepRap is replication and evolution".[1] RepRap has a ?dozen? machines, in various states of functionality and various states of documentation. (Haughty Sniff!)
--Sebastien Bailard 08:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
