User:Klk5327
Katerina Kostadinova
Greetings fellow players! Here's where I'll be recording my RepRap adventures.
Player Info
I'm an Integrative Arts major at Penn State, looking to hopefully graduate Spring '13. My major has been a bit of a journey... I came to Penn State for Physics, the math quickly scared me off and I scampered off into Biology. Eventually I discovered I'm not half bad at math and began majoring in Engineering Science. Well, that didn't quite work out so I'm feeding my creative passion as an art student right now while trying to figure out how to work in my skills/interests in the sciences into my grand master plan.
We'll see how all that works out. Feel free to make bets as to whether or not I'll be living in a box in 10 years.
As far as art goes I'm steering myself down the route of 2D and 3D animation so I know a thing or two about 3D modeling. I don't have any technical skills when it comes to actually building things so I'm hoping to pick up on some during this course.
Blog
Week 1
Useful: I would bake cookies every day for the rest of my life.
Artistic/Beautiful: Oh...oh my.
Pointless/Useless: What can be more useless than a lie?
Funny: Seems legit.
Weird: Bonus points for the punny name, but I'm still going to have nightmares tonight.
Week 2
- 1. Do you think his goal of a ‘self-replicating universal constructor’ is feasible? What remains to be done to achieve this, or alternatively what would prevent such a goal?
Such a goal is most definitely feasible. According to this article more and more people are taking advantage of 3D printing every year. With such an extreme increase in interest the technology will no doubt grow at a high rate. I think the most difficult challenge will be to enable the machines realize their mistakes. For example, we started construction within our build groups in class today and had to use tricks in order to thread some of the parts due to imperfections. I'm going to assume that no matter how advanced the technology becomes there will always be the possibility of flawed parts. The machines need to be able to recognize these flawed parks and either fix them or, a more likely solution, remake them. If the right material is chosen a flawed part can easily be turned back into raw material and reused. Other than recognizing flawed parts the machine must also be capable of recognizing mistakes in the building process such that the quality of each machine does not decrease. This, I think, will be the hardest challenge
- 2. The phrase “wealth without money” is both the title of his article and the motto of the reprap project itself. What does this phrase mean? (To him and to you if they differ). Discuss implications, problems, and possibilities associated with this idea.
From what I understand, Bowyer seems to view the concept of 'wealth without money' as the ability to produce whatever goods one desires with no cost (other than material cost, of course). As Bowyer talks in the beginning the Communist Manifesto states that, "By proletariat is meant the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live." The technology envisioned here allows for putting production in the hands of the modern wage laborers and is a way for wealth to be spread through out the middle and lower classes of society.
- 3. The Darwin design was released in 2007. It is 2012 now. Imagine future scenarios for RepRaps and their ‘cousin’ 3D printing designs (Makerbots, Ultimachine, Makergear, etc.) how do you think the RepRap project (community, designs, website, anything and everything) might evolve in the future? Describe as many scenarios as you can envision.
I can't help but think a lot about how 3D printing will influence the art community so here's some thoughts concerning the subject. The more artists become involved in this way of creating artwork the more our perception of art will have to change. Does it 'count' as art if someone simply designed it with a 3D modeling program and sent it to a printer? Does an artist have to modify a piece afterwards for it to be considered 'true art'? These are some of the questions that will be begin to rise up. There's already a lot of people that don't consider use of programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator as 'artsy'. Aside from people's opinions I think the art itself may take an interesting turn. 3D printing can obviously make it easier for artists to create more mechanical works. Perhaps the art will take a turn for the mechanical much like the method of creation.
