User:Nmt5072
About Me
My name is Nithin Thomas and I am currently in the Mechanical Engineering program here at Penn State.
Blogs
Fifth Blog Entry:
Today I will be talking about 3D printing guns
1) If i was a dedicated member I would be furious. What right does this company have taking stuff that I printed out during my free time. I thought the whole purpose of open source was to be able to print what ever we wanted to do. If I were an dedicated member I would try and lease a printer so that with that leased printer be able to make a new printer. Return the leased printer and use my printer to make anything I want without a company claiming I broke policy.
2)I think yes it should be restricted to a certain degree where the weapons being made should not be able to fired and should be able to visibly denoted that this weapon is not real and inactive. If weapons are being made there would be no way to regulate who buys/sells weapons whether it be for personal protection or violence like gang wars, robbery, or putting the public safety in danger. If guns were being made by 3D printing then it should be a government regulation. I feel the government could have a tighter leash on the public and if things got out of control they would be able to legally enforce punishment to a reasonable degree without being unconstitutional.
This brings up a another danger and challenge to the legal system. Lets assume someone committed a crime with the use of a 3D gun like shoot up a store. The only physical evidence connecting the crime to the criminal would be the gun. Now the one problem that law officials would face would be the fact that the material can be easily melted and disposed of without much heat. A normal metal needs to reach extremely high temperatures till it even reaches its critical temperature and starts to melt. Plastic is on orders of magnitude less then the temperature needed to melt metal.
3)Anything weapon related or anything that would be against public safety would be my guess of things that would be banned. My concern again with 3D guns is again how will law enforcement see it. I could see a lot of law suits for people claiming wrongful death because the 3D printed gun they made is not capable of shooting bullets. But the officers who respond will not be able to tell the difference and will be forced to shoot if they fear that the weapon is loaded and can cause harm to the public. There is a reason why air-soft guns in public have orange tips on them so that an air-soft M14 rifle is not mistaken for a military grade M14.
Fourth Blog Entry:
Today I will be talking about Makerbot and its decision to not have there printer as open source.
1) From Makerbot bots perspective, its trying to reach a different market. The market I see they are reaching is people who are interested in technology like 3D printing but have no time or not enough knowledge to build the printer. I can see Makerbot and Apple being two similar companies. Like Apple, Makerbot would be able to come out with an affordable 3D printer and in turn have an iTunes like software where they could print anything located in Makerbot's catalogs. Now if the print stl's are free are not is going to be up Makerbot.
2)I believe when Prusa first put his things on Thingiverse he fully believed in Makerbot's vision of open source 3D printing. Now that Makerbot is claiming to go closed source and that their website Thingiverse will have all its designs belonging to Makerbot, he now realizes that Makerbot is now trying to make a profit of a product instead of keeping it open source. For users who want a true open source market, they should follow Prusa to Github.
3) Makerbot owns everything put on Thingiverse because they own it? I believe people interested in open source printing and not having a big brother watch over every design put on the website will move to another site or even create a new site similar to Thingiverse that makes it pure open-source. If people come up with cool designs and want to have people critique it to make it better; they might be hesitant to share their design on Thingiverse because Makerbot might claim ownership of it.
Yes I do believe we should start to look for a "new" Thingiverse to expand our creativity without the fear of our designs being taken away from us.
Third Blog Entry:
Today I will be talking about End of Intellectual Property by Adrian Bowyer
1)I do have to agree that placing restrictions on our media has had had limited success, but I feel new services can have a benefit for both consumers and manufactures. The main problem that music industries have encountered was that they had no way of getting a profit from illegally downloaded music. iTunes and amazon has attracted customers by offering 99 cent downloads. A newer service, Spotify, gives you access to all types of music and instantly access the music anywhere you are. This service cost 10 dollars a month but you can download music(listen on 3G/4G network, WiFi, or even off-line), listen to the radio, or even link to social networks. Music producers are getting a majority of the 10 dollar fee making them happy while music listeners now have the largest legal music selection at the tip of their fingertips by only paying a flat fee per month.
I feel a similar approach to 3D printing and manufacturers can make both parties happy. Maybe charge a flat fee of 4 dollars per month with the ability to download any replacement parts that manufactures put on the site for download. Of course you wont be able to stop the open source 3D printing sites like thingiverse, but as long as the products don't violate copyright or patent agreements then I see no problem at it.
2)Well my passion is sports but I don't see it as a future way to get my future mate or make money. I know over the summer I was one of my coworkers bother (a junior at Carnegie Mellon) who had a really great idea that resulted from one of his courses he took there. He can freely tell people of his idea because he know he has it locked down with the patents that he has on it. Basically his invention is a have a shoe that generates electricity through the static deflection in the sole. He had already got a 50,000 dollar loan to get the business off the ground and will receive and additional 100,000 when ready for production. He has already had many people approach him to buy his technology, including the military. If it all goes alright he can retire a multimillionaire at 26. I believe this individual one that Bowyer is describing.
3)I think intellectual property will not be killed and that its effect is an in-between good and bad. Its good because manufactures will have to drop costs to compete, it brings out the creativity of individuals, and be able to save money in the long run. The bad thing is see convenience. By convenience I mean instead of going to the store and just buying a vacuum cleaner, you need to print each individual part (assuming it fits on your 3D printing bed), assemble all the parts, wire all the electronics, and even after you do all this there is no guarantee that it will work.
Second Blog Entry:
Well I'm back at it again. Today I will be discussing "Wealth Without Money" by Adrian Bowyer.
1) I personally don't see the whole ‘self-replicating universal constructor’ too be feasible right now. I do think that it is an interesting idea that needs to be expanded upon and promoted to future generations. This could very well be the future but the only draw back to it currently is the wide spread knowledge of this technology. Also another major obstacle are the manufactures that build products. I feel that as a manufacturer they would lose an important part of their income in spare parts which will result in them charging more for products to make up the difference. Unless, they charge for downloads and having a way for the downloaded file to be printed only once, I don't see manufacturers agreeing.
2) Bowyer describes "Wealth Without Money" as a way for people who cant afford to create their own things to have the opportunity to do it through 3D printing. He states that rapid prototyping is the first technology that can simultaneously make people wealthy while reducing the need for industrial production. I can only agree with half of this statement. I do think that rapid prototyping will lower the dependency on industrial production but I'm not sure it will be making people wealthy. In order for people to be wealthy they need to be making it in mass production and selling it at a competitive price. But when your comparing your product to a larger corporation that can create the same part you are making at a cheaper rate, the customer will always go for a price break and go with the cheaper one. This method of rapid prototyping can help make you wealthy in one sense by not buying replacement parts that are overpriced. But that's just having the corporations lose pennies at a time. That is not an effective fighting method.
3) I personally thing that the reprap project can take off quite well with the right advertising. I like his idea about printing replacement spare parts if manufacturers can agree with it. I like how its DIY projects where one can take a look back at it and say "I made that." If it got real high tech I would have loved to see a big enough 3D printer be able to print a house or even furniture. It could provide an affordable solution to low income families and even homeless people on the street.
First Blog Entry:
One object that I found useful is an LED rhombicuboctahedron disco ball. Lets be honest, the name is self sold me on this design. I personally like the idea of combining some 3-D printing with some electric wiring to create this disco ball. It would be a nice addition to house party. The person who designed this even went to the extent to create a part that would help align sides together in order to make sure the zip ties work properly. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:28201
One object that I found artistic/ beautiful is Twisterous Vase for the Rostock 3D Printer. This design looks really neat but I feel like this will be really hard to print due to support layers needed for the spiral body and also the size of the vase might be taller than the size we can print. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:28613
One object that I found pointless/ useless is the Piano Neck-Tie. I feel like this is a nice concept but where would one wear this. It's not like I could were a piano tie to a job interview and be taken seriously for a job. I personally don't see any gain from making this other than for printing XP. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:29126
One object that I found funny is the Despicable Me Minion. Every time I see this I start cracking up into laughter because these minons were hilarious in Despicable Me. The design doesn't seem too complicated to print and it could easily be a good stress reliever for me. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:28894
One object that I found weird is the Larz Chicken Shack- Chickenmobile. This car looks weird in general and wouldn't want to print it out because it just looks unattractive. Obviously this based on an original car design but I still don't see a need for this. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:27966
