User:Vatlark

Blog 1a

5 Things of the Thingiverse

1) Open Source Robotic Arm / thing:387 This robotic arm will allow manipulation of many objects and although the design does not include an STL file, the files included for the plexiglass parts could be condensed to reduce part count and printed on rep-rap [1]

2) Nautilus Gears / thing:27233 This 'thing' is beautiful from both an aesthetic and design stand point. Printing the project is simple with only 3 part files. [2]

3) Asteroid Vesta - hi res from NASA model / thing:42888 Its a big lump of of 3D printing. Useless. [3]

4)Inverse Colbert / thing:9196 Colbert Bust with a Picasso twist [4]

5)Scary Animal / thing:35897 Cute kind of scary [5]

Blog 1B

Tinkering in America

At a very early age I remember my brothers and I hunting for old electronics around the house just to smash them into pieces. While smashing an old VCR(there all old now), I came to the realization that every little electrical and mechanical part was there for a reason. Not only that, but a person had decided on the design and propose for every part. I think that was the day I became I tinkerer. Equipped with an engineering education and tinkering friends from many backgrounds including engineering, art, chemistry, and math.My ambitions and projects have grown and some of my projects are documented at JosephOberholtzer.com [6].

An article on saloon.com [7] illustrates the differences between the corporate design methods and the methods of tinkerers. Corporate design is driven by the bottom line and as a result does well to enforce the idea that their product is a magical black bock that once broken must either be fixed but them or preferably thrown away and replaced. The author uses the example of how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started apple through tinkering with what they had around them. The irony is that currently apple products are the worst offenders this corporate culture. A user can not even replace an iphone's battery without special tooling to brake into the phone. In all fairness this design approach has likely been a result of trying to reach a wider audience by making the design more streamlined and intuitive to the user.

At the end of the article is the line, "...preserving the habitat of the tinkerer is one of the few time-proven ways we as a nation can get back on track." This idea has been proven over and over again as the most successful companies (Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, etc.) were all created by tinkerers.

Lastly, in an interview with Charlie Rose[8], David Kelley gives perspective on what makes his design firm so widely successful. The principals of diversity on the design team and empathy for the end user are iterated repeatedly in the interview. Kelly is a strong believer that every person is creative and the power of self-efficacy. Having a divers group of people on a design team is rare, however it doesn't need to be. I find that almost anyone that I talk to about a design will immediately have ideas on how it could be improved or uses for the design that I never thought of.

At the end of the interview Kelly shows the 3D printer that he is building with his daughter. 3D printing seems like the perfect tool for a design environment that encourages quick prototypes and many iterations of a design. As the Rep-Rap community at Penn State grow it will hopefully pull in a more divers group of people that will offer new perspectives on what the future of Rep-Rap can become. Penn State already does an excellent job of iterative design with a whole new generation of Rep-Raps being build and tweaked every semester. Here is a video [9] of the IDEO design process in action.

Blog 2

Mother of all Demos

The “Mother of all Demos” [10]

The video shows the beginning of the modern computer in 1968 with word processing and the first mouse. Without knowing more about the other technology of the era it is difficult to appreciate this step in technology. For some perspective, Microsoft and Apple were only founded in 1975 and 1976 respectively. The most impressive aspect is that the user did not need to know any programming to operate the computer. The new market that these computers could reach with their reduced learning curve would be obvious.

In a speech by Professor Richard Doyle at Penn State University[11], he addresses the revolution in computers that the "Mother of all Demos" represents. At the time of the presentation, people thought the demo was a hoax. Although the US government copied his prototype they were unable to make it function properly because they lacked the open and creative culture that Stanford had and had collaborated to make the prototype a reality. Doyle goes on to illustrate the power of collaboration that an open flow of knowledge allows. Modern science got its start with the Royal Society which cultivated the open sharing of their knowledge. The growing momentum of the open source movement is cultivating a similar idea, the idea that not only should knowledge be shared but it should also not be the property of an individual. This community has grown in many areas of technology and has an astounding ability for creativity and education.

The real question is what will happen if the open source community continues to expand. Can open source become more capable than it's commercial competitors? The competition is an unfair one as companies will always be able to build off of the open source community but they can keep their own secrets. Open source is free by definition so the community may only need to offer acceptable alternatives to costly commercial solutions. No matter the result the open source community will continue to grow collaboration in a way never before possible and all of humanity will come to benefit.

Blog 3

Applications of Additive Manufacturing

Construction of Shelter

In a TEDx presentation [12] Behrokh Khoshnevis presents the use of additive technologies in residential and commercial construction. The concept is essentially to upscale a Rep Rap printer and hang it from a gantry. Aside from 'printing' concrete the device can place structural materials, plumbing, and electrical components. Khoshnevis is not alone on his quest, researchers at The Loughborough University have printed a 2 square meter park bench [13].

The perfect steak, heart and kidney

The medical field has developed the ability to living tissue cells as a printing medium. If researchers are successful, skin will be printed directly onto wounds, replacement organs will be printed, and you may even have the perfect juicy printed steak for dinner [14]. RepRap is specifically having an impact. Researchers at U Penn are using RepRap to print sugar networks which are used as nutrient pathways in large tissue samples. Although printing cells is on the cutting edge of medical research, it didn't stop a hackerspace from designing their own do-it-yourself bio printer [15] and giving the plans away [16]. Even if it is one of the more difficult printers to build, all that hard work will let you join in on the bio medical fun.

If you thought your printed steak was pretty good there are burritos[17], custom chocolate treats[18], cookies with icing [19] and a $300K hamburger [20] where that came from.

Tech-Couture

The needles and thread are being replaced by strings of code. Fashion designer and futurist Iris van Herpen is responsible for the transition and while 'needle' and 'thread' wont be fading form vocabulary any time soon there 3d printed clothing may be here to stay. Not only is 3D printing becoming a part of the fashion world but it is influencing Continuum Fashion to model some of their needle-and-thread work after 3D printing. While Herpen is making a new gown, another Dutchman, Dirk Vander Kooij is recyling refigurators into highly awarded (and priced) furniture[21].