User talk:MadelineRoche
Contents
Introduction
My name is Madeline Roche and I am a Senior at The Pennsylvania State University majoring in Psychology. I intend to graduate in May 2014.
BLOGS
Weekly blogs are assigned by the professor and my answers to the prompts will be displayed here. These blogs will relate to 3D Printing and sometimes more specifically the RepRap printers
Blog Number One
The Prompt: Go to thingaverse and look for printable objects, which other people have actually printed finding designs which satisfy these descriptions in your mind:
Part A
An item that is useful
This item is useful for holding rings, and even bracelets. Use of this item can prevent the loss of jewelry, a very common issue as these items are typically so small.
An item that is artistic/beautiful
This football has rhythmic twists and curves creating a beautiful spiral football. The spiral effect is intricate and artistic.
An item that is pointless/useless
This Mickey statue is useless. Although it may bring joy to Mickey fans, it does not serve any concrete practical purpose.
An item that is funny/weird
This gnome statue is funny because he is carrying a pimp cane. This is something I have never seen before, so I found it not only funny, but also weird.
The 'Best' printable Raspberry Pi case you can find
This raspberry pi case is both sleek and small, and was designed for 3D printing.
Blog Number Two
The Prompt:
Write about a topic (or two, or three) which interests you which we've discussed so far - or not discussed in detail yet.
It could be your project, or a particular type of 3D printer, or something you think would be cool for us to explore in the future.
3-D Printing Implications for China
As 3-D printing continues to develop and expand, China will have to give up their role as the mass-manufacturing powerhouse of the world. China has partnered with every economically mature country to outsource manufacture all their goods on a mass scale. They create enough demand to mass produce extremely cost efficiently and minimize labor costs. The Chinese government favors the growth of the country’s manufacturers over the purchasing power and living standards of its people/consumers. However, as 3-D printing advances and becomes widely implemented in manufacturing, China faces several challenges. The first being that mass manufacturing supply chains won't be a good fit for 3-D printed manufacturing. Mass manufacturing uses centrally controlled supply chains to produce our everyday goods, or commodity products. This centrally managed approach won't work well as highly specialized 3D-printed parts begin to play an increasing role in the mass-production of products. Under 3-D printing's model of widely distributed, highly flexible, small-scale manufacturing, the advantages of China's current manufacturing model quickly become burdens. 3-D printing enables manufacturing on a smaller scale and closer to the location of consumption. Not even China's workforce can be paid little enough to make up for the cost of shipping across oceans. Furthermore, few managers raised in a pro-producer environment have the consumer instincts to compete with the customization of 3-D printing. The strategies that have placed them in their current position won't serve them in the future. However, their local market is still huge, so a locally-based market will likely not make them the outcasts of the 3-D printing era.
In comparison to the United States and Europe, China is off to a slow start with 3-D printing, but they are making strides. A fun fact portraying this is that in Chinese astronauts' most recent space flight they sat in 3D-printed seats. Each seat was tailored specially for that particular astronaut’s unique size and shape. I will be interested to see how China adapts to the concept of 3-D printing and its implications on their role as lead manufacturer to the rest of the world.
Blog Number Three
The Prompt: Comment on the best posts from classmate blogs
I really enjoyed reading Steven Rekstad's second blog in which he discusses deep space travel as an application for 3-D printing. The subject of deep space travel alone is interesting enough, but I really liked his innovative way of thinking here, and his ability to so practically apply 3-D printing. He brings up several good reasons why 3DP would benefit deep space travel, such as: it can quickly create emergency repairs, and a RepRap's lightweight quality will not weigh down the shuttle upon takeoff. Steven has some great thoughts here, and even shows a little sense of humor, making it an even better read. However, there is always room for further detail and elaboration.
Blog Number Four
The Prompt: Comment on each project, and their mode of operation (give it away for free). How does this compare with traditional business models? Can you point to any companies using a similar business model? How does this sort of thing strike you?
Traditionally speaking, most business models consist of making a profit by selling a good for a higher price than what that product cost to create. However, the business model being employed by both Arduino and RepRap is quite different than this. Both Arduino and RepRap are open-source resources. This means that their products can be accessed free of charge to the consumer. The companies are then able to create revenue from other sources on the side. One company that sort of reminds me of this business model is Olympia Media Group. This company is able to distribute a weekly publication free of charge to consumers, thereby increasing the amount of people who may come in contact with the publication. The way that they are able to make their money for this is by selling advertisements that are then displayed in the publication. I think this open-source method being used by Arduino and RepRap is an incredible idea, as it does not limit the pool of people who can collaborate with this sort of technology. This enables free input from 7 billion designers, greatly increasing the ability for advancement.
Blog Number Five
The Prompt: Re-examine the objects you found on thingiverse in your first blog. Assess each one for copyrightable or patentable elements. Look over the things which your fellow students found. Are any of them particularly obvious cases of copyrighted or patented material? Discuss both reasons why you might be interested in the “licensing of non-copyrightable files”.
I did not observe any patentable characteristics of the objects I uploaded for blog #1. None of these objects were revolutionary in their function, there were no new inventions, or uniquely useful objects. However, I would say that the artistic uniqueness of the hand, spiral football, and gnome statue may warrant some copyrightable eligibility. The mickey mouse statue is not copyrightable because Disney has opened the doors for the public to regenerate this iconic figure at free will.
Similarly, I did not find any objects uploaded by my classmates that seemed worthy of patenting. Nothing stuck out to me as being unique/new in function. However, many things stuck out to me as copyrightable. For example, the unique and artistic shape of the vase depicted in Dimitri Lewicki's first blog. I think that all of the different raspberry pie cases serve the same function of protection, thus aren't patentable. However, they are all very different in appearance, and therefore could be copyrightable.
If there is no copyright in place, a license is essentially meaningless. You cannot enforce compliance to a license when the copies do not infringe on any rights. However, there are too useful purposes to licensing noncopyrightable items. The first is legal: The license can act to proof the item in advance, so that if in the future copyright law changes the protocol for their item is already established. The second purpose if cultural: The license serves as a guideline to the public of how they SHOULD work on the object. It may not be legally enforceable, but many people will respectfully obey regardless, and successfully work on the project as the creator wished.
Blog Number Six
The Prompt: Blog 6 is in some sense an extension of blog 5. I want you to go through your classmates responses to blog 5 regarding IP and the penrose triangle model. Your blog should consist of any points which you missed on your own, but which you realized in the process of reading your classmate's work. Try to summarize the most important points as taken both from your own readings and the contributions of your classmates.
I had a somewhat difficult time trying to come up with what exact part of the the article should warrant us to think that the author is naive. However, in looking over my classmates' blogs, I think that Brandon Tunkel made a great observation, pointing out that the author never mentioned the fact that the Penrose triangle does not necessarily belong to Ulrich Schwanitz in the first place. He may have created a real one, but he did not necessarily design the concept. Furthermore, the author never mentions the original creation of the optical illusion or if it is even copyrighted.
Somewhat similar to Brandon Tunkel's, is Matt Digel's response. Matt Digel provides a more definite and logical response regarding the naivety of the author in saying that it is impossible for the designer to be granted copyright claim over the figure because it is based off of an optical illusion, which are not subject to copyright law.
