User talk:Mccand

Mccand, TRap sounds cool. It looks as though you're planning on reinventing every subsystem. Which is very cool. I'd suggest doing it via a Ship of Theseus process. Build a WolfStrap, Eiffel, or Mendel using Contemporary Electronics, and once everything is working, only then replace each subsystem with a new and improved subsystem. This way you have a working 3D printer to bootstrap the new and improved 3D printer. This way is much more fun.

--Sebastien Bailard 21:39, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: Ship of Theseus

Sebastian, Agreed; A progressive build is easier, but what I'm proposing requires that an entirely mew control scheme be developed before anything would work. Anyhow, once I finish my Mendel, we can start testing stuff.

My background is mostly in mechanical design, so I was planning on using existing electrical systems (I am not skilled enough to redesign that) I think once I can produce parts on my own, the design will advance quickly. We'll see. What I really need is a teammate to keep me from losing interest, and who can do the programming. (Design is easy, maths are easy, software is hard.)

Thanks for the comments!

Mccand 21:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Documentation

Hey Mccand, while there is certainly no silver bullet for documentation I'm honored that you've used Columbus' as a template and hope that you will improve it over time. I'm a strong believer in documenting everything within the wiki, so it's great to see someone else actively pursuing that goal as well. I borrowed bits and pieces from the Mendel overview page (the table), the project template wiki, and my own general engineering background (although I must admit that Columbus' documentation can be considered as pure satire when viewed under any professional standards.) Just a few things I want to change about Columbus that you might find helpful as well: (1) I want to learn how to make references like in wikipedia articles. I know it is probably well documented, I just need to take the time to incorporate it. (2) I think that eventually I will have to move my Workbook to it's own subpage because, over the next two and a half years, it's bound to get unbearably long. I think this not only distorts the purpose of the wiki, but it ignores it's potential. Imagine if everything written about the Mendel was published on a single wiki page? When people come to our project wikis I think they should be greeted with an up to date overview of the progress we've made, and then - if they want more - they can dive into the Workbook subpage. Anyhow, good luck!

--Isaac Olson 23:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)