Erik's Blog

Discussing energy, open source innovation, 3D printing and philosophical themes

RepRap at Reboot 11!

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After Siert spent 5 minutes in Rhino CAD software, we had a printable model. The picture shows the bracket being printed.

Installed on the WiFi bike

Being at Reboot 11 was amazing. The theme was “Action”, to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. People were working an all sorts of hands-on projects. We were 3D printing almost non-stop throughout the entire first day, and parts of the second day. In the process, we made (and even autographed!) paperclips, we printed several RepRap parts, a bracket to hold a webcam to the steering wheel of the WiFi bike, and much more! What is great is that all of the mentioned objects were licenced open source (GPL or CC).

We also made a ladybug that was drawn by a little girl (Viola) from the kindergarten and converted to a printable .STL-file by the people from CIID. At first she thought it took a bit long. Then when she got the object she was very happy, and actually thought it was normal to just 3D print something you want. Evidently, she now wants her own 3D printer…

Bruce Sterling stopped by and made several pictures with some commentary. He was up to speed on the developments because he probably wrote about them far before they were put into practice. He wrote about it here and here.

Cyberuptopianist David Weinberger talks about hope (@26 minutes). Saying he’s staggered by what we’re all doing together, “We’re fabricating chess pieces on a home-made machine that can build anything.”

We were also given the opportunity to give a talk about what we think personal fabrication and the democratization of physical production tools, will mean to the world.

Update: Here are some pictures of the ladybug being printed and finished:


And here are more of my 3D prints:

An array of 4 paper clips being printed. Yay at freely downloadable open hardware.

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2 reacties

  1. Ton Zijlstra schreef:
    2009-07-06 om 18:20

    Erik, het was erg mooi dat jullie er met de RepRaps waren. Het was denk ik een groot succes en voor veel mensen een prachtige praktische eye-opener.

    • Erik schreef:
      2009-07-06 om 21:06

      Ton, thanks. Daarmee is ons doel bereikt. Het is een inspirerende conferentie om een lezing (en demo’s) op te mogen geven. Volgende keer probeer ik er wel zelf meer van mee te krijgen. Tegen die tijd vind ik mijn eigen ge-3D-print hopelijk heel gewoon. 🙂

      Gelukkig komen er video’s online van de lezingen die ik gemist heb!