RepRap

This video is an introduction to the RepRap self-replicating 3D printer.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[coolman9999uk]

3rd Gen: 100% of parts self produced.

6th Gen: Fully functioning assembler module. Can assemble itself.

8th Gen: Multiple materials. Can assemble simple robots.

9th Gen: Internet software framework for common control of printers and robots.

10th Gen: Integration of AI source code of all machines.

12th Gen: AI source code able to permute itself and tests itself for fitness in simulation/real world tests. i.e. ability to become better. Goal = make human lives easier.

15th Gen: End of human race.

[adrianbowyer]

Hmmm. Daffodils and sheep are far better evolving self-replicating machines than RepRap. We don't seem to have had a lot of trouble with them... Dealing with self-replicating machines is our oldest and best-understood technology - we call it farming.

[Possert74]

My Good Dr. that was a brilliant answer. Just wanted to let you know you are my hero ;) but seriously I would like to thank you. I am a fabricator and you have revolutionized how I approach my work and have made it exciting like it was 25 years ago when I learned to weld. My self and friends are not sports fans our hobbies are hands on and we think you should get $25 mil a year contract for your intellectual athleticism.

[TheDessonator]

This guy from Bath Uni talks about the RepRap as it is his Frankenstein creation which tricks the humans to helping it reproduce. This guy is taking over our planet printer by printer!

[mrzwerus]

I love this story, true genius1 to the power of 100

[Insidious1933]

Lego will suppress this technology. So will china. And kinder surprise.

[legalizeshemp420]

I will tell you I will be among them scanning ever day objects to upload. Scan my car parts and upload them.

Death to the megacorps.

[legalizeshemp420]

As much as I want that to happen it can't because the materials themselves cost. Once a reprap, or any 3dprinter, can print every part, including the stepper motors, then we are talking but lets not forget the raw materials. This isn't a Star-Trek replicator where all wastes goes in a shoot so it can be broken down to the atomic level for later reuse because raw materials costs money.

[henrikmk]

They are publicly available, but at a big cost and they are not used for making end-user products, only prototypes, and they don't self replicate. These machines will only be used for producing prototypes for the design labs together with expensive CAD software. They will follow their own path, separate from the Reprap.

The prototyping companies won't jump on the Reprap, because there is no money in developing it, and certainly not when it becomes self-replicating.

[henrikmk]

It doesn't matter how old the tech is. It's how it has been applied in the past, which has been for expensive prototyping in secret design labs. Reprap development is not money or patent-driven, and so the end product will be without the artificial limitations of a traditional product.

One of the challenges will be to move it into an entirely money-less product cycle, where the manufacturing revolution then will quietly start. You can't do that now, but it will come, eventually.