I for one welcome our robot masters.
Jul. 28th, 2011 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinI'll be honest and say I don't fully understand what this Kickstarter project ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesong has been linking to is about, but it's got 68 hours to go and isn't quite there so I'm going to give it a boost anyway.
It's some kind of fabricating machine that cuts stuff into stuff? The creator has a video, but the dude said something about self-replicating machines and I got scared and unplugged my computer for a while in case it gets ideas.
I do recall seeing some kind of capsule description on the page, let me just snag it:
Oh, there you go.
The impression I get is that it could help put 3D manufacturing capabilities into the hands of small businesses (and artists and artisans and hobbyists)... and you know, anything like that is bound lower the cost and barrier to entry faced by new start-ups, which is great. I mean, I think about what the technological advances of the past decade have meant for writers and graphic artists and musicians. When tools get cheaper and better and less cumbersome and more open, possibilities multiply.
Okay, wow. It says that with a 3D scanner, it could reproduce any shape that fits inside its milling area. So, if I am in fact reading this right then an artist could conceivably make a prototype and then... without touching or harming the original in any way, this thing could then turn out 3D copies of it, and/or produce a mold from which copies could be cast?
Am I reading that right? This thing could help sculptors make "prints" of their work?
And it's not even a machine built specifically for doing that. That's just one potential application of what seems to be a very open-ended and general purpose... manufacturing... thing.
I can guarantee you something of it, because this is true of any usable technology: people are going to look at it and figure out things they can do with it that its creatorsindrian never even dreamed of.
And I don't say that to slight his imagination. I'm sure he's counting on it. I say that because that's the history of the world to date.
Anyway, this isn't one of those Kickstarter projects that is basically a stealth pre-order, because the finished machine will have a production cost outside most people's internet pocket money range. But the final product is going to be an open source design, But people who support his start up are eligible for a number of fun and interesting rewards that I gather are actually produced using his prototype.
The "Launcher" sounds intriguing, but the "Custom Clue-By-Four" engraved with a helpful message of your choice sounds like a real winner. I can actually imagine something like that in a mail-order catalogue for a price not too dissimilar from the $30 pledge it would cost you. People with a serious enthusiasm for home manufacturing can pledge at the highest levels to get the parts they need to assemble their own.
shadesong has been linking to is about, but it's got 68 hours to go and isn't quite there so I'm going to give it a boost anyway. It's some kind of fabricating machine that cuts stuff into stuff? The creator has a video, but the dude said something about self-replicating machines and I got scared and unplugged my computer for a while in case it gets ideas.
I do recall seeing some kind of capsule description on the page, let me just snag it:
It’s essentially a robot capable of milling complex three-dimensional shapes out of wood, soft metals, and plastics.
Oh, there you go.
The impression I get is that it could help put 3D manufacturing capabilities into the hands of small businesses (and artists and artisans and hobbyists)... and you know, anything like that is bound lower the cost and barrier to entry faced by new start-ups, which is great. I mean, I think about what the technological advances of the past decade have meant for writers and graphic artists and musicians. When tools get cheaper and better and less cumbersome and more open, possibilities multiply.
Okay, wow. It says that with a 3D scanner, it could reproduce any shape that fits inside its milling area. So, if I am in fact reading this right then an artist could conceivably make a prototype and then... without touching or harming the original in any way, this thing could then turn out 3D copies of it, and/or produce a mold from which copies could be cast?
Am I reading that right? This thing could help sculptors make "prints" of their work?
And it's not even a machine built specifically for doing that. That's just one potential application of what seems to be a very open-ended and general purpose... manufacturing... thing.
I can guarantee you something of it, because this is true of any usable technology: people are going to look at it and figure out things they can do with it that its creator
sindrian never even dreamed of. And I don't say that to slight his imagination. I'm sure he's counting on it. I say that because that's the history of the world to date.
Anyway, this isn't one of those Kickstarter projects that is basically a stealth pre-order, because the finished machine will have a production cost outside most people's internet pocket money range. But the final product is going to be an open source design, But people who support his start up are eligible for a number of fun and interesting rewards that I gather are actually produced using his prototype.
The "Launcher" sounds intriguing, but the "Custom Clue-By-Four" engraved with a helpful message of your choice sounds like a real winner. I can actually imagine something like that in a mail-order catalogue for a price not too dissimilar from the $30 pledge it would cost you. People with a serious enthusiasm for home manufacturing can pledge at the highest levels to get the parts they need to assemble their own.