On 15 June 2014 02:57, Deryck Chan deryckchan@gmail.com wrote:

Just make a RepRap ourselves. Materials typically cost ~£300-400 these days. http://www.reprap.org/wiki/RepRap

The 3D printer itself is libre hardware and is capable of manufacturing most parts of itself!

RepRap looks like a potential hackerthon project[1] - so long as as few volunteers commit to actually finishing putting it together! The last time I tried fixing my washing machine, there were several bits left over.

What would be really cool would be to set up a stop-motion webcam on the table where it was being assembled, so we can release a video before the end of the hackerthon; you may recall Liam doing something similar for an early editathon at the British Museum (in the days before we started using the word "editathon").[2] Having the new printer then buzzing away creating some "merchandise" during Wikimania would be a great output from the Hackerthon, I'm sure several chapters would be interested in borrowing it for experiments, so the few hundred quid in cost should be easy to justify against resulting collaborative open knowledge projects, especially stimulating discussion and policies around 3D model files.

Links 1. https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hackathon August 6-10 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editing_Hoxne_Hoard_at_the_British_M...

Fae