I've decided to do a PhD and for that you need to do 'original research'. The only thing I can think of is 'something to do with Reprap'. I've asked a few people who are interested but not involved with the project and they've given me a few directions to go in but nothing that really pushes my buttons, so I'm asking you, the people intimately involved, what is there that is worth spending the next 3 years of my life researching that would be helpful to the project? I think what I need is something very narrow and specific that the commercial world wouldn't want to spend the time doing. I'm primarily a software guy (more gluing things together rather than a programmer though) and my passion lies in making Reprap more user-friendly and accessible to the general public. Although if you have any other ideas, feel free to discuss them as well. Maybe someone else reading this will find its something they want to do. Maybe out of this will come a short list of prospective PhD topics that people can cherry pick from and we can have a page of current research efforts on the wiki. https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15920#msg-15920 Tue, 16 Jun 2026 20:13:38 -0400 Phorum 5.2.23 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52738#msg-52738 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52738#msg-52738
Students, please note that RepRap is a 3D printer project.

As such it has a lot to do with art, engineering, design, humanitarian causes, and possibly chocolate (according to wikipedia). (:D

Mansi, Parika, Nishtha, stuff like this http://reprap.org/wiki/WolfStrap-English has little to nothing to do with human resources.

---

Engineering, Design, and Art students, please feel free to start new threads introducing yourselves. This thread is a little strange. It's the 20th hit on google for "PhD topics on HR", which is why HR PhD students started coming in here.

I very rarely lock threads and thereby censor speech because that's not how we do things here at RepRap, but I'm going to lock this thread. This way Peer and I won't get too mischievous, resulting in some poor student spending six months trying to do a thesis about Mendel as a HR subject.]]> SebastienBailard General Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:04:00 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52735#msg-52735 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52735#msg-52735 www.elsewhere.org]) , or "Derrida and a Stakeholder Driven-Search for Excellence in Self-reproducing Systems" (my own humble creation)?

I believe either of the two subjects might be excellent human resources thesis topics. :)o]]> SebastienBailard General Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:44:45 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52732#msg-52732 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52732#msg-52732 SebastienBailard General Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:35:48 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52272#msg-52272 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52272#msg-52272 hr expert General Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:28:12 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52054#msg-52054 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52054#msg-52054
- "Why motivated people stop working on putting ideals into practical solutions"

This one would obviously try to understand why certain people do NOT follow up on until the end after an initial implication in e.g. Reprap building.]]> peer General Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:28:35 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52053#msg-52053 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52053#msg-52053
- "Evolving from the motivation of an ideal to reality and then creating progress: dynamics of creative individuals"]]> peer General Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:26:07 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52017#msg-52017 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,52017#msg-52017

M working as a lecturer in management dept., nd interested to do P.hd. in Hr, can u pls suggest me topics 4 dat.

regards]]> Nishtha Sharma General Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:21:14 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,42053#msg-42053 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,42053#msg-42053
Can you please suggest me some excellent HR topics to do phd in software company.

Regards,
Jyothi]]> jyothi General Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:42:03 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,32229#msg-32229 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,32229#msg-32229
Otherwise, no one is going to spend time helping you with this matter, since they'll get the feeling you are trying to use peoples' time as a service rather than speaking to fellow people in a community.]]> SebastienBailard General Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:24:38 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,32227#msg-32227 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,32227#msg-32227 parika bhutani General Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:10:38 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,31735#msg-31735 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,31735#msg-31735
thanks]]> mansi kacker General Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:54:15 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16214#msg-16214 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16214#msg-16214 nophead General Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:41:55 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16213#msg-16213 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16213#msg-16213
In FFF it would also be nice to be able to specify where the seam is. Random by layer may work for some parts, but would make a pimply mess of a beautiful flat part. I dont think it will ever be fully solved, but having the algorithm place the join in randomly selected concave sections may help.

Or, it could look for the tightest concave angle in each profile.

Holes could be designed with a small notch running up them, which the software would see as the tightest concave segmets and automatically use to start/stop in - which would reduce the need to ream out after. The designer could specify this as a spiral notch.

The only problem may be that the start/stop would end up on the highest tensile load point of the part with obvious structural impact. A user friendly opton in the host software would be - slice for strength or slice for asthetics.]]> Lampbus General Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:34:07 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16188#msg-16188 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16188#msg-16188 nophead General Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:07:48 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16183#msg-16183 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16183#msg-16183 -------------------------------------------------------
> It can make it so flaws are consistant through out
> the part. In my case it leaves a little bit of a
> blob at the start of each circle. This later
> become a long ridge in the hole. If it had stagger
> out the circle boarder it would mean the "error"
> is one less pronounced and now easier to get rid
> of by lighly running a drill through the hole.


Good point. I noticed something similar on the minimug I printed. There was a seam running up the side.]]> degroof General Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:04:53 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16181#msg-16181 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16181#msg-16181
Cheers,
E]]> Enrique General Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:37:10 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16135#msg-16135 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16135#msg-16135 ronanwarrior General Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:36:40 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16097#msg-16097 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16097#msg-16097
An option derived from Sebastien's suggestion to whip up software to do object reconstruction from a bunch of digicam photos, would be to make software to turn pictures of someone's feet into an orthotic support model, which the reprap would then fabricate.


Ronanwarrior,

I don't know what software you're using to print, but skeinforge does try to find the shortest path; and if it doesn't find it, that's a bug:(]]> Enrique General Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:06:11 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16054#msg-16054 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16054#msg-16054 -------------------------------------------------------
>
> I realize I didn't really give you much to go on
> as far as my specialties go ..
>

Yeah, you sure didn't. 8-)]]> Forrest Higgs General Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:31:43 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16053#msg-16053 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16053#msg-16053
I was thinking something along the lines of adding 3D scanning ability but it may be that Sebastien's idea about object reconstruction from digital photos would be easier. I'll have to look into it.

I realize I didn't really give you much to go on as far as my specialties go but I was also just wanting to get a list of all the problems that need solved that might take a bit of R&D and I think thats what I got.

Thanks for the replies. I'll talk it over with my potential supervisors and we'll see what happens.]]> reece.arnott General Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:14:42 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16027#msg-16027 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,16027#msg-16027 (Subscribe by emailing "majordomo@rapid.lpt.fi")
The server is having a hiccup, but normally is up:
[rapid.lpt.fi]

I would also take a look at "Rapid Prototyping Journal"
[info.emeraldinsight.com]

Along with
[www.tctmagazine.com]
(The magazine seems to be free if you give them personal details.)

Possibly
[www.timecompress.com]

and
[utwired.engr.utexas.edu]
who host the annual
Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) Symposium

By the way, what department would you be in, and what kinds of mentors and resources would you have access to?

A suggestion: Computational Geometry thesis - whip up an algorithm and user-friendly software to do object reconstruction from a bunch of digicam photos. (Such software exists, e.g.
[ezra.dev.java.net]
but the world could use more.)]]> SebastienBailard General Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:17:26 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15998#msg-15998 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15998#msg-15998 ronanwarrior General Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:11:55 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15924#msg-15924 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15924#msg-15924 Kyle Corbitt General Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:16:32 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15922#msg-15922 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15922#msg-15922
... some intersting topics (as for me) would be:
- 'room-temp-fabbing' with/without curing the slices
- serious paste-'alchemy' or developing 'green' fabbing materials
- noncartesian (e.g. parallelkinematic) robots
- 'self-optimization' (e.g. with neural-network-simulation)
- fabbing with prefabbed blocks ...

Some of this themes are already made elsewere, but there is still so much work to do 8-)

Viktor]]> VDX General Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:12:49 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15921#msg-15921 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15921#msg-15921
Basically, I need to know more than "I'm primarily a software guy (more gluing things together rather than a programmer though)".

The general rule of "original research" means that you more or less have to do something from scratch. Mind, you may use extant tools to do it but the concept, at least, has to be new.

Just off the top of my head, building a good numerical model of thermally-driven warping in prints would be a hell of a good topic. The literature I've read on the subject has been very hit and miss. I've thought about doing it, but I don't know of any software apps that let you model the thermal behaviour of an object as it is constructed. The ones that I've used like Fluent, for example, generally assume that the object already exists in toto at the beginning of the simulation exercises.]]> Forrest Higgs General Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:43:26 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15920#msg-15920 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,15920,15920#msg-15920
I think what I need is something very narrow and specific that the commercial world wouldn't want to spend the time doing.

I'm primarily a software guy (more gluing things together rather than a programmer though) and my passion lies in making Reprap more user-friendly and accessible to the general public. Although if you have any other ideas, feel free to discuss them as well. Maybe someone else reading this will find its something they want to do.

Maybe out of this will come a short list of prospective PhD topics that people can cherry pick from and we can have a page of current research efforts on the wiki.]]> reece.arnott General Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:33:20 -0400