Google Trends for RepRap

This is an interesting graph: [www.google.com]

The spikes are getting bigger and more frequent.

And just for fun, a side-by-side of RepRap and Fab@home: [www.google.com]

yeah, fab@home seems to have become toast.

And I'm proud to say New Zealand seems to lead the Regional breakdown!

Nice! Proof that those F@H guys aren't keeping up. Heated extrusion and self-replication are where it's at!

Demented

I'd agree that self replication is a great feature RepRap has that F@H lacks. It just allows for an eventual cheap and exponential distribution model of our equippment.
I'd also say that working with an open-source/GPL license is another key feature of this project that makes people want to work on it. It certainly does that for me.
FDM may or may not be where it's at. I consider it to be a very promising technique, as the thermosplastics used are ubiquitous and reusable. Plus it's a more advanced approach than what F@H use, wich in turn asks for sturdier, more flexible and powerfull printer head than what they use. Any application wich would use resins of any sort like F@H will be a simplification of our original design.

That's my opinion at least.

Just a note. Stratasys has informally asked that we do not call what we do with Reprap FDM since that is a copyrighted term for what they do with their machines. They've been real nice about it, so far. It's a little thing to ask, actually.

> Stratasys has informally asked that we do not call what we do with Reprap FDM

No problem. It'll probably become known as RepRapping pretty soon anyway.

Interesting! Have we attracted somebody's attention that early?
Okay, let's call it Reprapping or whatever.

Quoting Adrian from some time back...

Let's just use the expanded term "fused filament fabrication"
when we really need to, use "additive fabrication" at all other times
and avoid:

1. Capital letters, i.e. no "Fused Filament Fabrication"
2. Acronyms, i.e. no "FFF"

I think that that works just fine. No acronyms, just the brief descriptive phrase.

Reprap has just broken into the top 50,000 websites worldwide.

[www.alexa.com]

Whether it stays there is another matter, but hey?