Pedigree

Hi,

A newbie here.

I have started to investigate this exciting project. I love self replicating/referencing systems, a great fan of Richard Dawkins and his book The Selfish Gene. (I even called my company Memention, a play with the word Meme).

Well, as there is a notion of Parent and Child shouldn't there be place for a pedigree? A relations tree of the individual repraps?

Cheers!
Edward

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2011 06:58AM by epatel.

yes, there are some people who provide lineage certificates with the printed parts, they usually cost more. Not sure how common the practice is still.

Adrian does it!

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

8 months ago I bought parts from Adrian when they were going for $400+

I have been recently selling kits that include a certificate of lineage tracing my parts back to the original Darwin. I think it is interesting where parts came from. I wonder how many children are from the original Darwin compared to makerbot prints. I add the card as novelty and personally think it does not matter where you parts come from as long as they are good quality parts. I like to include the card also to show how my print quality is. This card is a check and balance system to show who you should and should not buy from. I think all people that sell parts should include a business card with information about the parts.

Machine printed on:
Date:
lineage:
Plastic:
Software:
Person that printed the parts:
Nozzle size:

These cards could be mounted to the machine. These cards could show the evolution of Reprap.

Bad parts = Possibly bad prints & lots of problems.

Mark

Mathematicians have a concept called a Erdős number which describes how close a particlar mathematician is to the great mathematician Paul Erdős. Perhaps we could have a similar one for a reprap machine which describes the generational distance back to the original Darwin. Hey, we could call it a "Bowyer number" :-)

### from the wikipedia article

The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between a person and mathematician Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. It was created by friends as a humorous tribute to the enormous output of Erdős, one of the most prolific modern writers of mathematical papers, and has become well-known in scientific circles as a tongue-in-cheek measurement of mathematical prominence.

To be assigned an Erdős number, an author must co-write a mathematical paper with an author with a finite Erdős number. Paul Erdős has an Erdős number of zero. Anybody else's Erdős number is k + 1 where k is the lowest Erdős number of any coauthor. Erdős wrote around 1,400 mathematical articles in his lifetime, mostly co-written. He had 511 direct collaborators;[3] these are the people with Erdős number 1. The people who have collaborated with them (but not with Erdős himself) have an Erdős number of 2 (8,162 people as of 2007), those who have collaborated with people who have an Erdős number of 2 (but not with Erdős or anyone with an Erdős number of 1) have an Erdős number of 3, and so forth. A person with no such coauthorship chain connecting to Erdős has an Erdős number of infinity (or an undefined one).

[en.wikipedia.org]

What about all of the repraps printed on repstraps and their children?
What about repraps that have been upgraded?
This reminds me of my grandfather's axe. He had it for 50 years. The handle had been replaced 7 times an the head 3.

Yes, there can be new things to keep track of compared to a traditional lineage description.

It's great to hear that some actually are doing this even on a small scale, got to start somewhere. Maybe just naming the reprap is a first step. Should they have girl names of boy names?

Problem is my pedigree is not linked to the original Darwin or even any reprap based in Bath but comes from Hydraptor - nopheads Repstrap. Not bad pedigree I agree, but it is a Hydraptor deformed child - I got a cheaper deal by buying a set containing a number of 'failed' prints... warping etc but everything is good where it matters

Greg Frost said
>> What about all of the repraps printed on repstraps and their children?

Well, there will always be mathematicians without an Erdős number. We can't all have pedigree else there is no point eh?

>>This reminds me of my grandfather's axe. He had it for 50 years. The handle had been replaced 7 times an the head 3.
Pretty much like fixing a boat in the old days - everything would be replaced over time, but it would still be considered the same boat

But what if you took all of the planks you had removed from the boat and put them together to make another boat. Which one is the original boat?

For a pedigree, how about printed machine accuraccy? we can come up with a rating system, based on upgrades to your machine , precision etc. this could be better than a pedigree, as alot of the reprap parts are made on repstraps. just an idea that could be adopted.



morrist

Morrist,
That would be very interesting to do. Really the quality of your prints has a lot to do of quality of your parts. (Thats not to say some "Ugly" machines have made some beautiful parts) My think is:

Better parts=> easier assembly=> Less problems & headaches=> Good quality parts


Possibly the from of the card could tell pedigree and the back would say key points about the machine

so a rating + pedigree? sounds like a good idea. maybe the wiki could someday have a diagram of the tree/ pedigree. once i get my machine printing better, perhaps i will work on that rating system. but im sure others could easily do that as well.


morrist

I've created a new topic. "Reprap Family Tree" It attempts to link all the reprap sources together.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2011 03:08PM by MrJohn.

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-John, San Diego, CA

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