User:Wjf5042

Blog #5

1. The gun project has faced a setback, however I doubt this will stop progress completely. Since they don't have any way of printing now, time should be spent designing the guns, and also trying to get the FFL license. The goal is to distribute plans for making a gun, so that is comparable to selling weapons. If they go the legal route, they can be on the same level as companies with more credibility.

2. As someone who thinks it would be neat to try and print a gun, I think the element of safety should be most important. If everyone tries to print these out, and they all explode causing injuries, there will be a big problem. Regulation takes away freedom, but safety is a goal here. Most likely, gun manufacturers will not use the plastic parts to actually fire bullets, nut only to mock up parts that will be made of metal or stronger material. Regulation would have to come in the form of software from the manufacturers of the circuit boards being used. In the open source community, this will be very hard to do, at least for the printers that already exist.

3. I think that objects such as handcuff keys that are hard to obtain or illegal to carry will be a problem. The dutch police have had problems with the replication of their hard to reproduce handcuff key.

Blog #4

The 3d printing world seems to be moving away from being totally open source. Makerbot is a profit driven company, and is trying to capitalize on the fact that free support for setting up the machines is not making the company much money. Open source is good in theory, but the time it takes for everything to run well motivates people to make money instead of doing that for free. I think that we should move away from Thingiverse, because everything that has been uploaded they now own. Another site could easily be made that serves the same purpose, without having Makerbot own it. I agree with Prusa in that each person should remove their files from Thingiverse and not upload any more, since Makerbot has shut the open source world out.

Blog #3 1. DRM will most likely stay due to the possibility of profit being made. Either the files can be sold for profit, or enforcement of illegal downloading of the files by way of lawsuits are the two options. The creators of the files and designs don't want to give up their ideas for free, so that is why DRM will still be around.

2. I am passionate about helping the public have a better place to live. I will try to achieve this with my career as a Civil Transportation Engineer. The roads designed will hopefully help ease movement from place to place. I think this would be attracive to a mate with a higher intellect due to the engineering background.

3. 3D printing may kill intellectual property if there is still a way to distribute ideas and designs. Shutting down sites that host such material has become a goal of the government, so this is one obstacle for the 3D printing world. I agree that intellectual property should be killed, because it hinders creativity and modifications that make products better. Intellectual property allows the creator to reap the benefits of his or her design, but if the design could be better, the best design should survive.

Blog #2

1. His idea is feasible up to a point, which is the limitation of electrical hardware. Different materials can be printed, but the hardware such as the micro controllers would have to be manufactured elsewhere which is a limitation. With the evolution of the printers, small improvements are made and more printed parts can be used. Printers that are able to print circuits would help solve the problem with the electronics.

2. "Wealth without money" is an accurate description of 3D printing. These printers will allow regular people to do what industry can do but on a smaller scale. If there is a part you want to print, all that needs to be done is to make the file and the sky is the limit. There will be no more ordering parts from manufacturing that are not too specialized when you can just print them. It will probably mean tighter cracking down on patents and the associated CAD files of the objects.

3. The evolution from the Darwin design has been rapid and efficient. The open design of the RepRap community does wonders for the evolution of 3D printers, since new ideas are tested and shared throughout the community. Future designs for RepRaps may include being able to use metal and other stronger materials which would hold up better than the plastic being used today. More commercialized vendors of open source printers will probably have a hard time surviving due to the technical support aspect of maintaining a printer. The community will probably not want to support a for-profit private vendor, when there are endless opportunities in the RepRap open source community.

Blog #1

1. useful
This is a filter cap for 3/8 in pipe. I have made pipe covers from cloth before, but a printed cap would be more durable and allow water to flow better.
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2. artistic/beautiful
This object was made by taking a mathematical surface and turning it into an actual object. It would be really hard to make this with any other method such as CNC milling, so that is one advantage of 3D printing.
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3. pointless/useless
I have seen this box made of wood before, but a printable model will do nothing for you as you cant keep the switch on.
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4. funny
iPhones are everywhere, and most people use them when eating lunch dinner etc. so the iSpork is a spork that attaches to your phone so that you can be the ultimate multi-tasker.
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5. weird
I think everyone could use a bowel disruptor at some point, but someone should figure out how to make a functioning model.
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