Terminator computer builds itself

POSTED BY: piratenews
UPDATED: Friday, September 18, 2009 23:47
VIEWED: 538
PAGE 1 of 1

PIRATENEWS

Friday, September 18, 2009 9:39 PM

RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

RUE

Friday, September 18, 2009 9:44 PM

Seems like you could make anything - as long as it's cheap plastic. Somehow I don't think a whole lot of really useful stuff is going to come out of it. Cars ? No. Bicycles ? No. Solar cells ? No. Houses ? No. Cookpots ? No. Medicine ? No. Chips fab plants ? No. Paper ? No. Computers ? No.

It's just junk - making more junk.

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Silence is consent.

DREAMTROVE

Friday, September 18, 2009 10:34 PM

there was a story a while ago about a robot that built copies of itself

KWICKO

Friday, September 18, 2009 11:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Seems like you could make anything - as long as it's cheap plastic. Somehow I don't think a whole lot of really useful stuff is going to come out of it. Cars ? No. Bicycles ? No. Solar cells ? No. Houses ? No. Cookpots ? No. Medicine ? No. Chips fab plants ? No. Paper ? No. Computers ? No.

It's just junk - making more junk.

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Silence is consent.

I disagree. What it's making isn't "cheap plastic" - it's a plastic version of the actual thing you've designed. It's called "rapid prototyping". The plastic part becomes the "mold" you use to cast the part in metal, if it's a metal part. It's getting cheaper, and it's becoming a boon for manufacturing things that are complicated to design and cast, or things that are very rare and no longer in production, or are no longer available.

So instead of designing a part and then having to build a prototype by hand, you design it with a CAD program, a rapid-prototyping unit "prints" it for you in three dimensions in polymer (some actually "print" the parts in sintered metal powder), and you can test it to see if it actually works as intended.

Mike

Old friend charity
Cruel twisted smile
And the smile signals emptiness
For me
Starless and Bible black