The future of personal manufacturing
 

Ladies and gentlemen, a glimpse into the future of personal manufacturing:
http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

The RepRap at the moment can only create objects from a couple of materials, however it's only a matter of time before more materials are added (and a finer nozzle as well to create more detailed objects).

IMO the next logical step after the RepRap would be an assembly robot either as part of the RepRap or separate so it can automatically assemble the completed parts into more complex machines.

Of course these advancements are still a while away, so in the meantime lets hear your comments, speculation, etc ;)

Yo yo yo

Reppin' da rep rap

the fuck who are you

Great... apparently we didn't learn shit from all those movies.

RepRap. The Edge.

A big clunky plastic thing. Because we all need one of those.

3d printers are not news. They are pretty damn cool though.

It's true that 3D printers are not new, however cheap (compared to commercial/industrial) and accessible personal 3D printers that produce quite a few of their own parts are rather new.

Granted the first RepRap design was made in 2007 (and the similar Fab@Home Project started in 2006), however these auspicious devices haven't exactly been in the limelight which is why I thought I'd mention them now.

It doesn't have a brain, though, so we're fine.

You should check out MakerBot. They've got a bunch of home rapid-prototyping kits and they've been selling them for years.

I checked and their site is 2 years old so they are relatively recent too. They don't give the schematics for their machines though so they can't make their own parts as easily.

Well I hope someone has at least learned about this who didnt know before heh.