fields

RepRapUp

On the weekend of the 19th / 20th March, a group of technical midwives assembled the parts of a 3D printing machine that were printed by it’s mother at University College London in February of this year.

The build was part of the PayItForward – Altruistic 3D printing project.

Basically it means that someone with a Rep Rap 3D printer commits to printing the parts for another party. When assembled with some extra bits and pieces, it means that another printer is made. From this new printer the team are expected to print further parts for another team – and so on until everybody has a Rep Rap in their kitchen!

The RepRapUp event was the second in the chain and we think that Plymouth and Dundee will inherit our babies!

The build began from 12:00 midday on Saturday and continued  throughout the night until 12:00 midday onSunday when it was complete – albeit without the extrusion head. But other than that it worked very well!

On the Saturday evening we had three short talks to explore the implications of 3d printing and the emerging making culture as society develops its first generation of ‘prosumers’ (Tofler 1980). Tofler describes ‘prosumers’ as a possible future type of consumer who may become involved in the design and manufacture of products, so they could be made to individual specification. Tofler argued that we would then no longer be a passive market upon which industry dumped consumer goods but a part of the creative process.

Talks were by Andy Law, Chris Speed and Holli Cooper.

RepRapUp also featured as part of the Material Rites exhibition that runs from the 18th – 31st March.

For more details check out the project blog:

http://reprap.cottagelabs.com/