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Replication revolutionary
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12/12/2006
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A decade or so ago, the concept of the home office was revolutionary, but the web and broadband have made it a perfectly ordinary lifestyle for millions. But what about a home factory: a production line in your sitting room capable of manufacturing lots of different products, virtually for free? Surely that is a pipedream?
Not if Adrian Bowyer’s plans come to fruition. The senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at Bath University’s Centre for Biomimetics is leading a project called RepRap – the Replicating Rapid Prototyper.
One element of his plan is rapid prototyping, the automatic construction of physical objects from 3d software models. This is a well established, but expensive technology, way beyond the resources of most individuals.
The extraordinary idea underlying RepRap is the first part: self replication. A rapid prototyper can build many different objects. So why not make one that can build a copy of itself? If you can do that once, you can do it again and again. Result: the cost falls to virtually nothing – just the raw materials – and RepRap machines become available to millions.
If it works, it will be the best application yet of one of the most beguiling ideas in the whole of technology: self replicating machines.
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Author
David Boothroyd
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