3 ms·
3D Printing and Self Replicating Machines In Your Living Room - Seriously
- tjic 18y agoGroan. It's the RepRap. AGAIN. Google's got 93 hits on RepRap being mentioned here at news.yc. As I've said before ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295880 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295880 ) I am dramatically underwhelmed. The construction is shoddy, the technique (basically hot-glue extrusion of thermoplastics) is hackish and has poor tolerances, the concept of "self replication" is grossly dumbed down (a very very large number of parts are not constructed, even from high quality inputs, but just store bought), etc., etc. In short, I was fairly embarrassed for the RepRap folks. Their toy is somewhat cool (although nowhere near as cool as, say, the Gingery lathe that is cast from aluminum melted in a cast iron cookpot, and machines itself as construction progresses), but to claim that it represents any important step forward in self replication ...