What cool open source stuff I have learned about since joining the luf-team Yahoo group! Reading The Millennial Project for science fiction research, as I recently blogged about, led me to the luf-team Yahoo group. It’s always nice when something cool falls into my lap without effort. So often in life, I have put a lot of effort into various endeavors, only to find that, my efforts have proven counter-productive to my current goals. When one good thing leads to another good thing effortlessly, it helps to make up for life’s little ironies. I have learned that there is actually such a thing as open source hardware! How exciting!

The Fabber, a Fabulous 3D Printer You Can Make At Home

One of the most exciting inventions I have ever encountered is the Fabber. The Fabber is a 3D printer that people can make themselves, using open source instructions and readily available materials. It can be used for rapid prototyping. Theoretically, anything that you can design in 3D modeling software, you can print using the Fabber. Think of your 3D object as being cut into hundreds of tiny slices. Each slice is printed out in 2D on top of the previous slice. That is sort of how the Fabber works. The big breakthrough is that the Fabber is in reach of the budget of garage inventors, unlike commerically sold 3D printers.

Just imagine somebody sitting at their computer, feverishly creating the parts of a fantastic machine using 3DS Max or some other 3D software. It looks like a science fiction illustration when all the components are put together and simulated. Then they hit a button and print out the parts using their fabber. Now imagine if the material used in the Fabber was biodegradable plastic made out of hemp. Just think of hundreds of people sitting in their robes and slippers making biodegradable machines to save our civilization from the unsustainable dinosaur machines of the petroleum era. Think of E.F. Schumaker’s “Small is Beautiful” motto. Just imagine that all of these inventors can do what they want without being compelled to learn to dance with elephants, as they would if they had to do their work in tandem with huge corporations. Maybe that’s not a picture of you. Maybe you just want to prototype a 3D warrior elf you made in Poser. You can do that, too. To learn more about the Fabber, visit the Fab@Home Wiki.

You Go, GoGo Board!

Another promising example of open source hardware is the GoGo Board. The GoGo Board is sort of an open source computer that can be used to make your own robot, interactive art, game controller, scientific tool, educational simulation, or anything else that you can imagine and build that needs to use a computer. You can make your GoGo Board out of parts that you can find in electronic stores around the world, at a relatively inexpensive cost. If you are an artist who wants to explore what you can do to with a computer to make your creation interact with your audience, you can do build a GoGo Board. If you want to build a solar powered robot, you can do that, too. Imagine what you could do with the combination of the GoGo Board and the Fabber. You could make your own parts and hook them up to your own computer. You could easily make an interactive, kinetic sculpture that you designed in your favorite 3D modeling software. Anything that you can program or design, you can make. Open source is not only for code anymore. Of course, you can’t make enormous things easily, but just as with the Fabber, you can make “small is beautiful” things.

You May Say I’m a Dream Machine, But I’m Not the Only One

If you’re not excited yet, just imagine making a Dream Machine, a Fabber and a GoGo Board. You could convince your spouse, children, parents or friends that you’re a mad genius, for sure! Think of the fun. All that, and you don’t even need to ingest a chemical or liquid substance. With these simple and easy plans to build a Dream Machine, you can sit there watching the picture show of your own imagination unfold. A Dream Machine works by causing light to pulse in a way that stimulates the optic nerve and alters brainwaves. This causes a person to enter a sort of waking dream state, in which they see pictures. All they have to do to snap out of it is to open their eyes. You could sit in front of your Dream Machine stimulating your creativity. With your head full of ideas, you could create your invention or sculpture in your favorite 3D modeling software. Then you could print it out using your Fabber and make it computer powered using your GoGo Board. Provided you had a small budget available to you and a space in which to work, nothing would stop you from doing something like this, except the constraints of your own time, skill and imagination.