Towards Self-Replicating Rapid Prototypers 285
Neil Halelamien writes "Researchers at the University of Bath are developing a rapid prototyping machine capable of making copies of itself and other products, reminiscent of the Universal Constructor proposed by von Neumann. The so-called Replicating Rapid-Prototyper (or RepRap) would produce items from raw materials and small components like microchips. If successful, this could make rapid prototyping cheap enough for regular in-home usage, especially since the project's lead, Dr. Adrian Bowyer, will be releasing his project's designs under the GNU GPL. It's previously been proposed that a similar system would be useful for space exploration and industrialization."
DMCA (Score:2, Funny)
Skynet? (Score:2)
Because that's the only thought that keeps popping in my head.
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:4, Funny)
At least it's not a dupe about duping robots...
Re:Great... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Great... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
I am currently writing a textbook "Introduction to the Elements of Matrix". It is based on all the hints given in the movie. The findings will revolutionize the science. Not possible? It is inevitable.
Re:Great... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
In any case, it maybe we useful to find the Laxian Key in time...
Re:Great... (Score:2)
Moral? Read the fine print.
evolution and Self -disassembler (Score:5, Funny)
Actually what you really want to do is to build a set of evolving self-assembling robots that get their parts by disassembling other robots. That way there is evolutionary pressure to evolve faster and faster self-assemblers.
*eep* (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:*eep* (Score:2)
I certainly did, but unlike most posters I actually searched first to see if the topic was already started. <g>
These things are supposed to orginate in another galaxy, though. Why do they have to take over ours first? Thor? Help!
Re:*eep* (Score:2)
FOR NOW
Casual discussion after 10,000 years (Score:3)
New archeological evidence seems to confirm the idea that our race was actually created by some ancient living things called "humans".
This is interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
FPGA (Score:2)
Re:This is interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is interesting (Score:2, Informative)
Evolution isn't, in itself, a random process. It incorporates randomness, but it also incorporates natural selection, which is like anti-randomness, in the same way that the random walk of an ant is mediated my the feedback from its sensory apparatus. You're right that it's not terribly efficient, but it's running on the ultimate massively-parrallel simulation hardwa
Re:This is interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems to me there was a bit about this years (like maybe 8 or 10 or more) ago where someone had built a bunch of simple boxes and set up a set of tasks for them to perform, a system for the box to re-write or evolve its own code, and a reward system for good performance.
They let this dozen of so boxes percolate for a while
Re:This is interesting (Score:2)
They tried creating a new design based off the final iteration, without unused components - the design didn't work. It seems that even though some components weren't even connected to the system, they system wouldn't function without them! - the quantum level ef
Re:This is interesting (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adri
Cheers.
Re:This is interesting (Score:2)
The problem was, that the experiment was set up too cleanly. Put the resulting machines in a different temperature enviroment, or change their voltage slightly, and they'd stop working.
Evolutionary algorithms work best in a more chaotic enviroment.
I think the purpose of the experiment was to get code that was better than the best human programming. They got it, sort of.
Re:This is interesting (Score:2)
I have always been interested in applying evolution to computer chips
You don't apply evolution. Evolution applies itself. If you apply it it isn't evolution, it's design.
Re:This is interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is interesting (Score:3, Informative)
Newlines aren't considered significant in HTML, except for <pre> elements and maybe <code> or <ecode>
I typed this message using the extrans (html tags to text) and keyed in newlines where you see them.
This is interesting and OFFTOPIC (Score:3, Informative)
Slashcode has been behaving interestingly for a few years now.
Using only Plain Old Text you can insert
any of the
allowed
HTML tags.
me
you.
If you will.
how
these last two spaces happened without any formatting tags.
Showing that this is, indeed, Plain Old Text mode.
Re:This is interesting and OFFTOPIC (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thank goodness (Score:3, Insightful)
Creaming their pants, most likely... just imagine... 1) plant in "customer" network, 2) wait and watch it "grow", 3)then send in the BSA goons for some profit^H^H^H^H^H^H liscence violations... it'd be like money that grew on trees.
And that's not mentioning all the money to be made for the liscence compliance software "White Blood Cell" that seeks out and destroys these illegally spawned copies on the custom
Re:Thank goodness (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Interesting)
As molecular manufacturing(1) matures, I'd venture to guess that the new artificial scarcity cartels that emerge will be MUCH nastier. Something scary, like the MANWO (Manufacturers Association of the New World Order) :-)
Right now the means of digital [re]production is available to all, and it's got a few copyright-extending control-freaks pissed about losing their empire. When you get to thinking about the implications of the means of physical [re]production being democratized, then you start getting dizzy wondering how society and the scarcity-based trade economy will reorganize itself (hopefully without much chaos).
((1)Note that this ultimate goal is now called "molecular manufacturing", since the previous general term of "nanotechology" has been co-opted by buzzword PR people to mean whatever they want it to mean.)
Re:Thank goodness (Score:2)
Tin-foil Hat Time... (Score:5, Funny)
Universal Constructor link (Score:5, Informative)
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Constructor [wikipedia.org]
From the article:
A clanking replicator is an artificial self-replicating system that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation. The term evolved to distinguish such systems from the microscopic "assemblers" that nanotechnology may make possible.
Such a machine violates no physical laws, and we already possess the basic technologies necessary for some of the more detailed proposed designs.
A self-replicating machine would need to have the capacity to gather energy and raw materials, process the raw materials into finished components, and then assemble them into a copy of itself. It is unlikely that this would all be contained within a single monolithic structure, but would rather be a group of cooperating machines or an automated factory that is capable of manufacturing all of the machines that make it up. The factory could produce mining robots to collect raw materials, construction robots to put new machines together, and repair robots to maintain itself against wear and tear, all without human intervention or direction. The advantage of such a system lies in its ability to expand its own capacity rapidly and without additional human effort; in essence, the initial investment required to construct the first clanking replicator would have an arbitrarily large payoff with no additional cost.
On a completely different note, does anyone else remember the Slylandro probes [classicgaming.com] from Star Control 2?
Universal constructor (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently there already is a self-replicating system out there; the system is capable of manufacturing virtually any kind of tool, machine or technology known. To make new copies of itself, it uses only common materials from the environment- water, oxygen, vegetable matter, protein, and that kind of thing. Unfortunately, top computer scientists and engineers are having trouble figuring out the self-replication process. Apparently, it involves some mysterious mechanism known as "sex", which takes place with a "woman". Anyone else know any more about this?
Re:Universal constructor (Score:4, Funny)
Not a clue. Wish you could remember a link for that. Sounds like a neat technology to have.
Re:Universal constructor (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Universal constructor (Score:2)
Re:Universal Constructor link (Score:2)
Of course, bag of mostly water. My glowy bits tingle with excitement just thinking about it.
Sounds like life... (Score:2)
According to the Wikipedia definition of Life [wikipedia.org], consuming and using resources sounds a lot like metabolism. The "ability to expand its own capacity" sounds like growth. It can rebuild and maintain itself, and assuming this could also be in response to external, environmental factors, it can respond to stimuli. It can make a copy of itself, which seems to fit the definition of asexual reproduction.
Of course
Re:Universal Constructor link (Score:2)
heh (Score:2)
Dammit, now I have to go play Starcon 2 [sf.net] again...
Tea, Earl Grey. Hot. (Score:3, Insightful)
Really though, I find the adoption timeline to bit a little bit optomistic... 5 to 10 years for it to become common place in homes? It's taken 5 to 10 years for the internet to catch on, and that doesn't require bulky equipment. Perhaps in the next 50 years before I'm gone, but not in 5 to 10.
My 2cents...
But man, I'd live a childhood fantsay to order my tea from a replicator.
Re:Tea, Earl Grey. Hot. (Score:2)
Re:Tea, Earl Grey. Hot. (Score:2)
Re:Tea, Earl Grey. Hot. (Score:2)
Re:Tea, Earl Grey. Hot. (Score:2)
while(1)
{
ReplicateSelf_Fork();
BuildSoldierRobot();
SendSoldierRobotOffToFightEastasia();
}
(cyni cal? who, me?)
bigger than fire (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:bigger than fire (Score:2)
This would have a huge impact on Capitalism. A very interesting prospect as it would put people on more of an even footing. If one could self replicate most products on the cheap there would be no need for the whole supply chain. This technology may be just wh
supply siders (Score:2)
Re:bigger than fire (Score:2, Interesting)
Replicators will just speed up the process a tick.
bowels? (Score:2)
Um, I'll pass on the plastic bowels, thanks.
Re:bigger than fire (Score:2, Insightful)
Huge economic change (Score:5, Interesting)
www.tinaja.com/santa01.html
Once everyone has a machine in their basement, the economy of the world will be turned on its ear. Consumer goods will cost only the price of their materials. The cheap labor advantage of India and China will vanish. The nature of products will change. Right now, it makes no sense to make something repairable. It is cheaper to build something that can't be fixed and throw it away. When we get very distributed manufacturing however, things will be built with only one or two raw materials. Things will be built so they are easy to assemble. It would make sense to build a new heating element for your coffee pot. Waste would go down. Recycling would become much more immediate and local. People would share designs the way we now share open source software. Quite a different world would result.
Re:Huge economic change (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm afraid not. Think software. Consumer goods would no longer be sold they would be "licensed".
Re:Huge economic change (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you have that exactly backwards. It is only the high cost of manufacturing a new instance of something (above a certain price limit) that lets us repair anything at all now. If we had make-anything machines, we would not repair anything. We would simply feed the broken thing into the machine's materials hopper (perhaps with a lil' something extra in case of lost parts) and tell it to make a new one. New lamps for old -- literally.
N.B.: If the make-anything machine uses a high enough amount of energy, this could still be uneconomical and your repair scenario might make more sense. Alternately, you could consider the re-creation process to be a kind of ultimate repair.
You got that much right. In fact, garbage dumps might become valuable mines of material.
Re:Huge economic change (Score:3, Interesting)
How much energy does it take nature to grow a potato using only sunlight and the available nutrients in soil and air? How much energy for it to be broken down in some animals stomach and eventually return to Earth? Ideally a make-anything replicator shouldn't be that much less efficient except for objects with molecular bonds that take much more energy to make and break, and even then, it only makes sense to break the object down into reu
Re:Huge economic change (Score:2)
An equally good question is how long does it take? If we were willing for a super efficient replicator to replicate itself over the course of a 9 month pregnancy and a 13 year gestation period, it might not take that much energy at a given time. But we're even more special-purposed than these machines would be, and we take a bloody long time and a lot of energy to self-replicate. If you
Re:Huge economic change (Score:2)
Definitely, that's why I've always said that if anybody ever does manage to make a self-replicating machine that can make all kinds of useful things, they should not try to patent it and profit from it themselves because they'll likely wind up dead. The only way to create such a machine and survive is to spread the plans on the internet and whatever other media possible so as to make it pointless for those that have to rethink their whole business model, to kill him an
ARG! (Score:2)
The GPL is not for matter, it's for bits.
This is aweomse, now the farmer can just replicate anything he need, and doesnt have to waste all his time growing me food to eat! Woohoo! Not that I'll be able to pay for food anyway, since noone will have any need to bu yanything I make either.
That said, this is still decades away
Re:ARG! (Score:2)
It's great idea to rel
But what about the children? (Score:2)
Exponentially? Theyre going to need materials and energy for that. And where is all that material and energy going to come from? Hmm... in the competition between machine life and organic life, who will win? Will the machines ever believe their ancestors were made of meat [terrybisson.com]?
Short perusal, questions remain... (Score:2)
1) What is this thing capable of making (besides itself)?
2) How much human effort is involved in getting it to make anything? (ie: what resources are required, how must they be arranged, can this thing build several instances at once, or must it be "refilled" every go round...)
3) How many of us (if any) got viruses from downloading and reading that word
Re:Short perusal, questions remain... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not even that. Almost all rapid prototyping machines can only print in one material at a time, usually some form of plastic. The resolution and material properties are not good enough to build any complicated mechanical parts such as the XYZ tables used
Re:Short perusal, questions remain... (Score:2)
Don't worry about #3, that was supposed to be a joke... (Mind you I've always measured my humor in groans.)
Seems to be in early state (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Seems to be in early state (Score:2)
Maybe they should work with the MIT Fab Lab [mit.edu] people (see their overview [mit.edu], or the Wired article [wired.com] by Bruce Sterling).
I hope they've read about Trurl and Klapaucius (Score:2)
In all seriousness, though, this project is awesome, and I really hope it works out. This could potentially result in as big a change as the industrial revolution.
Re:I hope they've read about Trurl and Klapaucius (Score:2)
Nigger?
Nookie?
It'd help if you ACTUALLY described what you talk about. I really dont want to read some book to understand a simple comment (and Im not into postmodernism related crap).
Re:I hope they've read about Trurl and Klapaucius (Score:2)
Required materials & handling technologies. (Score:5, Insightful)
- Structure: The core parts of the device need a strong, stable material that can hold everything together.
- Motion: The device needs materials that convert energy into mechanical motion. These materials might include electromagnetics, electrostatics, piezoelectrics, shape-memory alloys, chemo-dynamic protein muscles, thermodynamic cycle systems, etc. Each of these types of motion-creating materials has special needs/chemicals that might require special handling devices that, in turn, must be made out of the materials in the self-replicating device. Motion is often tricky because it requires specialized assemblies of materials (think of the complexity of a simple DC electric motor or the gears and linkages in a robotic arm).
- Control: The device needs some form of logic that can read some analog of a blue-print, ROM, DNA, etc. and direct the fabrication process. If based on standard electronics, this would include materials that act as insulators, conductors, and semiconductors.
- Power: This may be the trickiest because creating sufficient power requires purified, highly engineered materials. Self-replicating a modern alkaline battery would be quite a feat. Perhaps the semiconductor technology of the control materials could be leveraged for solar panels.
I suspect that one of the trickiest part of all this is in handling and converting bulk materials (usually a liquid, powder, or solid ingot) into a shaped and controlled component or assembly. The replicator must interface with raw materials supplies, move bulk materials to a fabrication point, and convert the bulk material into a usable component in its offspring. Space exploring self-replicators face an even greater challenge of processing raw space materials (moon rock, asteroidal metals, etc.) into refined feed-stocks for replication.Its a tricky problem, but one that we will eventually solve.
This is only a temporary problem (Score:3, Insightful)
You as the user will buy 1 pack of plastic, one pack of metal and one pack of varied electronic components (expect many flavors to this kind of pack).
Those pack will be extremely useful for other gpl-hardware writers (don't forget that anything that uses the code of the original machine is GPLed too!).
As the system gets more evolved you might have to buy 7 different metals and then ma
You know... (Score:2, Funny)
Not as close as the blub makes it seem. (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, for a good book on the social implications of cheap universal constructors, I suggest the Stephenson's book Diamond Age.
--
Want a free iPod? [freeipods.com]
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. [freegamingsystems.com] (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof [wired.com]
Evolutionary Self Replication (Score:2, Interesting)
http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/doc/vinge [uidaho.edu]
and then chose the html document.
Re:Evolutionary Self Replication (Score:2)
The article was excellent. Best read of the day.
What they really did (Score:5, Insightful)
All this was done in a very crude way, as if they were developing a process for home use. Their metal casting technique is scary. They used "Wood's Metal", which is a solder-like alloy of tin, lead, cadmium, and bismuth. All of which are toxic. Lead and cadmium cause heavy-metal poisoning, and the body won't clear either of them. No serious precautions seem to have been taken against inhalation - they just used gloves. At one point they tried powdered metal, which is much more of an inhalation hazard than molten liquid. They need to run their people through the usual checks for heavy-metal poisoning.
There are rapid prototyping machines that deposit metal [prometal.com], and that's probably a more useful direction.
All this is a long, long way from self-replication.
Re:What they really did (Score:2, Informative)
MSDS [jtbaker.com] here.
Those other three, you probably don't want to be stuffing the turkey with, though.
Re:What they really did (Score:3, Informative)
Bismuth is in Pepto-Bismol and tin in in some toothpastes (look for "stannous fluoride"), though I think it's no longer in "tin cans".
Back on topic, isn't the right way to do this to build an ecosystem of specialized assemblers? Adam Smith's famous pin factory showed the advantage of division of labor for an industrial process. In nature, we don't have any single life form that fixes nitrogen, photosythesizes, and aerates soil.
It looks like they're on track for a build-most-thin
Much Better Rapid Prototyping Machines Exist (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, can anyone predict where this leads? (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus it can manufacture itself, so if you really want to, you can make a couple more. Personally, I think it'll take a while before a commercial entity will offer a product that will compete with it. It makes no financial sense. They'd sooner make an appliance that can manufacture anything *but* itself. But let's skip to the point where someone built a self-replicating machine, and much like gmail accounts, sooner than not everybody's got one for himself and 6 or 50 to give out to his friends.
2. You stop buying a major percentage of the stuff you use on a daily basis.
3. Some companies, from many sectors, who make stuff that you've been using go out of business. Not a bad thing in itself. Many whip-makers went out of business when cars were invented and horses stopped being the preferred means of travel. It's the natural course of technology.
4. People make more and more stuff that they need out of raw materials.
5. Raw materials become more scarce. No more plastics in the bin. Plastic Recycling plants get no more plastic cuz nobody's throwing it away anymore. The price on anything made from materials useable at home rises dramatically.
6. Things we cannot manufacture at home yet which we still buy and are made of said materials, say your car, go up in price due to higher material costs.
So you pay less for your plates and but more for your car.
7. New content market: Designs. Expect the DIAA (you heard it here first).
We'll be pirating our dishwasher plans from P2P, paying for raw materials, making it at home. Designers will be watermarking (plasticmarking) their designs. Ripping groups will be removing the marks. Machines whose designs we steal and which we built will call home over the net to activate unless we download a hacked version.
This time around, it won't be just the music industry clinging to their antiquated business model. Suddenly every company that sold you a plate, cup, PDA case or pen will want to sell you PENS (where you pay per item) rather than a design of a pen (where you pay once to get the design). First they'll laugh at you, then they'll fight you (and this time around will probbably have a humongous lobby compared to what the RIAA has today), and then you'll win of course, those of the companies that managed to strip off the bulk of the no longer neccesary manufacturing from the price of what you buy making it to the next round.
Change indeed.
Like software or music, all over again.
Already exists, it's called life (Score:3, Interesting)
Rapid Prototyping still a pipe dream (Score:4, Informative)
The circuit board rapid prototyping machine was basically an X-Y plotter with a Dremell tool motor that moved up and down. It cut lines on the surface of a copper-coated fiberglass board.
The cheapest machine to do this still cost about $10,000. Plus you had to have the PCB all ready laid out and ready for manufacture. It was slow, loud, and difficult to calibrate. I did a rewrite of the manual in English in order to clarify lots of little details needed for efficient operation. My rewrite came to 40 pages. And this is just to make a simple circuit like an op-amp buffer.
The machine 'ate' milling tools like gumdrops, at about $17 each. One tiny mistake, and your board was toast. Our fearless leader couldn't grasp that our primary competition wasn't the other circuit board milling machine maker, it was SPICE and the offshore inexpensive board houses where you could e-mail your Gerber files and get back finished professional PCBs by FedEx letter within a few days at much less cost than the materials alone would cost for the milling machine.
A great idea and product turned into a dead-end job, a white-elephant product, and a brick wall of cement-head management.
The point is, any 'rapid prototyping' machine will have a long way to go before it does anything relevant and productive. It will be many decades before any machine attempting to claim to be a 'general-purpose' rapid-prototyping machine will be anything more than a very expensive laboratory curiosity; the subject of speculative psuedo-scientific articles just this side of the science-fiction line.
Re:Rapid Prototyping still a pipe dream (Score:3)
Granted, at the time you guys were doing this stuff, it might have been significantly more expensive, but it's not actually difficult today.
DOC (Score:2, Funny)
Von Neumann machines? (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone quotes Terminator and Stargate, but the classic cinematic portrayal of a von Neumann machine was the Monolith as seen in "2010: The Year We Made Contact".
The Monolith turned out to be a self-replicating multipurpose tool, and was described by Dr. Floyd as a von Neumann machine.
Asimov hit this topic? (Score:4, Interesting)
Essentially, the premise is that a meteor falls out of the sky one night, where it is observed by a few people. When they arive at the site, it is bustling with miniature robots. They call the government, and the gov shows up to observe, but by then the robots have built little buildings. Some robots are strip-mining, and they eventually build a little refinery, then more robots, then a bigger refinery... and a launch pad. By the end of the story (and by the time anyone realized they were in danger), the robots had built themselves little rockets, and were now shooting their seeds of new robot colonies around the country, soon to dominate the world, totally dispassionate for whatever was there to begin with... it just wasn't in their programming.
To boil the story down, some long forgotten alien race had created the ultimate automated factory, traveling from star system to star system to collect rare materials, and ship it back for the long ride home at sub-light speeds. Its a self propagating system, that as they spread from system to system, asteroid to moon to planet, the geometric growth would provide their civilization every material they would ever need...
Re:Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Obvious (Score:2)
Re:Obvious (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Obvious (Score:2)
Re:Obvious (Score:2)
Re:Long time coming, problably (Score:4, Insightful)
Seen Forbidden Planet? Bad idea.
Re:Long time coming, problably (Score:2, Insightful)
Except even with this you wouldn't be able to legally make anything you wanted, because copyrights and patents still exist. It's sort of like getting a CD burner and saying, "Now I can burn anything I want."
Re:A far cry from sci-fi. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does it come with parental control? (Score:3, Funny)
Man- when I was a kid- it was so hard to get porn. There was one magazine that was handed down year after year. Soon- kids will be able to download and manufacture their own sex toys. Man- I grew up in the wrong era.
Re:Way to Destroy Earth!! (Score:2)
Get the rockets ready, Martha!