RepRap - Manufacturing for the Masses
Date:
11/11/2010
Time:
1900
-
2100
Event type:
Talk
Event status:
Active
Venue Address:
Weymouth College
Room F129, 1st Floor
Fleet Block
Cranford Avenue
Weymouth
Dorset
DT4 7LQ
United Kingdom
Speaker:
Dr Adrian Bowyer University of Bath.
Dr Bowyer read for a first degree in mechanical engineering at Imperial College, and then researched a PhD in tribology there. In 1977 he moved to Bath University's Maths Department to do research in stochastic computational geometry. He is now a senior lecturer in manufacturing in Bath's Engineering Department.
Description:
Look at your computer setup. Imagine that you hooked up a 3D printer. Instead of printing on bits of paper this 3D printer makes real, robust, mechanical parts. To give you an idea of how robust, think of Lego bricks and you're in the right area. You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself.
This talk will be about RepRap - the Replicating Rapid-prototyper. This 3D printer makes components by building them up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would set you back £12,000. And it isn't even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop
and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about £300).
That way it's accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world. We are distributing the RepRap machine entirely free to everyone using open-source - so, if you have one, you can make another and give it to a friend... http://reprap.org
Additional Information:
IMPORTANT: Please obtain a Car Pass from the college reception,
VISITORS WELCOME,
REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED FROM 6:30pm
Link to more information:
IET Web Site
