14 DAY TRIAL // The RepRap project managed to give birth to something that you might call a printer only if you think outside the box. The RepRap (Replicating Rapid-prototyper) device is able to replicate and update itself whenever it is necessary. In order to update itself, the unit prints its own parts.
According to software developer and artist Vik Olliver, one of the persons involved with the 3D printing project, the regular 3D printer is able to build components out of polylactic acid (PLA), an environmental-friendly polymer made of milk. However, it cannot replicate itself, and its manipulation is far from being piece of cake.
The RepRap printer, built by an international team scattered across New Zealand, the UK and the US, allows users to create their own printer. The developers offer its technical details and sketches for free, so any user who feels like investing $2000-3000 into a 3D printer can create their own machine to play with.
Olliver claims that the machine can be available to anybody, including small communities in the developing world. The RepRap machine is also distributed under the hardware equivalent of the GNU/GPL license.
The open source project hopes to improve the 3D printer's design and operation mode by involving the community. "So it can do what people want it to do", says Olliver. "Improvements will go back to users and, in this way, the machine as a whole evolves," he continued.
Although the 3D printer can perform small-scale miracles, there's always room for better, and the RepRap team plans to add some extra functionality to the machine.
"We want to make sure that everything is open, not just the design and the software you control it with, but the entire tool-chain, from the ground up," Olliver concluded.
The device is still in an experimental stage, but it already allows users to shape some of the things they need, in an unique manner. However, the team expects that, once it gets more and more popular, people would start using it the wrong way.
"We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia," he says. "This is obviously not what we're hoping they are going to build. We are hoping they are going to build more and better RepRaps."