Peer2Politics

Pick-and-place (PNP) machines are the robots that grab and drop tiny components onto circuit boards. Designed to make thousands of boards an hour, these super-fast machines are part of the multi-part ballet that is modern manufacturing. And they’re amazingly expensive – sometimes reaching into the millions of dollars.

Our colleague Hephaestus, has already embarked on his 3D printer voyage, and so we thought it time to come on board. Being advocates of Open Source, what better way to start than RepRap. RepRap takes the form of an almost free desktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic objects. Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself – a kit that anyone can assemble given time and materials. It also means that – if you’ve got a RepRap – you can print lots of useful stuff, and you can print another RepRap for a friend…

While trying to start up a makerspace in my home town of Rome, Georgia over the past year or so, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this trend called “the maker movement.” It boils down to people banding together in communities to start workshops for creating, inventing and tinkering. Admittedly, I have a tenancy to over-think things like this, and to seek meaning in places where I should just accept that “it just is.” Easier said than done for me.