D3D Fusion thesis
Requirements
Conditions of satisfaction (technical)
- One day build?
- Host # number of data-collecting workshops?
- Print quality?
- ...
Requirements for approval of Distributed Enterprise goals
- It is an enterprise, generating income?
- Does it dog-food its own products?
- Is replication of the enterprise at the core of its strategy? (Does it train its own competitors?)
- Are there free licenses on all source code and design files?
- Other ethical requirements?
- Is it a productive enterprise?
- Is product produced in a short amount of time?
- Can the enterprise produce a range of different products?
- ...
Compliance with University Requirements
- Presentation with opponent?
- A written thesis following thesis guidelines?
- ...
Hopefully, we'll also be able to formulate some goals.
Goals
- Building web-based community, like a MOOC?
- Achieving actual workshop propagation?
- Getting other collaborators on board?
- Usage of OSE distro?
- Created good FreeCAD introduction for OSE distro?
- ...
Earlier Work
Printer Designs
Troublemaker 1:
- Proprietary formats for some of the files, AutoCAD (dwg) - [1]
- NC license - license incompatibility issues. Need to resolve if we use any of these files.
Troublemaker 2:
- Blog Post 1 - [2]. Design spec is to be full open source hardware.
- Blog Post 2 - [3]
- License not stated at repo- [4]
Lulzbot
Lulzbot has an open source bed leveler. http://lulzbot.com
Prusa Mendel:
It was the first printer to be realistically build-able during a weekend workshop[5] (this was 2009-2010). It's printed parts took 10 h to print, compared to the 20 h of its main contester at the time of release, the Sells Mendel[6]. Many Reprappers wanted to print printers for their friends at this time, so it received a lot of initial interest for its short print time[7]. It established a reputation as easily customizable.
Josef Prusa was active in the community[8], listened to feedback and the git repo was updated almost every week. Mean days between commits on master branch: 5.5[9]. He would travel the world giving workshops, and managed to pay airplane tickets by pre-selling the printed parts to workshop participants.
Estimated number of Prusa or remixed Prusa printers by January 15 2014 worldwide, based on retailers' summed estimates[10]: ~70000 to 80000 (300 of these printed by Prusa himself)
He currently sells printers assembled and kit printers[11] through an OSHW enterprise. Most customers by January 2014 was companies[12].
MOST lab workshops
The MOST lab has a very similar concept. They have
- Their own kit and kit supplier
- Detailed online documentation describing both how to build the printer and how to host a workshop
- Gathered data from workshops
- Free software source code and design files
- A separate Train-the-trainer program
Seed Factory
Dani Eder had a similar initiative in 2013, called Seed Factory. He wrote a Wikibook where he introduces several useful concepts and shares lots of engineering knowledge.
Difficulties
- Making actual potential workshop instructors in a short time. I (Tobben) have never seen a newbie that became a good instructor in < 1 year. Confirmed by MOST lab having separate (and very detailed) train-the-trainer program.