Open Source Hardware and the Education of the Future

So, at this point I've already ranted on a fair bit about a few of the up and coming technologies of open source hardware and how each of them has the potential to predict natural disasters or inspire the next Google and generally revolutionize the world in once inconceivable ways.

Whew.

I say we take a break. I'm going to take a step back with this post and take a look at something a little more everyday– like say, education.

Do you remember your high school classes? Not the angst of having bad acne and the angst of asking your first person out on a date, but your actual high school classes? Think about them. What were they like in general?

Yeah, kinda boring huh? I mean, some stuff was fun, but there was always a lot more that was just mind-numbingly abstract and seemed to have no connection at all to the life of the average teenager. Even with the good teachers, it's simply hard for kids to relate to some subjects, especially when they can't see a practical point.

But what about when you stick say, a 3D printer in the hands of a competent math teacher and his class? The teacher enters in some code, the machine whizzes away and builds a three dimensional representation of what he's trying to teach. All of a sudden, that stupid disc and washer integration thing isn't quite so impossible to understand; that 3D function actually makes sense.

And that's just the beginning. 3D printing could have a fantastic effect on shop, carpentry, product design, mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, even the humanities with some creativity. Imagine if your physics teacher could reproduce every newtonian physics experiment simply by pumping some design code into a printer and putting the parts together? Imagine if your biology teacher could print out lab-on-a-chips and tissue models for regular class use? Or if your classical history teacher could print out the precise 3D layout of the Roman Forum? Class might actually be interesting!

Even better, imagine a combined computer science and shop class in which the teacher guided his students in making and programming a RepRap with its Arduino microcontroller. Not only would the students learn a lot about basic robotics, engineering, and programming, but the class and the school would then have a very cool piece of machinery with which to experiment further.

Somewhat similar in concept is the "Self-organizing computer course" developed by Shimon Schocken of Efi Arazi School of Computer Science in Israel. At Efi Arazi, Schocken teaches a class in which he . helps his students build an entire computer completely from scratch. Even better, Schocken has completely open sourced all of the lecture talks, software, and other necessary programs, making it possible for anyone with internet access to take the course or parts as they choose. With such a  familiarity with every abstraction level of a computer, his students are well-equipped to deal with practically any level of computer science. As open source advocate and TED fellow Catarina Mota states:

But to me, the major benefit [of Open Source Hardware] is education. More and more, devices are becoming black boxes. People used to understand computers and think of them as tools because they understood how they worked, and now we don’t. Whether we like it or not, technology shapes the way we think, the way we communicate, the way we act, the way we learn. So if we buy a computer or phone and we can’t modify or even understand how they work, our thoughts and actions are dictated by this interface design that we have nothing to do with. We need to understand the objects we use because if we can’t shape them, they will shape us. There are already so many things in our lives that we’ve changed to adapt to the technology we have available.

Thus, if we seize ahold of open source hardware education opportunities, we can both reverse this trend in computer science unfamiliarity, and improve all of the courses we already have. In a time of school budget cuts and the decline of existing programs, perhaps we can come up with a cost effective way of using open source hardware to help arrest the free fall and prepare students for the tech-dominated world. 

Simon Schocken's 2012 TED Talk on the Self-Organizing Computer Course

3D Printing- Open Sourced?

What do you do if, say, your phone case breaks or you need a new coffee mug? Today, you would probably drive to Wal-Mart or Target, find a product shipped thousands of miles from China or Indonesia, and buy it and bring it home. But what if you didn’t have to do this? What if, instead of wasting your time and money driving, finding, and purchasing a product made half a world away, you could simply upload a design file and print it out yourself?

With the growing commercialization of the 3D printer, this will soon not only be possible, but perhaps even quite common. 3D printing, once the province of architectural design and cutting-edge medicine, is rapidly expanding beyond this niche and into people’s homes and businesses. In similar fashion to the PC revolution of yesterday’s generation, advances in industrial technology accompanied by the constant tinkering of open sourcing hobbyist groups have whittled down the price and expanded the potential uses of the 3D printer to nearly the point of everyday practicality. As this process continues, 3D printing may soon reach the tipping point of the mainstream market– with potentially revolutionary consequences.

But what even is a 3D printer? And how does it work?

A 3D printer is exactly what it’s named: a printer that doesn’t only spray ink onto paper like your traditional two-dimensional HP Officejet, but creates actual objects in three dimensions. Essentially, you upload the precise design of your desired product to the printer, press START, and it whizzes away. Each printer works via many different processes depending on the material used, but unlike traditional machining that subtractively cuts excess away from the original, they all produce additively by gradually building the product up. This saves a great deal of resources, making 3D printing relatively efficient compared to the older means of production.

Once, this process was restricted to plastics and plasters that could be easily liquidized and extruded or sprayed from a nozzle, but with the development of technologies such as direct metal laser sintering and electron beam melting, strong, dense elements with high melting points (like steel and titanium alloys) can now be used.

What does this mean for the future? The possibilities are virtually endless, and like in the early days of the computer, still waiting to be explored.

Companies like EOS, Morris Technologies, and Stratasys are focusing on the more certain market, approaching precision-dependent manufacturers and concept companies with the large, specialized, more expensive 3D printers. It is likely that 3D printing’s most transformative near-future success will occur in this area. With a 3D printer, businesses will no longer have to invest large amounts of capital in the initial custom tooling and system preparation that is required for each of their new products. Instead, they will be able to print off sample prototypes and test them with the public at a fraction of the cost and risk. Entrepreneurs also will be able to use this same advantage to test the waters with their ideas. What will result is a new system of manufacturing dependent more on flexible innovation and unique, personalized products than the bulk production of the past.

The future of open sourced personal 3D printers is less clear, but potentially even greater:

This side of the story, the organization that has been at work the longest and probably has the best claim as the founder of the personal 3D printer movement is RepRap. RepRap’s goal as a non-profit, completely open sourced community project is to design the first entirely self-replicating machine. They envision a world in which many of the everyday products we depend on can be made at home by a device that we can completely remake– and that will only improve as it is used by more people. These people will actively share their designs on the Internet and through their continuous crowd-sourced improvements, gradually come up with superior products. Currently, the most advanced RepRap– the Mendel– can make well over half of its own parts, but it will take the successful adoption of circuit-board, sensor, and advanced microcontroller printing mechanisms (RepRap currently works on Arduino) for RepRap to truly become organic. However, even if it never quite manages to completely reproduce itself, the RepRap may soon become a boon for business, edging into the lower (read cheaper) echelons of the entrepreneurial market and performing the same water-testing function of high end 3D printers.

(Watch minutes 2:50-3:20 for a description of how a basic RepRap 3D printer works)

However, if RepRap accomplishes their goal of self-replication and can get regular people to actually buy into this project, they believe that they will have accomplished a paradigm shift in the means of production. Once a few people have a self-replicating machine they can easily share it with their friends, those friends on to others, and so on exponentially – open hardware in its purest, most grassroots form. As their website explains, they will have successfully put “a factory in every home.”

Is this likely to occur? If the PC Revolution has taught us anything, it is that we should never underestimate the possibilities of technology– even if we do not know quite yet how it will be used. Right now, a “China on every desk” seems a little farfetched, but the experts thought the same thing about the Apple II. The impact on business seems more assured, but I agree with RepRap at least to the extent that 3D printing will one day have a big effect on people’s personal lives. Perhaps twenty-five years from now everyone really will be printing off their own coffee mugs. Only the future will tell. 

http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.makerbot.com/

http://www.economist.com/node/18114221

Bring on the Arduino!

This is for sure one of my absolute favorite TED Talks. Really, Really encourage you to take a look at this one for yourself- Banzi describes Arduino far better than I can- but I have summed up the main idea and added some commentary below.

BTW, I take back what I said about Arduino just being for robot making- it goes far, far beyond just that. This stuff has absolutely incredible potential in itself!

The power of this project can be summed up with this somewhat image-inducing line of Banzi’s: “Scratch your own itch.” The Arduino, as a relatively powerful and highly adaptable open license microcontroller platform, gives a viable mechanical outlet to the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of the ordinary individual. Everything about the Arduino Project, from the hardware to the software to the language to the designs of possible devices is open to the general public, allowing absolutely anyone to build and sell what they want without worrying about Big Brother Patent Office. A whole DYI community has sprung up internationally around the Arduino and, in true open source fashion, freely shares and collaborates on the how-to-do’s of their own creative machines.

Even better for clueless shmucks like me, you don’t need years of coding experience or advanced knowledge of mechanical and electrical engineering to use the Arduino. Arduino has its own unique “mash up” that flies above much of the minutiae, while remaining open to the sort of manipulation that hackers dream of.

And learning this mash up is pretty darn easy- instruction can be found via YouTube, Make, Instructables, etc. for practically anything that the Arduino can conceivably do.

Arduino in hand, freaking fourteen year olds can and are making products for governments and world markets. Startups are being formed that use this device in unique ways and major players like Google are employing the Arduino for their own innovation. Individuals are kicking butt, taking names, and developing world-changing- or just awesome- machines. And that’s a good thing in my books. A few of my faves from this video and elsewhere are listed below.

The Ardocopter- super portable small robot heli that the organization Matternet is using in Africa to transport items between villages

Sign Language Glove- converts sign language and gestures to text and/or spoken word

Txt Bomber- spray paints out uploaded political text on walls

Personality Plant- gives live twitter feed to plants, allowing them to tweet you when they need water, etc.

Earthquake Detector- developed by a teen in Chile, uploads information to Twitter

The Enough Already- Mutes the TV whenever certain “overexposed celebrities” are mentioned

Harry Potter Clock- You know, the one that tells where the family is- works by analyzing their Twitter feeds

The Twair- Chair that uploads to Twitter every time somebody farts in it

Secret Knock Detecting Door Lock

Replicator 3D Printer

Laser Harp- Yeah. It’s Bad Ass.

Open Source Game Boy

Daft Punk helmet

Breathalyzer Microphone

Pocket Piano

Opening Hardware Talk

Oy! I’m Henry Ishitani! And this is my blog for Computers and the Open Society, the most kick-ass intro seminar Stanford has ever seen. This blog will be looking into the potentials of a sweet new idea that looks primed to see some serious action in the future: open source hardware. Open source hardware is basically the same thing as open source software, with people from all around the world putting their heads together through the Internet on a project. The main difference of course, is that the focus of each project is not some novel piece of program- cool though that can be- but the designs and how-to-do’s of an actual fully operating machine.

But we’re not just talking toy robots here people (though we are talking that too!). We’re talking tractors. And bulldozers. And dairy milkers. Except these aren’t just any average-joe dairy-milkers. These are dairy-milkers designed by brilliant minds to be super low-cost, super high-performing, and super able-to-be-built-by-practically-any-old-schmuck. Imagine the possibilities!

And so, over the next weeks, I will cover a range of topics beginning with the Arduino Project, the adaptable open-source microcontroller platforms that has every robot-making mad scientist raving. WOOHOO!!! MORE POWER TO THE ROBOTS!!! BRING ON THE SKYNET!!!

After that, we’ll crank the volume to 11 and hit up Open Source Ecology, a project of truly staggering ambitions. OSE’s big idea is the Global Village Construction Set, a system of 50 key industrial machines that you can very nearly build in your backyard and have all the qualities of that dairy milker I mentioned earlier. Now, what would a sensible lad or lady like you ever do with a souped up dairy milker? I really don’t want to know, but I can very easily imagine what a Ghanaian cow herder would do with it- and how it would change his life and kickstart a local economy!

So please, stick with me in the coming weeks and let’s see where this blog takes us. With your brilliant ideas and my killer personality we have a lot to look forward to!