A story of replication and journalism
Giles Turnbull
I pitch a story idea to a national newspaper, and they say it's
"interesting," but they don't actually commission an article.
I think it's interesting too, so I decide to write it anyway. If they
don't want it, someone else will.
The story is this: the RepRap project, overseen by Adrian Bowyer from
his office at the University of Bath, is nearing completion. The team
have very nearly got the machine to make a copy of itself. And
according to Bowyer, the whole replication scene is reaching a point
similar to the point that computers reached in the early 1980s. Soon,
he says, there will be RepRap homebrew kits, self-replicating
themselves around the world.
These kits, like those early 1980s computer kits, will only be
interesting to a small group of enthusiastic nerds.
Bowyer believes that the future of self-replication will follow a
similar path. Just as homebrew computers became cheap consumer items
found in every home, he thinks replicators will end up in every
kitchen. The cost of making the replicators themselves will plummet,
as the quality of replicated goods improves and the speed of
replication increases. Neighbours will replicate parts for neighbours.
And, Bowyer is keen to stress, this will all be happening under the
open source umbrella. Of course there will be commercial replicators
from big-name brands; but alongside it there'll be a thriving
alternative scene offering cheap replicated replicators, the design
and concept protected by open source licences.
*And* there is the environmental angle. Bowyer sees no reason why
these future replicators - as far advanced from their primitive
beginnings as today's iPhones are from the Sinclairs and Acorns we
grew up with - shouldn't be able to use household waste as raw
material. Why not throw plastic waste into a hopper at the top, and
leave it to stew for a few hours? Tomorrow, you can make it into a
camera.
Oh yes, says Bowyer, consumer electronics are perfectly possible. The
RepRap team have made basic circuit boards out of plastic and Field's
Metal, which melts as a very low temperature. You can melt it in a cup
of coffee.
http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/thermo/thermo4.html
He can't see why a camera can't be replicated, or any other common
object. Household replicators will probably offer a menu of items, in
a manner similar to the iTunes music store. You point at what you
want, then wait for the machine to build it.
"There's no constraint on musical creativity now; anybody can write
music and distribute it to millions of people on the internet. There's
no need for anyone else to be the middleman. The same thinking
applies: what is the point of anybody being being the designers of
things and the people who use them?"
All this, of course, will have consequences.
"We want to do to manufacturing what the MP3 format has done to the
music business," was what Bowyer told me in his lab.
The lab is a scientist's playground. It smells of melted plastic and
chemicals. There are long benches with racks above. A Lego model sits
on one of the racks. ("Lego is the most amazing stuff," Bowyer says
with a grin.)
In the corner furthest from the door sits the RepRap. It looks
ungainly, clunky, like something from the last decade. Indeed, the
idea is older even than that. Bowyer says the concept was first
proposed by David Jones in the Ariadne column, in New Scientist
magazine on 3rd October 1974. "He meant it as a joke."
Bowyer goes on:
"This could have a huge effect in the poorest communities on earth,
too. Not only could they make their own machine cheaply, but they
could grow their raw materials. Polylactic acid can be grown from
starch. So then your raw materials are renewable and biodegradable
too. All you need is the energy to run the machine, which isn't much
at all.
"Once you have machines that can make copies of themselves, the growth
rate can be exponential.
"You have manufacturing without transport. You can also recycle much
more stuff, and it's carbon neutral - in fact, you can be locking
carbon up in the objects you make, which would make it carbon positive
under some circumstances."
Bowyer's office - far from the lab, along many twisty and bewildering
corridors - is typically academic. Not messy, but not tidy either.
Bookshelves cover all available wall space, except for a few family
mementos. His desktop PC is hardly up-to-date, but runs Ubuntu fast
enough for him to get by. He shows me how they design 3D objects for
RepRap. He shows me one of the prototype circuit boards, and it looks
very rough, almost as if it's hand-made.
I ask him: "Would you say this is the most important thing you've done
during your career?"
He shrugs, looks to one side and smiles. "I suppose this is the most
interesting piece of engineering I have ever done."
I leave Bowyer and stride through the corridors of the engineering
department. Outside, the ugly architecture of the University campus
allows a chilly wind to howl down the narrow gaps between buildings.
Driving home, I'm confident that I can sell this story to *someone*.
The RepRaps-as-1980s-computers sounds to me like the best angle. It's
another computer revolution, ready to spring forth.
In the coming weeks, I email almost every contact I know. No-one's
interested. I feel deflated, but hang on to the hope I can sell the
story somewhere. Weeks pass, and the details fade from my mind.
Even more weeks later, I see the story appearing in various places,
including some of those I'd pitched it to. At first this angers me,
but I can't allow it to. This is how the business works. Sometimes you
have the right idea at the right time, and sometimes you have the
right idea at the wrong time.