JOIN: Bryan Bishop
Bryan Bishop
My interest is in the therapeutic design engine and personal-scale
manufacturing processes. In particular, I am just now finishing up a
long summer of work in the Automated Design Lab at the University of
Texas at Austin. Most of the time was spent working on the skdb
project- a way of downloading hardware and instructions over the
internet, much like in the linux software worlds, especially for
tinkerers and DIY hobbyists, amateurs or DIY professionals. Simply
put, it's an open source hardware package management system. Press a
button and out pops your biology laboratory, robot army, coffee maker,
etc.- or in the more likely scenario, out pops some instructions from
your printer that instructs you on how to go about assembling that
coffee maker. As many of you can imagine there are some strong
conceptual ties to fablabs, fabratories, reprap, biofabs, and all of
the initiatives that have been popping up on the web (thingiverse,
diybio, openmanufacturing, opensourcemedicine, instructables, ponoko,
shapeways, make magazine, etc.). At the moment the main work is going
into OpenCASCADE integration, a way of linking up an open source CAD
kernel for computer-aided design of hardware, to facilitate the
combination of methods and algorithms developed in design automation.
After this phase is completed, we'll be able to show some demos of
different parts from the library being physically mated together,
which is vital for visual confirmation of mechanical projects.
Some of the packages already in skdb include legos, screws and
threads. Like legos, biobricks can be put together to make new
constructs. Whether or not biobricks are the de facto standard for the
Pink Army mission, there is still a need for (1) design, (2)
fabrication, (3) testing, etc. So, hopefully skdb can contribute to
this toolchain in the near future. Synthetic biology design
automation, toolchains and infrastructure doesn't necessarily require
the OpenCASCADE or CAD integration, so there's a lot of opportunity to
use what work has already been poured into the code base.
I welcome any collaborators who want to scheme it up, or maybe check
out the code repositories, etc. I feel we're on target for that 24 to
36 month plan/deadline.
You can fetch me over e-mail or on IRC (#hplusroadmap on
irc.freenode.net) where other cohorts await.