The Rise of Personal Desktop Fabrication and Replicators

In October 2004, I began tracking the rise of crude personal fabricators hacked from Inkjet printers. We are now on the verge of self-replicating fabricators and self assembling, replicating, and repairing robots. Here's the whole story...

My research began with the use of Inkjet printers to produce physical objects. The full story is in the above link. It involves hacked Inkjet printers spitting polymer instead of ink to create extremely detailed 3d physical objects. Initially, this was a cheaper and faster way to produce a prototype from a 3d computer model.

But since inkjet technology allows the very exact mixing of 3 basic colored inks into photographic quality results, it was also used to mix precisely charged polymers. A growing array of computer parts, complete working gadgets and solar cells followed from the widening jaw of the humble inkjet.

Polymer soon gave way to new mediums as researchers discovered they could use practically any pulverized material mixed with a suitable glue. Hard objects made from powdered ceramics and tungsten demonstrated that actual working parts (instead of just prototypes) were possible.

Then the pace quickened. Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University coupled inkjet technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots without human intervention. Other labs were using Inkjets to produce actual human skin complete with blood vessels.

The Rise of Personal Fabricators

In March 2005, engineers at the University of Bath worked on a machine to rapid prototype and replicate itself.

In early May, Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, announced his determination to produce affordable, replicating personal fabricators.

Later in May, Hod Lipson (who previously announced the process to design and fabricate robots without human intervention) pointed out the arrival of simple self replicating robots. I'll stay on top of this developing story.

The Evolution of Lego? Self Replicating Robots

Out of Cornell rises a self assembling/ replicating robot composed of independently functioning cubes allowing it to assume a range of three-dimensional shapes. Each cube is preprogrammed with step-by-step instructions on how to replicate the robotic structure.

(This is part of a developing story about the rise of personal desktop fabrication and replicators).

Dismissing any doubt that self replicating machines are possible, the modular design with intelligence built into each module, points a way to self-repairing, assembling and replicating robots.

Applications

More complex robots are possible. Adding grippers, cameras, new sensors etc. would allow the assembled robot to see, hear, move... A robot could assemble and reassemble itself into a new structure to deal with novel events.

The research team has set it's sights on a molecular version. The cubes, like molecules, are held together with magnets that turn on and off. Like biological life forms, they (crudely) replicate in 2005 and programmed to stop reproducing after 2 generations.

Implications

Nanomachines: Lipson is interested in making these machines at microscale. That could drive major advances in Nanotechnology because huge numbers of robots are needed to manufacture things at a molecular scale. Self-replication is how biology does it.

Imagine scaling the size of this self replicating design down in half each year. Increasingly complex structures, detail and properties would emerge. Each new generation would be exponentially more capable. Every 3 1/2 years the modules would shrink to one 10th the size. The cubes are now about 10 centimeters square. By 2010 the modules would be about smaller than the ball of your pen. By 2015 they would approach the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Each with equal or greater computational power than they have now, loaded with sensors and new properties.

Each module could become a pixel in the construction of an object. Kind of like those "Pin Art" toys that you press to your hand, face or some object. It would form itself from instructions and be able to walk, roll, climb and move about. Perhaps even swim or fly. And replicate as long as the supply of modules lasts.

It's absolutely conceivable because Technology is inherently self-accelerating. In an ever quickening loop, the power of technology naturally accelerates in speed, magnitude and scope while dropping in cost.

Beyond that is the doorway to manufacturing with molecules. At the molecular scale it would be capable of producing perfectly designed objects, energy sources, even food. It is a very powerful existence proof of what is on the near horizon.

The movie (accelerated 4X) is eerie to watch. It's easy to imagine a clutter of cubes picking themselves up and walking towards you.

Updated News Here

Review of Neil Gershenfeld: How Personal Fabricators Will Revolutionize Our World

Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, who runs a one-semester smash-hit class called "How to Make Almost Anything", is determined to produce affordable, replicating personal fabricators by 2025.

(This is part of a developing story about the rise of personal desktop fabrication and replicators).

Today we fabricate by melting plastic and whacking metal with a little digital help at each end of the manufacturing process. Soon, the materials we build with will be digital, forming themselves into the shapes we now force atoms into. That's the big change knocking at our door.

Speaking at the Emerging Technology Conference, he illustrated how, within 10 to 20 years:

• Affordable desktop personal fabricators as powerful as an automobile plant will produce most any manufactured product you can imagine.


• The products emerging from these desktop "FabLabs" will be saturated with accelerating computational intelligence.


• They will be self-replicating.

Their ability to self-replicate will ensure they meet the exponentially rising demand. As they rapidly spread to thousands and then millions of people, they will mutate and evolve; enlisted to propagate their own next generation.

The Edge of a Revolution in Digital Personal Fabrication

Neil believes the only thing standing in the way of making this happen is getting the word out. These FabLabs are now only about $20,000. When they begin self replicating the cost will drop like a stone.

One business model involves setting up fab labs within communities. People would create for no charge and useful items would become marketable products.

Download the MP3 here. The discussion on desktop rapid prototyping is excellent too when Dr. Gershenfeld is joined by Dale Dougherty from O'Reilly Media, Bran Ferren from Applied Minds and Saul Griffith from Squid:Labs.