M aker

“Wealth Without Money”

A machine that can make almost anything, including copies of itself. By Matt Sparkes

QUIETLY AND DILIGENTLY, IN LOCATIONS all over the world, an organization is working to bring the means of production to the masses. Their motto, “Wealth without money,” implies a political motivation, though they’re not socialists, Marxists, or communists — they’re hardware hackers.

Adrian Bowyer, at Bath University in the U.K., leads the RepRap project ( reprap.org) to develop a design for a very special rapid-prototyping machine. The device treads a fine line between being capable enough to produce complex goods, and simple enough in design that it can produce its own parts. The result is a self-replicating machine, with the potential to spread across the planet at an exponential rate.

The RepRap (Replicating Rapid-prototyper) is a fused deposition modeling machine that extrudes molten plastic or metal from a heated nozzle. It works in an additive fashion, building up an object by depositing layers one by one. The nozzle is controlled by a computer, which moves it in three dimensions to create the necessary shape.

The machine’s replicating ability alone is enough to provoke interest in the project, but the really interesting part is what could be made with it — and Bowyer has some potentially revolutionary ideas. “Making complicated things is not a large step,” Bowyer says, “certainly not as large as the step from making nothing to making simple things.”

For example, RepRaps could someday build an open source mobile phone network by creating

Photography courtesy of RepRap

38 Make: Volume 10