Comments on: Feynman’s Path to Nanotech (part 3)

By: Accelerating Future » J. Storrs Hall’s Feynman Path Proposal to MNT

Accelerating Future » J. Storrs Hall’s Feynman Path Proposal to MNT — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:24:39 +0000

[...] story were (a) self-replicating (”Reduplicating”) and (b) scale-shifting (”Pantograph”). 3. Why hasn’t the Feynman Path been attempted, or at least studied and analyzed? 4. The Feynman path involves more than MEMS 5. Is it worth starting now? 6. Some of the Open [...]

By: the Foresight Institute » Feynman’s Path to Nanotech (part 9)

the Foresight Institute » Feynman’s Path to Nanotech (part 9) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:26:51 +0000

[...] in part 3 I wrote: It seems clear that a major step toward the Feynman Path would be to work out a scalable [...]

By: Hervé Musseau

Hervé Musseau — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:47:33 +0000

Doesn’t the RepRap now build 100% of itself (but still does not assemble)?
Since the assembling is at the human scale, and we have in many other settings machines that do this work of assembling, it seems that what is needed to complete the RepRap is a companion that can assemble – and which be built by RepRap and assembled by this assembler. Thus RepRap+assembler would be fully self-replicating.
[nope -- only the plastic parts, about half --jsh]

By: Forrest Higgs

Forrest Higgs — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:46:35 +0000

“A reasonable start would be a deposition-based fab machine, a multi-axis mill for surface tolerance inprovement, and a pair of waldoes.”

We’ve pretty much got the first two going and the third is on my “to do” list.

By: Samuel Carlisle

Samuel Carlisle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:57:26 +0000

It is fair to say that the reprap is not a true ‘self-replicator’ according to the von Neumann definition but I think it important to remember that there is a synergy between man and machine in any manufacturing process.

The synergy is as follows: machines are good at manufacturing component after component to the same tolerance, precision, quality or dimension. Machines achieve this effortlessly because of their constraints in terms of both the degrees of freedom of their motion and also their mechanical and structural properties. Humans may find this difficult due to boredom and because our muscle movements are inevitably subject to some random variation.

In the case of assembly, man tends to find the variety of complex motions, alignment, orientating the work piece and applying the correct pressure fairly trivial.