3D Printing looks like it might be becoming the New Lego… ie: sooner or later, everything has a 3D Printed variant… and you haven’t really “arrived” until someone has made you in Lego.

So Theo Jansen Machines have arrived…

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I kindof collect Theo Jansen machines… here’s another one, which overlaps with this other vague interest I have about 2D trying to break into 3D

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There have been a couple of these recently – robots that do actually look quite… biomimicitous – largely because they’re starting to use soft coverings over exoskeletons I think.

This particular mechanism looks similar to some of Theo Jansen’s machines.

This however I can’t resist because it combines so many of my favourite threads – Theo Jansen Machines, Arduinos, Rapid-Fabbing AND the designs etc are open-source, and up on Thingverse, inviting people to adapt/evolve.

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Instructions / Materials / photos etc here

The bits are for sale or you can make them yourself etc… this seems to be an emerging trend with open-source hardware. Varying levels of kitset completion, priced accordingly… so if you don’t want to solder, you buy a slightly more expensive, slightly more complete one. In this case the only choices are, 1) do it all yourself, 2) buy the parts and assemble yourself.

But is it useful for anything?

Indirectly maybe – we’re learning how to do open-source hardware.

What we need I think is some sort of template – some macro-format that allows a standardised way of presenting/storing designs/part-lists/instructions/photos/videos/change-logs etc etc. We can probably apply what we’ve learned from software – but hardware is different.

By Paulo Nenflidio via Make

He also did this

Which is a soundscape thing with little baby Theo Jansen machines and a spider going up the wall on a string.

It’s art man. No one can tell you what to do.

This is a classic example of what I’m always going on about… about what I find interesting about the phase we’re going into.

Theo Jansen makes these

If you haven’t seen them before, check them out on youtube.

A segway is this…

Which is an invention that came out with a load of hype, and… well, sortof fell flat on its face really. It became an instant dorkmobile, although it would be a hell of a lot of fun, on carpet, when drunk.

Again, it’s one of those things that doesn’t really become interesting until the innovation side of things is thrown to the crowds.

Apropos of nothing, this also caught my eye

What could possibly go wrong?