As part of a growing trend of “official institutions” embracing DIY culture (see also Chicago Public Library’s Hackspace or DARPA’s partnership with Make Magazine, etc.) Rice University and the RepRap community will be holding their first ever summer fellowship devoted to RepRap 3D printing technology called AMRI: Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute. The Institute – initiated by core RepRap developer, Jordan Miller, and sponsored by Rice University, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Ultimachine, Ultimaker, MakerGear, and SeeMeCNC – is a month-long pilot program that has four fellows conducting their own research projects using Rice’s 1,000 square foot facility and, as the RepRap blog puts it: “3D Printers, electronics and soldering workstations, laser cutters, milling machines, and most importantly, a healthy research budget.” The goal of AMRI, to again quote the blog, is “to provide breakthrough mentorship, infrastructure, and research funding for promising young makers to pursue their interests using the scientific method.” This inaugural session features the research of four makers with four very cool projects. Andreas Bastian is exploring the possibilities of open source SLS by, according to Bastian’s tumblr, “systematically quantifying processes and problems to make this technology accessible to further experimentation” and Anderson Ta is building an open source light curing (digital light projection) printer. On the other side of the spectrum, Steve Kelly is experimenting with the improvement of inkjet 3D printing, potentially with the use of modified bacteria.…
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