RepRap

June 30th, 2009 at 09:50pm Creative

Weird connections sometimes happen… Gardening to We Think in a simple leap and bound… bear with me on this…

Having put together the Urban Gardening exhibition for Urbis last year I have taken to gardening in a big way. Now in my second year I saw that my nicely maturing redcurrant bushes were covered in what I learnt to be aphid eggs. When I investigated closer I was attacked by soldier ants, my hands getting covered in the little blighters protecting the pests munching away on my bushes.

So I set about finding out what was going on…turns out ants and aphids have a symbiotic relationship whereby ants love for honeydew (greenfly poo) leads them to farm aphids who produce the stuff to sate their sugary appetites.

I was intrigued by this idea of symbiosis between species and insects and insects and plants which led me to this…the RepRap…watch the video below for the connection.

Now, getting back on the 2.0 train of thought, here’s an idea that has implication for Urbis blogs recent thinking about social networking, free software and community led creativity and takes Charles Leadbeater’s notion of we think to a whole new level – we manufacture, anyone?

(and yes I know this got a load of press in 2005 but it’s finally coming to fruition having rightly made it to the finals of the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards in the “Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything” category)

RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

Entry Filed under: Urbis