►
Description
Discussion with Adam Blumhagen. He works at tech transfer at U. Missouri, Columbia. Collaboration discussion.
https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Adam_Blumhagen
Interesting discussion on open hardware business models and solving pressing world issues. Small problem? Go proprietary. Wanna solve big issues? Go open source.
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B
C
I
I
think
I
saw
your
ted
talk,
probably
in
2013,
okay
and
then
I
I
just
I
had
some
inventions
over
the
years
that
I
kind
of
went
into
the
public
domain
and
I
figured
you
know,
there's
I
couldn't
patent
them
that
so
what
what
could
I
do
with
them?
And
then
I
started
starting
to
think.
Well,
maybe
maybe
you
would
be
interested
in.
A
A
B
A
C
A
You
can't
do
you
can't
do
recycling
with
3d
printers
for
various
reasons
and
we're
trying
to
crack
that
that
puzzle,
and
that
is
large
printers
high
temperature
chambers,
so
large
printers
high
temperature
chambers
definitely
do
not
exist
in
a
in
an
open
source
and
they
don't
even
exist.
I
haven't
really
seen
the
kind
of
large
scale
we're
talking
about
because
we're
talking
about
actually
four
by
four
by
eight
foot:
heated
chambers,
meaning
hot
once
170.
C
B
A
Otherwise,
you
can't
print
with
anything
outside
of
very
easy
to
print
plastics.
So
if
you
have
any
higher
temperature
plastics
that
are
really
sensitive
to
temperature
gradients,
the
thing
just
doesn't
delaminates
and
you
can't
print
with
it.
You
can't
print
with
common
plastics
right
now.
You
can't
print
with
polyethylene
polypropylene
this.
The.
B
C
C
A
C
C
In
their
logic,
technology
development
group
wasn't
so
much
development.
It
was
mostly
babysitting
a
really
expensive
machine
and
trying
to
keep
it
maintained,
make
sure
it
wasn't
producing
particles
and
was
making
thin
films
within
a
tight
tolerance,
which
I
know
it
sounds
really
exciting,
but
it
really
wasn't
for
six
years.
So
then
I
I've
been
wanting
to
come
back
to
I
got
in
their
tech
transfer
office
started
january
of
last
year,
yeah
and
it's
it's
pretty
interesting.
B
A
C
C
A
C
C
Like
one
of
the
things
I
showed
at
the
portland
maker
faire
was
a
very
large
foam
cutter,
so
it
was
have
you
seen
the
polar
graph
drawing
robots?
It's
got
stepper
motors
in
the
corners
and
pulleys
in
the
middle.
They
have
like
a
pen,
so
you
can
use
it
as
a
pen.
Plotter
there's
also
there's
a
company
that
made
a
cnc
just
like
that
called
it
was
maslow
cnc.
Now
it's
maker
made.
C
C
D
C
D
B
C
D
D
B
C
C
B
C
C
They
hire
a
bunch
of
phds
in
science
that
don't
necessarily
know
anything
about
software
and
the
the
company
would
have
software
needs,
and
so
the
the
engineers
would
write,
write
the
software
for
them
and
it
would
be
awful
software
and
it
would
take
a
long
time
to
to
to
make
wouldn't
work.
Well,
would
break
down
the
engineer
would
leave
and
so
that
nobody
would
keep
it
maintained.
C
So
another
reason
why
you
would
have
a
company
like
this
is
that
you
know.
Let's
say
you
can
only
do
a
very
small
thing.
You
are
the
expert
in
that
thing.
So
then
it
is,
you
could
easily
set
it
up
so
that
people
make
money
to
do
the
things
that
they're
good
at
and,
if
they're,
not
good
at
it,
don't
waste
time
paying
them
like
a
normal
job
would
to
just
you
know,
fill
a
seat
so
because
I
feel.
C
I
wasn't
an
expert
a
lot
of
the
times
that,
in
the
things
I
was
doing
at
intel,
but
they
just
needed
somebody
and
they
needed
to
keep
me
busy,
because
you
know
they
hired
me
and
I
was
fine
with
acting
like.
I
was
worth
that
money
right,
but
I
I
kind
of
knew
better
but
yeah.
So
there
are
a
lot
of
a
lot
of
drawbacks
to
the
traditional
business,
but
as
far
as
the
open
source,
I
think
I
think
it
does
need
the
profit
motive.
C
I
agree
with
all
that,
but
I
think
that
incentives
to
to
improve
your
product
to
give
products
that
your
customers
want
to
invest
your
time
and
money
into
creating
those
products
to
to
keeping
your
know-how
so
that
the
free
riders
don't
come
along
and
take
take
your
product
yeah
the
risk
of
investing
all
those
things.
I
I
think
you
need
to
have
that
that
profit
incentive.
A
B
A
D
A
D
B
A
B
B
A
D
A
A
D
A
D
B
D
B
C
Okay,
yeah
because
at
least
with
the
rep
rap,
it's
my
understanding
that
they're
making
money
by
producing
the
printer
themselves
that
yeah
it's
open
source
but
there's
still
a
decent
amount
of
know-how,
at
least
at
the
beginning.
It
was
still
kind
of
difficult
to
to
build
something
like
what
they
can
produce,
and
so
those
people
who
aren't
willing
to
spend
the
time
to
learn
how
to
do
it
are
buying
the
rep
raps.
B
B
B
D
B
A
Like
that
and
yeah
so
think
of
the
the
open
sources,
it's
just
a
development
method
and
we
all
know
that
it's
more
efficient
in
software,
that's
we've
that's
been
shown
in
hardware.
It
hasn't
it's
much
harder
in
hardware,
because
we
have
200
years
of
industrial
history.
That
says
you
can't
make
a
business
without
being
proprietary
that
started
with
a
steam
engine
with
the
industrial
revolution,
but
it's
very
much
alive
today.
So
nothing
has
changed
on
that
in
the
last
200
years.
C
I
I
I
think
I'll
tell
you
more
about
the
the
two
projects
I
was
thinking
about
yeah
working
on
and
maybe
we
could
through
working
through
it.
Maybe
we
could
figure
something
out
like
a
way
to
make
it
successful,
but
before
that
I'm
wondering
maybe
more
general
what
what
is
your
business
model?
What
are
the
ways
that
you
are
making
money
or
want.
A
On
being
open,
so
so
so
an
open
model,
we're
saying
yeah,
we're
actually
training
people
to
do
this,
in
fact,
to
replicate
the
enterprises
that
we
do
so
we
actually
can
train
people.
If
you
want,
we
teach
you
right
now
how
to
start
a
business
building
the
3d
printers
things
like
that.
We
call
it
distributive
enterprise,
that's
kind
of
a
different
model
where
it's
it's
in
the
grand
economic
theory.
It's
not
about
this
redistributive
economics
that
we
live
in.
It's
about
distributive
economics.
A
A
A
The
open
source
products
as
distributed
enterprise
products,
which
mean
that
you,
you
agree
to
one,
keep
it
open
and
contribute
back
to
the
development.
So
once
there's
enough
traction
of
enough
people
actually
producing
these
things,
then
that
that
mechanism
starts
to
work.
It's
like
an
open
source.
C
D
D
A
So
ideally
we
never
get
in
a
position
like
that,
but
that
may
happen
like
once
we
get
traction,
but
the
thing
to
note
is
like
just
just
like
one
big
picture
that
I
want
you
to
get
your
head
around
is,
if
you
do
open
source
you're,
not
working
on
on
trivial,
open
source
does
not
work
for
trivial
goods.
It
works
for
solving
pressing
world
issues.
In
my
opinion,
I.e,
if
you
have
a
problem,
that's
bigger
than
anyone
can
solve.
You
need
to
collaborate
with
others.
So
let's
talk
about
problems
like
self-housing,
self-energy,
so
self-poverty.
A
D
C
C
D
D
A
D
A
B
A
A
A
That
actually
has
been
now
that
I
think
about
it
actually
has
been
shown
very
clearly
because
think
about
open
software
before
linux
was
was
a
disease,
the
the
virus
that
would
eat
up
all
the
profit.
Now
microsoft
is
the
number
one
supporter
of
open
source
right.
So
we
see
that
the
people
who
who
use
who
knock
it
off
first,
because
I
mean
they
all
use
open
source
they
build
upon
it.
They
may
not
admit
it,
but
initially
they
wouldn't
admit
it.
A
A
A
That's
an
artifact
of
proprietary
development.
Nobody
ever
got
together
to
actually
solve
all
the
problems
that
all
the
diesel
engines
have
like.
Maybe
one
is
better
at
this
or
another.
It's
a
perfect
example
of
the
limits
of
of
proprietary
development
and
we
think
that
kind
of
stuff
goes
away.
You
actually
have
a
product,
that's
like
bam,
better,
faster,
stronger
kind
of
deal,
so
yeah.
C
C
A
A
C
C
C
The
free
rider
problem
with
that
is
is
very
real
and
very
apparent,
because
if
they
spend
a
billion
dollars
and
don't
recruit
that
money,
you
know
somebody
else
can
easily
come
in
after
fda
approval
and
start
producing
that
drug
still,
they
would
need
to
get
their
own
fda
approval,
but
it'd
be
a
lot
easier.
The
second
time
around
5
10
anyway,
a
little
a
little
less
extreme
to
that
is
just
somebody
making
an
invention.
C
I
like
what
you're
doing
because
companies
don't
have
to
spend
as
much
money
to
develop
that
product,
so
there's
less
risk
and
less
need
for
that
monopoly
to
to
make
up
for
all
the
r
d
money
that
they
will
have
to
spend.
But
I
there
are
just
some
industries
that
are
super
expensive,
like
at
intel.
You
know
a
fab
costs
10
billion
dollars,
not
including
the
equipment
and
materials
and
engineering
labor
to
to
produce
microchips.
C
B
B
C
A
D
C
A
B
A
D
A
D
A
C
C
C
D
D
D
B
A
C
D
A
C
C
A
B
C
C
C
D
C
A
D
B
C
A
it's
a
lot
of
work.
I
mean
the
sbar
they
they,
they
think
is
like
average
150
hours
and
then
depending
on
which
agency
you're
going
through
but
yeah.
I
think
this
could
help
developing
countries,
so
I
would
think
that
there
should
be
some
money
in
that
as
well.
I'm
I'm
fine
with.
If
you,
if
you
give
me
the
permission,
I
will
go
and
contact
these
companies
for
you.
I
didn't
want
to
do
it
without
you
being
okay
with
it,
but
yeah
I
I
can.
B
C
C
A
B
C
B
A
D
D
D
C
C
D
D
C
C
A
D
C
A
Kind
of
low-hanging
fruit,
because
we
we
know
how
to
build
large
frames,
all
steel
and
the
universal
access
system
that
we
have
it's
pretty
much
low-hanging
fruit
for
us
to
do
that,
yeah,
we've
done
some
prototypes.
Let
me
send
you
the
what
we've
done
or
the
latest
one
that
we
have,
which
is
it's
called
d3dcnc
torch
table.
D
C
So
any
imperfections
get
magnified.
So
the
idea
is
to
come
every
single
layer
and
planarize
right
and
and
then
also
go
in
and
clean
up
just
the
outside.
So
the
idea
is
you're,
not
spending
a
bunch
of
time,
removing
a
bunch
of
material
because
there's
only
a
little
bit
of
material
that
you're
removing.
So
your
your
feeds
and
speeds
can
be
very
low,
but
it
doesn't
matter
because
you're
not
removing
much
material
yeah.
Let
me
show
you
another
picture.
D
D
A
You
know
in
terms
of
potentially
collaboration
like
or
sbr
grants
is
there
what
would
it
look
like
to
actually
hire
somebody
to
to
collaborate
with
us
to
run
with
one,
because
I
mean
we've
got
so
many
different
things.
We
can
do
that
on
from
aquaponics
to
the
housing
to
the
machines,
renewable
energy.
C
B
B
A
C
B
D
A
C
C
I
I
could
help
I
could
help
with
that
too.
I
could
help
you
put
together
an
nsf,
it's
kind
of
nice.
They
have
it's
a
short,
a
short
form
and
then
you
can
get
feedback
really
quick.
I
mean
they.
They
want
to
have
feedback
within
three
weeks.
Whether
or
not
you
should
submit
a
full
proposal
and
the
full
proposal
is
a
decent
amount
of
work.
A
C
C
A
C
A
C
C
C
C
A
C
Point
where
I'm
kind
of
I
might
so
when
I
went
to
machine
the
metal,
I'm
just
using
those
rubber
belts,
pulleys
and
nema
17,
pretty
weak
motors,
so
it
when
it
it
started
machine
it
it
pulled
it
out
of
like
it
moved
it
moved
the
the
motors
skipped
so
anyway,
I
need
to
change
to.
I
want
to
change
to
a
chain
chain
drive
and
then
larger
nema
23s.
A
Well,
if
you
want
a
three-day
immersion
in
that
we're
doing
that
october,
so
we've
got,
I
mean
a
bunch
of
people
are
going
to
be
here
or
in
the
next
two
weeks
we're
actually
going
to
right.
Now,
we've
been
doing
a
lot
of
work
on
the
house,
but
we're
switching
over
to
the
cnc
machines
actually
on
monday,
so
we're
going
to
be
breaking
out.
The
larger
stepper
motors
and
building
upon
the
large
axis.
D
B
D
D
D
A
D
D
A
D
A
D
A
B
A
A
A
D
A
B
A
B
C
C
B
C
C
A
C
So
you
can
see
these.
It's
got
these
flaps,
it's
really
hard
to
see
in
this,
but
if
the
wind
is
blowing
towards
it,
it
actually
closes
those
flaps
and
then
and
then
as
it
spins
around
it
opens
those
flaps
well.
This
is
not
a
very
good
prototype
because
it's
so
small
that
yeah,
so
it's
so
small,
the
the
moment
of
inertia
is
too
small,
and
so
it
yeah
or.