Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
for 3D printing. Instructables
5
is a
website used by designers to share their inventions; here, they can docu-
ment their design processes in a step-by-step manner. Instructables also hosts video, photo, and written documentation
for products. GitHub,
6
a website for sharing source code, encourages social coding through the
ability to branch, merge, and fork projects. To read more about documentation, refer to
A Range of Products and Industries
Open source hardware projects span many sectors, including industrial machines, agricul-
ture, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, distributed sensing, environmental mapping,
disaster relief, space exploration, biotechnology, transportation, education, sustainable en-
ergy, and robotics. Various companies and inventors choose to use open source hardware
for different reasons.
This section covers some open source hardware projects that are being developed
across specific industries and describes products that incorporate elements of mechanical
fabrication, electronics design, and software stacks.
Industrial Machines and Agriculture
for a fraction of their commercial costs, with the ultimate goal of creating an efficient open
source process to increase innovation through open collaboration. Open Source Ecology
is an international collaboration of people who come together in different configurations
for development opportunities, including design sprints and workshops. They aim to devel-
op accessible blueprints for industrial and agricultural machines, called the Global Village
Construction Set (
Figure 10.3
).
