Saturday, November 06, 2010

 

The Gada Prize

We are pleased to announce that Humanity+ has taken over the hosting of both the Initial and the Grand Gada Prize for Personal Manufacturing.

These prizes are offered for free and open-source RepRap machines that are significant improvements over the current generation of machines.

To stand a chance of winning you have to register your intention of entering and to publish your developments regularly - we all wanted to make sure that the prizes didn't drive people to develop work in secret, as that would be the exact opposite of what RepRap stands for.

Seventeen teams and individuals have already entered. Entry is free.  It is also still open, and will be for quite a while.

So why not have a go!

Comments:
I dont really get it.
There are many teams on the reprap wiki focusing only at one area, like plastic recycling, or tissue printing.

If I read right on the actual description at http://humanityplus.org/gadaprize/ , there are numerous quite strong requirements.

So even if somebody builds a machine which can take plastic garbage, and outputs perfect 3mm diameter filament, he is not qualified for this price, because he fullfill no requirement.

Here are the requirements:
* Ability to print at least three different materials, including one that is usefully electrically conductive.
* Ability to print electronic circuit boards.
* Print beds† must be of a material which may be reused with minimal refurbishment for at least 20 print cycles.
* Maintain a total materials and parts cost under $200 and that 90% of the volume of the printer parts be printed.††
* Demonstrate a build volume of the printer above 300x300x100mm in order to ensure that items of daily utility can be printed.
* The capacity to print a full set of parts for a complete replica of itself within 10 days unattended save for clearing no more than one printer head jam.
* Ability to print autonomously without a PC attached.
* Uses no more than 60 watts of electrical power.


Its a specification for a dream 3D machine. It cant be built within 5 years...
 
Your right, things like the recycler are not necessarily directly applicable to the first prize (Gada). That is not to say more people aren't working towards the Gada goals in a less official capacity.

As someone who builds and designs RepRaps I disagree with your comment about the impossibility of this challenge. I was actually surprised they set the deadline so far in the future given its reasonably achievable criteria.
 
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