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Hacking 3D Printers

Open 3D Printers print plastic, right? Well, mostly, but that's boring. What you probably want them to do is to print metal, make stuff out of chocolate, and strap lasers to their frickin' heads.

The whole point of making Open Source 3D printers was to provide a platform which could be hacked. A platform that could do whatever you wanted it to do. This presentation shows them not as extruders of plastic snail-trails, but as versatile 3D robots eager to grasp new tools and do your bidding with them.

Vik Olliver

Vik Olliver is a longhair Open enthusiast who does actually make a living out of Open hardware. He is best know for his work in the RepRap 3D printer core team but enjoys diddling with all manner of Open projects, from Alcohol to Zero-emission transport.

He spends a lot of his time expounding the virtues of Open to the world, and encouraging local groups to collaborate in an ethical manner. He has a Green philosophy but eats meat and doesn't do any of the airy-fairy crystal wavey stuff.

With his wife Suz, daughter Tamara, and a few lesser mortals he runs a factory, Fab Lab, and open workshop in Henderson. This notionally produces Open 3D printers and printer filament, but in practice gets used as a brewery, metal foundry, CNC emporium, hydroponic garden and zombie apocalypse refuge. LCA delegates are welcome to drop by.

He also raises a pride of arrogant cats.