Ars Technica's beginnings are rooted in a community that has always tinkered, built, and modded computer hardware. As it has evolved, the do-it-yourself philosophy has also triggered other communities that make their own stuff. Most recently, the "make movement" has made a name for itself in the world of open source hardware and hacking. The movement covers a broad range of interests, edging into some hardcore do-it-yourself projects. Some groups meet in hackerspaces, but the movement at large seems mostly based on the spirit of building things yourself or with other people.
This month, svdsinner started a fascinating thread in the OpenForum titled "Forums and the modern make movement." He started the thread by discussing "The modern open source hardware/hardware-hacking movement that has arisen with the advent of ultra-low cost micro controllers, the skyrocketing usefulness-to-cost ratio of interesting electronics sensors like gyroscopes, accelerometers, etc., and the new e-commerce-enabled ease of buying a vast array of inexpensive electronic components regardless of whether they are 'available locally' or not. There is a huge alpha-geek driven culture (personal fabrication, 3d printers, home CNC, hobby robotics, rapid prototyping, quad-rotators, etc.) that while on one hand is a perfect fit with the targeted readership of Ars, has no place in the open forum where it can be discussed where it would not be out-of-place."
Other readers in the thread noted that they'd like to see a dedicated space for some of these make projects in the Ars OpenForum. We are taking in all these recommendations from the Forum as we evolve the topics and forums in the near future.
Though the definition of a make project can be quite broad, svdsinner provided a nice list of different types of makers out there: Engineer-types who just love to have an extensive toolset to fix/build whatever they want, robotics tinkerers, academics, small businesses, artists, and of course, alpha geeks. If you feel there's other types of projects that fall under the definition, be sure to let us know in the comments or via our Ars pages on social sites.
Ars reader Chuckaluphagus has started his own RFID Teddy Bear project, and is hoping that there will be interest in him chronicling his project in the forums. What's more, that post brought out other makers out of the woodwork. If you have a project similar to his, or simply want to bounce ideas off other members in the forum, you can add your contribution to the thread or register for an account to get started.
We'd like to ask you, the readers, where to take this next. Would you like to see expanded coverage of makers and their projects? Like some of the readers in the thread mentioned, should there be a dedicated space in the OpenForum for make projects? Let us know what you think.
Listing image by Photograph by AndyNor
reader comments
83