Topic: Self replicating factories in your basement.

[Nemesis]

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However, conventional rapid prototype machines cost around £25,000 to buy. But the latest idea, by Dr Adrian Bowyer, of the University’s Centre for Biomimetics, is that these machines should begin making copies of themselves.

These can be used to make further copies of themselves until there are so many machines that they become cheap enough for people to buy and use in their homes.

Dr Bowyer is working on creating the 3D models needed for a rapid prototype machine to make a copy of itself. When this is complete, he will put these on a website so that all owners of an existing conventional machine can download them for free and begin making copies of his machine.

[Bonk]

Ever see the "Replicators" episodes of Stargate? 

Self reproduction... one of the requirements... a little spooky I must say. (and I'm a technophile)

Virtually all authors who have considered life from the point of view of molecular biology have regarded the property of self-reproduction as the most fundamental aspect of a living organism. —John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

One of my favorite texts...

[Nemesis]

Ever see the "Replicators" episodes of Stargate? 

All of them up to the end of season 7 (I have the DVDs).

One thing though.  This machine would produce the components for a replica but you as the owner would need to assemble it.  It also isn't mobile.  Of course those are limitations to V1.0.  V2.0 might be "better", kamtriyah.

[Nemesis]

Something to make with your relica factory.  A home builder.

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Limited Quote from Discovery article

In a sunny laboratory at the University of Southern California, a robotically controlled nozzle squeezes a ribbon of concrete onto a wooden plank. Every two minutes and 14 seconds, the nozzle completes a circuit, topping the previous ribbon with a fresh one. Thus a five-foot-long wall rises—a wall built without human intervention.

The wall is humble but portentous. “If you can build a wall, you can build a house,” says Behrokh Khoshnevis, an engineering professor, as he watches the gray mixture squirt out in neat courses from what he calls a contour crafter, a machine about eight feet tall and six feet wide. If all goes as planned, Khoshnevis will use a larger, more advanced version of the device later this year to erect the first robotically constructed house in just one day.

[Nemesis]

Replicator research?

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Emerging Technology
Self-Assembling Robots
The future belongs to shape-shifting machines that don’t look like humans
By Steven Johnson [stevenberlinjohnson.com]
DISCOVER Vol. 26 No. 04 | April 2005 | Technology

The M-TRAN II robot, developed by the Japanese Distributed Systems Design Research Group, looks at first glance as if it’s assembled out of those cheap plastic adapters you buy to plug two appliances into a single socket. The robot’s designers call these white units modules, and M-TRAN—shorthand for “modular transformer”—is made up of about a dozen of them. Each module contains two 2 1/3-inch blocks linked to each other. Each block can rotate 180 degrees around the link that connects it to its mate, and each module contains a magnet that can be switched on and off, enabling it to connect to other modules in the system.

What M-TRAN lacks in animatronic magic, it makes up for with flexible design. The modules can rearrange themselves into countless different shapes and create dramatically different patterns of movement. M-TRAN can configure itself to look like those relentless Imperial Walker transport vehicles from the Star Wars films, marching steadily on four legs. But it can just as readily shape-shift into a long string of modules, allowing it to inch along like a caterpillar or slither across the floor like a snake. Alternatively, it can pull itself into a wheel and roll or creep along the ground with its legs splayed out like a spider’s.