Building the future of making
By: Alexandre Jais
Tags: 3D Printing, Design, Hardware

Building the future of making

Dear Rabbit Proto friends and followers,

It has been a long time since I’ve given a public update about what the Rabbit Proto team has been up to, and the status of the project.

During the past 14 months the focus of our work has changed radically. Beginning this next phase of our adventure was a meeting with an early-stage start-up called Nascent Objects. The team led by Baback Elmieh, the founder and CEO of the company, was tackling challenges as utterly crazy as ours:

How could you remove all the complexity involved in hardware product development?

How could you make the development of a wearable or connected device as easy as launching a wordpress blog?

How could you launch your product after few weeks of development instead of months or years?

How could you remove of all the constraints and all the upfront cash needed to produce something at scale?

Rabbit Proto’s vision of bringing tools that enable people to develop hardware products quickly and easily by leveraging all the power of multi-material 3D printing was very much aligned with theirs.

More importantly, when talking to Baback, I could see for the first time a complete ecosystem for new hardware, software and 3D printed electronics. This could change the economics of electronics manufacturing, just like it would create a whole new design language for hardware: what’s an interface now? What is a form factor? Architects and designers had scraped the top of that problem with 3D printing, but getting real interactivity and function naturally integrated is something we wanted to dig into. And now, for the first time, we had a plan to make it happen from start to finish.

We were hooked. So in August 2014, Rabbit Proto merged with Nascent Objects. The challenge was enormous: Rabbit Proto’s technology would have to graduate from Makerbot and FDM printers to production quality prints, increase the conductivity of our compatible materials by more than 10,000 times, and create connectors and interfaces for modules that could be removed and replaced just like the battery compartment in your remote control.

Well, we’ve pulled this off, and so far are the only ones capable of delivering such incredible objects.

We went back to the research lab and completely re-engineered the Rabbit Proto technology to bring it to an unparalleled level of quality, merging best in class 3D printing technology (SLA, ProJet…) with a new material that allows us to transmit high power and high bandwidth signals on our lines. Our focus also shifted from making machines and accessories to thinking about how to make full-sized facilities equipped with this technology that could produce these objects at scale. The printers that we are using are production ready and can make hundreds of parts per bed. It is tremendously exciting to say that we are now ready to show our technology to the world.

Test part with embedded 3D conductive traces

I am writing this email to share two things with you:

Firstly, all the design files for the Rabbit Proto extruder are now fully available on our GitHub page. You have access to the STLs, and a STEP file of the latest version from last year. You can download the schematics, print them and make your very own extruder. Feel free to share and modify! I’ll put links to other key components like the stepper motor for those who want to make their own.

Secondly, we are about to show the world a little glimpse of the possibilities offered by our new process. This will take the form of a product launch for us. In fact, we are launching three products:

Droppler — a water conservation product that allows you to monitor your water consumption by using a microphone to listen to your water fixtures

Streaming wifi speaker with Apple AirPlay and Spotify Support

WiFi HD video camera with streaming and IFTTT capabilities

Droppler and WiFi Speaker

What’s inside of the droppler.

The whole internal chassis (shapes) are 3d printed, and features conductive traces that allow modules to communicate with each other. These modules are another core technology we use: they enclose the macro functions (sound recording, processing, display). The system of shapes and modules make up the world’s first Modular Consumer Electronics platform. Modules can fit inside multiple shapes and transform from one product category into another. Imagine converting a drone into an RC car and then to a bike-computer in less than a few minutes.

This is only a glimpse of what we have in store. We are launching the Nascent Objects platform this year to allow each and everyone of you to produce things using our technology, and sell it through our online marketplace. Meanwhile, you can get your hands on the first products built on the platform by supporting our crowdfunding campaign starting on January 6, 2016 — www.nascentobjects.com/launch

We are closer than ever to making our original vision a reality.

Send me an email at alex@nascentobjects.com if you have any questions!

Cheers,

-alexandre

—

Founder @Rabbit Proto

VP Advanced Manufacturing @Nascent Objects

FAQ

What do I need to make my Rabbit Proto extruder?

Here is what you need:

For your plastic hot-end, feel free to modify the design as much as you want to adapt it to your favorite part, but we’ve had success using this http://seemecnc.com/products/seemecnc-bowden-hotend. Be sure to use enough insulation, fans to get the heat out of the syringe extruder is also a big plus.

A key piece of the design is our stepper motor, you can get them here http://www.haydonkerk.com/LinearActuatorProducts/StepperMotorLinearActuators/LinearActuatorsHybrid/Size11LinearActuator/tabid/75/Default.aspx . There are some cheaper options available overseas, but we were only able to negotiate the price down with volume orders.

10cc Nordson syringes are perfect for all your paste materials, we recommend Gauge 18 or bigger needles.

Lastly a few screws and nuts required to finish the assembly: Type 316 Ss Socket Head Cap Screw, M2.5 Thread, 6mm Length, .45mm Pitch // Type 316 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screw, M2.5 Thread, 16MM Length, .45MM Pitch // Metric Zinc-plated Class 4 Steel Thin Hex Nut, M2.5 Size, .45mm Pitch, 5mm Width, 1.6mm Height. You can find all those on McMaster Carr.

How do I make my own SLA/Inkjet electronic printer?

We are not opening this part of our new development, for now. However, we have streamlined our process so that we can deliver parts to you at the best cost possible and with the highest quality standard. Email me if you have a part idea.

I have an idea for a part/product, what do I do?

Email us! We love to make stuff and we’d love to get in touch even before the platform publicly opens next year.

Will you continue supporting the rabbit proto extruder?

We’ll help the community take over and in the meantime we are committed to answering your questions to the best of our knowledge and experience.

PS: This story is the first of a series I’ll post here about design, philosophy, science, start-ups and everything else related or not to my work.