A closer look at Acorn, our open source precision farming rover
community.twistedfields.com
community.twistedfields.com
One thing I want to share is our broader strategy for success. I got in to 3D printing in 2010 when a $1000 machine was a headache and a $2000 machine was just usable. And I was amazed by the community and the diversity of development that went in to 3D printers such that in a few short years, a decent machine was $300 and an excellent one could be had for $750. And before the patent expired in 2008 they were $25,000! They experienced nearly a 100x drop in price in ten years due to collaborative open source development.
So that’s what I’m hoping to achieve with Acorn. We’re bypassing the expensive patented side of things and jumping straight to the 2010 3D printer level. My hope is that, if I manage the project right by selling open source kits and encouraging independent fabricators, Acorn can be the seed for a new movement of low cost open source farming robots the world over. I’d love to know what you think!
I thought the whole point was you can't bypass a patent.
Nice site by the way—I appreciated the option to skim the pictures rather than skipping through a video.
What I meant about patents was that normally in engineering companies will patent everything, and it ends up making things very expensive. Then 20 years later the patents expire and the thing could become cheap as happened with 3D printers after a community formed around open source designs. I am saying that we are skipping any phase where we patent the design and going straight to open source community development.