Babbage builders turn down Kickstarter | Hacker News Reader

Babbage builders turn down Kickstarter

bbc.co.uk

38 pointsuser2422 comments

It's a pity that the BBC focused on that aspect because that wasn't the main point of briefing them (and only came up because they asked): the main point was that the project is actually happening and we need about £250,000 to do the first part.

The first part being... study all the documentation Babbage left behind and build a 3D working simulation of the Analytical Engine. When done that'll be the first time anyone has seen the AE in action, albeit a computer, physical simulation.

And the Kickstarter situation is more complex than just 'costs too much': http://blog.jgc.org/2012/10/why-plan-28-decided-not-to-use.h... And, as I told the BBC, we have discussed using Kickstarter once we come to build the engine itself when it would be more appropriate.

Idea for raising some of that £250k: make and sell to the public replicas of a simpler mechanical computer, the Antikythera mechanism.

There are many mechanical computing devices that could be popular. Slide rules, the (popularised by Gibson) Curta pocket calculator, the Pascaline, Schickard's Calculating Clock, etc etc.

(http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/calculators/1/44)

(http://history-computer.com/MechanicalCalculators/18Century....)

Shame about the angle the BBC took, but the publicity worked at least in part - I've just donated :)

Thank you. It is greatly appreciated.

I think I was one of the first to sign the pledge you first released some time ago, good to see it's coming along. Donated.

John, what software are you going to use to do the simulation?

We don't have a definitive answer to that yet. We've talked to various companies and some experts. If you have specific knowledge of that field I would be very interested to talk to you.

The Analytical Engine will have something like 40,000 parts...

That is amazing, will the simulation be open source at some point, I would love to run that!

Yes. There are a number of reasons for doing the simulation (not least of which is checking that it will actually work), but one is that I want to make the simulation public.

As a charity Plan 28 is set up to educate the public at large about Charles Babbage and the Analytical Engine while building it. That means publishing openly as much as we can. Study has been ongoing for a while now and first public results will be early in 2013.

Will the simulation assume perfect mechanics or try to simulate friction, flex &c based on materials around then? If latter, then strikes me as very difficult project.

When you say 40000 parts, is that 'just' moving parts or every single nut, bolt, rod, plate etc?

When i was doing some 'blue sky' research at an architectural practice a few years ago I looked at a variety of mech eng packages for modelling skyscrapers at a level of detail which would have exceeded 40000 parts. I was interested because they were more advanced than the AECCad software available at the time and had better options for managing complexity. CATIA seemed to be the gold standard, but its very expensive and not at all intuitive. It seemed like we would need specialist technicians to operate it. Solidworks was most accessible in terms of usability. Spaceclaim was interesting but immature and didn't have much in the way of simulation. I didn't like Inventor as much as Solidworks, but that's maybe just because I tried Solidworks first. I dont know if any of these would be able to simulate the mechanical operation of the whole mechanism in one go though. I'd be very interested in hearing what you choose.

"You could say it was the first failed government IT project."

That is a wonderful quote and good luck with the simulation.

Looks like The Register[1] has picked up your clarifications straight from HN and your blog.

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/22/3d_simulation_babbag...

But introduced their own errors: see spelling of my name.

So this is the URL to donate to the project: http://www.justgiving.com/plan28

I think I am a bit odd, but whenever I donate, I opt-out of gift aid, so that I don't have to remember the values for the tax return (hate filling in forms). It's often difficult to opt-out of it too. Sometimes you have to select that the donation is from someone else, or you have to select that you aren't from the UK. It's rarely a yes/no question. Like I say, I'm odd. :)

By the way, good luck. I think KS would have given the project more momentum, but JustGiving is fine too.

We think Kickstarter will be great when we get to the 'build the machine' phase because we'll be able to offer all sorts of incentives related to the physical machine.

I'll definitely donate through kickstarter in the future if I get a cog or something that comes from the main production run.

You only need to remember the values for the tax return if you're claiming the charitable donations against your taxable income. Feel free to opt-in to gift aid and leave the charity section blank.

I am not an accountant so this could all be bollocks, however!

If you're a "normal" UK taxpayer, you shouldn't have to remember anything for any tax return - just tick the box and give them your name and address (so that they can verify you are in fact a UK taxpayer).

If you're not paying UK income tax, you're not supposed to be able to gift aid it, that's kind of the point.

I can imagine it might be awkward if you're self-employed in the UK or something like that; they don't bother streamlining that case.

The title of this article is poor. It's as if Kickstarter was asking them to use the site. No.. Kickstarter is a platform and you can choose to use them or another platform. That's like saying I decided to sell my used car and saying that I turned down eBay because I decided to sell it on Craigslist.

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