This document discusses open-source hardware and the Arduino platform. It provides context on digital fabrication and manufacturing trends. It then describes Arduino and how it helped bootstrap the open-source hardware movement. Finally, it outlines the Arduino ecosystem that has grown around derivatives, accessories, and projects that use Arduino, as well as limits to openness like manufacturing processes and branding.

2. Arduino and the Promise of
Open-Source Hardware
David A. Mellis
February 27, 2012

3. Context: Manufacturing in the Digital Age
• Digital Fabrication (CAD/CAM)
• Microcontrollers
• Internet

4. Context: Manufacturing in the Digital Age
• Crowd-Sourcing: CUUSOO (Muji, Lego), KickStarter, Quirky
• On-Demand Production: i.materialise, Ponoko, Shapeways, Advanced Circuits
• Online Marketplaces: Etsy, Amazon, eBay
• Generative Design
• Mass Customization
• Open-Source Hardware

6. Arduino

7. Breathalyzer Genie by Christopher T. Palmer (Photo by Christian Spanring)

8. Biomimetic Butterflies by the Barbarian Group

9. Photo by Jens Erik Mikkelsen

10. Rancilio Silvia espresso machine hacking by Tim Hirzel

11. Earthwalk by Jens Franke & Thomas Gläser

12. Open-Source Hardware

13. “Source”
• Digital design file
• Can be translated into physical object
• Has to be the original

15. “Open”
• Sharing online
• Allowing commercial use
• Complicated by expensive CAD software

17. Why open-source hardware?
• Economics
• Education
• Moral

18. Why does it matter?
• New and growing practice
• Alternative to proprietary production
• Increasingly a norm

20. Product
• Developed to be sold
• Useful because you can buy it
• New variations are often new products

21. Decentralized
Open-Source Hardware Open-Source Software

22. Not very well.
• Lack of software tools
• Differing component selections
• Monetary complications

25. Bootstrapping
• Started with $2000
• Continually re-invested revenues
• Possible because of digital (PCB) fabrication

26. Ecosystem

27. Ecosystem: Derivatives
http://blog.makezine.com/2009/12/11/arduino-open-source-hardware-2009/

28. Ecosystem: Accessories

29. Ecosystem: DIY Drones

30. Ecosystem: LilyPad

31. Ecosystem: Robots

32. Ecosystem: Devices
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

33. Ecosystem: Media

34. Limits to Openness
• Manufacturing process
• Suppliers
• Trademark / branding

37. David Robert Tayo Falase
Hannah Perner-Wilson Jean-Baptiste Labrune

41. Tim Kunkel Gonglue Jiang
Andrew Payne Sarah Hirschman

42. Design for DIY Manufacturing
diymanufacturing.mit.edu

43. Open-Source Hardware Community
• Summit
• Definition
• Logo
• Association

44. Thank you.
David A. Mellis (mellis@media.mit.edu)
http://web.media.mit.edu/~mellis/
http://diymanufacturing.mit.edu/