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This paper aims to introduce the concept of open-source hardware to the library professionals and gives a brief of the outlook of its current and potential application in libraries

The paper is based on a literature review.

Open source already aids libraries and has great potential but is hobbled by its intrinsically technical appeal.

The paper makes first observation towards the concept of open-source hardware with a slant towards librarianship.

The purpose of this paper is to argue in favor of the open hardware philosophy (open-source hardware – OSH) as a technological innovation and academic entrepreneurshipmodel in Brazil.

This argument is based on three pillars. The first one refers to a bibliographic review of theoretical frameworks related to academic entrepreneurship and technological innovation to emphasize the disruptive innovation capacity of academia. Second, a few elements related to the Brazilian political, economic and structural scenario, which entail a (more) favorable environment to technological innovation and academic entrepreneurship, is presented. Finally, concepts related to OSH and its business model are approached to demonstrate the facilitating effect toward the whole process.

As a result of the argument made herein, it is possible to perceive the viability of the OSH model in terms of entrepreneurship and technological innovation in the academic sphere, and to perceive its benefits before social and economic needs in areas such as health and education.

There are no empirical or quantifiable data in the literature that enable comparison between OSH and traditional technological innovation models.

The considerations on the philosophical value of OSH and its business models are scarcely explored in international literature. As far as we know, relating OSH to technological innovation entrepreneurship in the academic sphere, as well as its singularities in Brazil regarding the innovation national system and social and economic demands, is a unique approach in literature.

Isolated communities face a variety of inconveniences including severe remoteness, poor roads and extreme climate conditions, resulting in the lack of security of supply chains and exorbitant prices for cargo delivery. This paper aims to investigate the present advantages and prospects of applying 3-D printing to improve economics and everyday life of remote communities, reindeer herder case taken as an example.

This study covers the use of a low-cost open-source 3-D printer (RepRap) capable of fused filament fabrication to reduce operating costs for nomadic reindeer herder groups. Three case studies are provided for reindeer-specific applications to probe economic and technical viability of the technology, namely, ear-tags, electric fence components and lasso accessories.

3-D printed objects feature technical characteristics similar to those of analogues available on the market while reducing the price by 63 per cent. Distributed 3-D printing reduces the cost of raw materials by 68 per cent and shipping costs by 50 because of lower trip frequency. If all reindeer herders globally were to adopt distributed manufacturing of the three aforementioned sample items only, their annual savings from such solution would amount to US$2m. The paper discovers other economic, entrepreneurial, technical and environmental opportunities offered by 3-D printing put to service the needs of remote communities.

As the paper is the first-ever study of 3-D printing potential applied to the reindeer husbandry case, it is based on a more thorough analysis of the techno-economic feasibility of the technology, while cultural and entrepreneurial factors have been discussed as preconditions only.

The paper might serve as a valuable source of information for entrepreneurs, as well as for students and academics for further case studies in this area.

In remote conditions, 3-D printing offers a more sustainable way of good manufacturing. Numerous open source designs already available for specialists, financial effectiveness, environmental benefits and vast opportunities for entrepreneurs are among the most promising advantages of the technology.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the transferability of the open source principles of product development from the realm of software to the realm of physical products.

Based on the inherent differences between software and physical products, a theoretical discussion of the challenges that face the implementation of open source principles in the physical world are provided. A multiple case study methodology is adopted to provide insights into the applicability of the open source concept in product development outside software.

Many of the challenges identified theoretically are actually encountered in practice. To cope with these challenges effectively, hardware design activities can be translated into software development tasks, using programmable hardware. When dealing with open source projects in the physical realm, it is useful to distinguish between projects driven by commercial firms and those driven by individuals, as each project type can impose different conditions on successful implementation.

Although much scholarly attention has been devoted to open source software, the issue of transferability of the identified principles to other industries has undergone little in‐depth research. This paper provides a solid foundation for further investigation of this topic based on theory and empirical case examples. It derives recommendations for industrial experts wishing to benefit from the open source model in new product development.

This study aims to report the development of an open-source syringe extrusion head for shear-thinning materials. The target is to adapt open-source 3D printers to be helpful in research lines that use gels, hydrogels, pastes, inks, and bio-inks.

This hardware was designed to be compatible with a Graber i3-based 3D printer; nevertheless, it can be easily adapted to other open-source 3D printers.

The extrusion head successfully deposits the material during the 3D printing process. It was validated fabricating geometries that include scaffold structures, which are a possible application of bioprinting for tissue engineering. As reported, the extruded filaments allowed the porous samples' structuration.

This system expands the applications of open-source 3D printers used at the laboratory scale. It enables low-cost access to research areas such as tissue engineering and biofabrication, energy storage devices and food 3D printing.

The open-source hardware here reported is of simple fabrication, assembly and installation. It uses a Cardan coupling and a three guides system to transfer the stepper motor motion. This approach allows continuous movement transfer to the syringe piston, producing an adequate deposition or retraction. Thus, the effect of misalignments is avoided, considering that these latter can cause skipping steps in the motor, directly affecting the deposition.

The purpose of this paper is to present TalkBox, an affordable and open-source communication board for users with communication or speech disorders. Making and tinkering methods are combined with community engagement and participatory design to create a democratic and accessible approach to assistive technology design.

The authors employed a community-engaged participatory design methodology where we incorporated input from stakeholders into the design of the interface. Close collaboration with our community partner allowed us to make informed decisions on different aspects of the design from sourcing of the material to testing the prototype.

Through describing TalkBox, the paper presents a concrete example of how assistive technology can be designed and deployed more democratically, how collaborations between academia and community partners can be established, and how the design reflects different aspects of the methodology used.

This paper explores the question of how can open-source technology and making methods contribute to the development of more affordable and inclusive designs through a concrete example.

The authors present a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for autonomous flight and navigation in GPS-denied environments using an off-the-shelf smartphone as its core on-board processing unit. Thereby, the approach is independent from additional ground hardware and the UAV core unit can be easily replaced with more powerful hardware that simplifies setup updates as well as maintenance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The UAV is able to map, locate and navigate in an unknown indoor environment fusing vision-based tracking with inertial and attitude measurements. The authors choose an algorithmic approach for mapping and localization that does not require GPS coverage of the target area; therefore autonomous indoor navigation is made possible.

The authors demonstrate the UAVs capabilities of mapping, localization and navigation in an unknown 2D marker environment. The promising results enable future research on 3D self-localization and dense mapping using mobile hardware as the only on-board processing unit.

The proposed autonomous flight processing pipeline robustly tracks and maps planar markers that need to be distributed throughout the tracking volume.

Due to the cost-effective platform and the flexibility of the software architecture, the approach can play an important role in areas with poor infrastructure (e.g. developing countries) to autonomously perform tasks for search and rescue, inspection and measurements.

The authors provide a low-cost off-the-shelf flight platform that only requires a commercially available mobile device as core processing unit for autonomous flight in GPS-denied areas.

The purpose of this paper is to present novel modifications to a RepRap design that increase RepRap capabilities well beyond just fused filament fabrication. Open-source RepRap 3-D printers have made distributed manufacturing and prototyping an affordable reality.

The design is a significantly modified derivative of the Rostock delta-style RepRap 3-D printer. Modifications were made that permit easy and rapid repurposing of the platform for milling, paste extrusion and several other applications. All of the designs are open-source and freely available.

In addition to producing fused filament parts, the platform successfully produced milled printed circuit boards, milled plastic objects, objects made with paste extrudates, such as silicone, food stuffs and ceramics, pen plotted works and cut vinyl products. The multi-purpose tool saved 90-97 per cent of the capital costs of functionally equivalent dedicated tools.

While the platform was used primarily for production of hobby and consumer goods, research implications are significant, as the tool is so versatile and the fact that the designs are open-source and eminently available for modification for more purpose-specific applications.

The platform vastly broadens capabilities of a RepRap machine at an extraordinarily low price, expanding the potential for distributed manufacturing and prototyping of items that heretofore required large financial investments.

The unique combination of relatively simple modifications to an existing platform has produced a machine having capabilities far exceeding that of any single commercial product. The platform provides users the ability to work with a wide variety of materials and fabrication methods at a price of less than $1,000, provided users are willing to build the machine themselves.