science

Open-design movement

Open-design movement is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Open-design movement rather than just read about it. In short: The open-design movement involves the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. This includes the making of both free and open-source software (FOSS) as well as open-source hardware.

Key takeaways

Open-design movement belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Open-design movement to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Open-design movement from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The open-design movement involves the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. This includes the making of both free and open-source software (FOSS) as well as open-source hardware. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation. The goals and philosophy of the movement are identical to that of the open-source movement, but are implemented for the development of physical products rather than software. Open design is a form of co-creation, where the final product is designed by the users, rather than an external stakeholder such as a private company.

History Sharing of manufacturing information can be traced back to the 18th and 19th century. Aggressive patenting put an end to that period of extensive knowledge sharing. More recently, principles of open design have been related to the free and open-source software movements. In 1997 Eric S. Raymond, Tim O'Reilly and Larry Augustin established "open source" as an alternative expression to "free software", and in 1997 Bruce Perens published The Open Source Definition. In late 1998, Dr. Sepehr Kiani (a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT) realized that designers could benefit from open source policies, and in early 1999 he convinced Dr. Ryan Vallance and Dr. Samir Nayfeh of the potential benefits of open design in machine design applications. Together they established the Open Design Foundation (ODF) as a non-profit corporation, and set out to develop an Open Design Definition. The idea of open design was taken up, either simultaneously or subsequently, by several other groups and individuals. The principles of open design are closely similar to those of open-source hardware design, which emerged in March 1998 when Reinoud Lamberts of the Delft University of Technology proposed on his "Open Design Circuits" website the creation of a hardware design community in the spirit of free software. Ronen Kadushin coined the title "Open Design" in his 2004 Master's thesis, and the term was later formalized in the 2010 Open Design Manifesto. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a significant test case for the open-design movement's principles of distributed manufacturing. With global supply chains struggling to meet the demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical devices, open design communities, such as Open Source Medical Supplies (OSCMS), contributed to fill the gap. It was documented that OSCMS producted over 48 million units of PPE and medical supplies by "citizen responders" and makerspaces across 86 countries.

Current directions

The open-design movement currently unites two trends. On one hand, people apply their skills and time on projects for the common good, perhaps where funding or commercial interest is lacking, for developing countries or to help spread ecological or cheaper technologies. On the other hand, open design may provide a framework for developing advanced projects and technologies that might be beyond the resource of any single company or country and involve people who, without the copyleft mechanism, might not collaborate otherwise. There is now also a third trend, where these two methods come together to use high-tech open-source (e.g. 3D printing) but customized local solutions for sustainable development. Open Design holds great potential in driving future innovation as recent research has proven that stakeholder users working together produce more innovative designs than designers consulting users through more traditional means. The open-design movement may arguably organize production by prioritising socio-ecological well-being over corporate profits, over-production and excess consumption.

Open machine design as compared to open-source software The open-design movement is currently fairly nascent but holds great potential for the future. In some respects design and engineering are even more suited to open collaborative development than the increasingly common open-source software projects, because with 3D models and photographs the concept can often be understood visually. It is not even necessary that the project members speak the same languages to usefully collaborate. However, there are certain barriers to overcome for open design when compared to software development where there are mature and widely used tools available and the duplication and distribution of code cost next to nothing. Creating, testing and modifying physical designs is not quite so straightforward because of the effort, time and cost required to create the physical artefact; although with access to emerging flexible computer-controlled manufacturing techniques the complexity and effort of construction can be significantly reduced (see tools mentioned in the fab lab article).

Organizations

Open design was considered in 2012 a fledgling movement consisting of several unrelated or loosely related initiatives. Many of these organizations are single, funded projects, while a few organizations are focusing on an area needing development. In some cases (e.g. Thingiverse for 3D printable designs or Appropedia for open source appropriate technology) organizations are making an effort to create a centralized open source design repository as this enables innovation. Notable organizations include:

AguaClara, an open-source engineering group at Cornell University publishing a design tool and CAD designs for water treatment plants Arduino, an open-source electronics hardware platform, community and company Elektor Field Ready GrabCAD Instructables Local Motors (defunct): methods of transport, vehicles LittleBits One Laptop Per Child (inactive), a project to provide children in developing territories laptop computers with open hardware and software OpenCores, digital electronic hardware Open Architecture Network Open Hardware and Design Alliance (OHANDA) OpenStructures (OSP), a modular construction model where everyone designs on the basis of one shared geometrical grid. Open Source Ecology, including solar cells Thingiverse, miscellaneous VOICED VIA OpenBook netbook has CAD files for the design licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported License Wikispeed, open-source modular vehicles Open Source Design, a community created in 2016 to hold space for designers interested in open source. Zoetrope, an open design low-cost wind turbine.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Open-design movement

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Open-design movement claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Open-design movement before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Open-design movement ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Open-design movement

In research: Open-design movement appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Open-design movement in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Open-design movement is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Design, Free culture movement, Open-source hardware, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Open-design movement outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Open-design movement in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Open-design movement means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Open-design movement out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Open-design movement in simple terms?

Why does Open-design movement matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Open-design movement?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Open-design movement.