Blogs

OpenMake on tour !

Berlin researchers can now access a central lab and a mobile lab to design and produce research hardware. The BUA mobile lab is on tour, with a first stop at the FU Berlin in June 2025. Dear Berlin researchers, Have you ever heard of makerspaces, 3d printing, or open source research hardware? You may wonder how these concepts are connected with open science and research reproducibility. Whether you are developing, building or using hardware in your research, or are just curious about makerspaces and digital production technologies, make sure you visit the Making Lab or the BUA Mobile Lab on tour !

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Hannover Messe 2025: OSH for industry

During the Hannover Messe 2025, we presented the BUA Mobile Lab, and both the Open.Make and the LAUDS Factories projects. We got the chance to talk with experienced experts from industry including engineers, managers, consultants and business leaders about hardware development practices. Key topics included how they are currently documenting their projects and how open collaboration can be a valuable tool for driving innovative open source hardware development. The most valuable outcome for us was to realize that our academic research is of relevance to the industry and could find application there as a means for open innovation projects and research transfer.

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OpenMake at the Hannover Messe 2025

Next week, starting 31.05.2025, we will be one week in Hannover for the Hannover Messe. The Messe is quite famous (the. “world leading industryshow”) in the world of the manufacturing industry. We will represent both the OpenMake project (implementing open and fair hardware) and the LAUDS Factories (local accessible urban digital sustainable factories). We will present our mobile lab, including open source CNC mills developed by our lauds partner Mekanika, and the beta version of our hardware review and publication system.

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Fellowship in Grenoble: France, OSH and low-tech

Grenoble: a different way of life ? In France and particularly in Grenoble, one can find a lot of active associations that usually do not have a strong online presence, but are very active locally. These are sport, culture or teaching-directed associations. A good example is the “ptit velo dans la tête” organisation. This association is running bike repair workshops where the members can come and repair their bikes, and buy spare parts or full bikes at very reduced prices.

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Two citations with one doi ?

Here, Julien Colomb presents in a very short post the idea of having and attribution reference and a provenance reference for an hardware/software/dataset object. We present 2 objectives of citing data, one workaround for having it all, what is would mean for hardware paper and end with a question about the validity of this ideas. He is hoping that it may open a discussion on this topic. The two objectives of citing data People have been publishing datasets for decades now, and there is ongoing research on the apparent trade off between providing persistent identifiers to the data and allowing data versions.

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BUA Mobile Lab at Long Night of Science 2024

Dear Reader, We presented the BUA Mobile Lab project at the Long Night of Science 2024 in Berlin. During this annual event, universities and research institutions showcase scientific demonstrations, lectures, and interactive activities, making science accessible and engaging for all ages. We used the occasion to present the BUA Mobile Lab concept, and showcase the three open source manufacturing machines we collected for that purpose: a 3D printer, a laser-cutter and a CNC mill.

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LNDW2024: BUA mobile lab presentation

This post is in German, an English summary and alt text to images will be added in the coming weeks. Aknowledgement: I want to thank my son Jeff (10) for corrections of my text. Hallo liebe Besucher*innen, auf diesen Website erklären wir, worum dieses Projekt OpenMake sich handelt und warum wir es betreiben. Auf den homepage können Sie sehen, dass Wir sind aus verschiedenen Unis in Berlin. Wir arbeiten seit 2019 über offenes Hardware in Akademia.

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Interview summary: audiomoth

Interview: audiomoth Alex Rogers is a Professor of Computer Science who lead the team that developed the audiomoth, a low-price passve sound recorder used for biodiversity monitoring in the wild. by the Open make team, Alex Rogers. Copyright to the authors, distributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Sections: The project The hardware The research outputs The participants *Banner image: logo of the openacousticdevices company, By openacousticdevices, used with permission

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Interview: Gorgas Tracker

Interview: Gorgas Tracker Pierre Padilla Huamantinco is a PhD student at Institute for Biological and Medical Engineering, he led the development of the Gorgas Tracker, a device that was used to track the position of people and investigate the role of human population movement in malaria epidemiology in rural villages in the Peruvian Amazon river networks. by the Open make team, Pierre Padilla Huamantinco. Copyright to the authors, distributed under a CC-BY 4.

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Interview: Guaudilabs, the Pocket-PCR

Interview: GaudiLabs Urs Gaudenz has been part of hackteria and similar open source hardware communities for a long time. Nine years ago, he started GaudiLabs, a “desktop manufacturing” company that is selling open source hardware produced in small scale. One of these products is the Pocket-PCR machine. by the Open make team, Urs Gaudenz. Copyright to the authors, distributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Sections: The project The hardware The research outputs The participants Banner image: GaudiLabs logo, used with permission

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