Global Open Science Hardware Roadmap

Metadata

• Author: readwise.io
• Full Title: Global Open Science Hardware Roadmap
• Tags: #hardware #open_source
• URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/407007379

Highlights

• Open Science Hardware (OScH) refers to any piece of hardware used for scientific investigations that can be obtained, assembled, used, studied, modified, shared, and sold by anyone. It includes standard lab equipment as well as auxiliary materials, such as sensors, biological reagents, analog and digital electronic components. Given that proprietary “black box” instrumentation cannot be fully inspected or customized, and can be unreasonably difficult and expensive to obtain and maintain, we believe that scientific hardware design should be open to allow for the exercise of these basic freedoms. (View Highlight)
• TECNOx (Latin America) www.tecnox.org
  CERN (Switzerland) - OHWR and license http://www.ohwr.org/
  TECNOx is a Latin American community sponsored by UNESCO that promotes the development and adoption of Open Source technologies for education, research and capacity building. TECNOx organizes an annual competition that challenges multidisciplinary teams from across the continent to apply open source software, hardware and/ or biological materials and reagents to address local problems (View Highlight)
• Centro de Tecnologia Acadêmica (CTA) at UFRGS (Brazil) http://cta.if.ufrgs.br
  The Tech Academy (Bangladesh) http://thetechacademy.net/
  The Center for Academic Technology from the Physics Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil has as its goal to develop and apply Free and Open Source technologies. (View Highlight)
• Tech Academy is an educational institute that preferentially uses Open Source Hardware to teach children about science, technology and engineering, using Arduino19 and Backyard Brains electrophysiology equipment. It runs free schools in remote and underdeveloped areas in Bangladesh, subsidized by charging for teaching middle income and high income families in urban areas. (View Highlight)
• Many people are discouraged from using and developing Open Hardware due to poor documentation. Documentation for existing OScH projects is often insufficient for users and developers to learn, build and create derivative projects. Bad practices are a barrier to participation, particularly for those who require quality standards and accuracy of measurements (View Highlight)
• There is little guidance on documentation practices even at a basic level, for example, using simple, accessible and understandable language. It is also difficult to choose between existing platforms for documentation and among the multiple tools required for dealing with complex, modular projects. Important features include version control21 and support for collaborative approaches like code replication, wikis for participatory documentation, issue trackers, and discussion forums. (View Highlight)
• OScH is generally seen as being lower quality than proprietary alternatives, but there is an opportunity to change this perception, surpassing proprietary offerings. There are many proof-of-concept projects, and the challenge remains to promote and enable high-quality projects that offer reliability and ease of use. There is a need for further training on “Design for Manufacture” (DFM) practices to maximize the potential of OScH to scale from DIY22 to early adoption to commercially available hardware, where commercial manufacturing is appropriate (View Highlight)
• Quality control and validation is key for building the credibility of OScH projects. One of the biggest institutional barriers for OScH at present is the lack of assessments of OScH-based scientific instruments in many areas. Alignment with industry standards remains a challenge. It is therefore important to consider open quality management protocols that can take the place of industrial certifications for hardware in various areas, such as environmental sensors and medical devices. (View Highlight)
• There is no shortage of OScH designs but mainstream access to the hardware itself is limited. Most OScH never makes it beyond the research lab or a small community, and this greatly limits the potential uses and impact of the tools. The recent proliferation of digital fabrication tools, hacker and maker spaces, and open development platforms have considerably reduced these barriers and facilitated small batch production, new possibilities for customization, and opportunities for collaboration using increasingly common hobbyist-grade fabrication tools (e.g., 3D printers, laser cutters, etc.). (View Highlight)
• Traditional manufacturing processes favor high-volumes and have large up-front costs. Historically, this has posed a significant barrier to new hardware development, especially for non-commercial projects and those not designed to serve mass markets. The Open Hardware community has created alternatives by organizing collective purchases, which lowers the cost of access to manufacturing facilities for running prototypes and small batches (e.g. the OSHPark PCB service). (View Highlight)