The development of cheap single-board programmable systems in the recent period, has significantly facilitated the prototyping of electronic circuits. One of the first open electronic platforms was the Arduino. This hardware platform is compatible with open programming systems. The Arduino platform was based on a simple design and was created mainly for educational applications. The use of popular interfaces for communication with peripheral devices in the construction of the device meant that many projects in the field of control, automation and the Internet of Things were created on the basis of Arduino.  The Arduino platform was established in 2003 and is successfully used in modern projects. Another popular device for prototyping of control systems is Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is a mini-computer working under the control of the Raspbian OS. This operating system is based on Debian, a popular Linux distribution. In addition to the standard interfaces known from traditional PCs, this computer has a 40 pin GPIO connector, which allows designers to use devices connected with I2C, SPI or 1-Wire bus. Thanks to this device, it is possible to integrate the designed system with many peripheral sensors and automatic control modules. There are many other platforms on the market that have interfaces to integrate with popular sensors and controls, and allow programmers to create code in high-level programming languages. Due to their low cost, these devices can be a popular alternative to the most well-known and more expensive solutions. The most popular platforms of this type are:

• Orange Pi – Orange Pi is an open SoC computer. It has preinstalled operating system in Flash memory. This microcomputer has Allwinner H3 processor, it can run operating systems Android 4.4, Ubuntu, Raspbian. There is a version of this device equipped with a SIM card slot that allows data transmission in mobile networks.
• NodeMCU – A device with a WiFi module, based on the ESP8266 chip. It has 10 GPIO ports (serving PWM, I2C and 1-wire). The platform has been equipped with 4 MB of Flash memory. The system has a built-in single-channel 10-bit analogue ADC converter and USB-UART converter. The NodeMCU software is installed in the device’s memory, which allows you to create programs in the Lua script language. Developers can also use the popular C language.
• Onion Omega 2 – A single board platform for amateur use. One of the smallest IoT modules on the market that work with the Linux system. The device has a Mediatek MT7688 processor clocked at 580 MHz, has 64 MB of RAM and 16 MB of built-in Flash memory. The system has a built-in WiFi module and 15x GPIO, PWM, UART, I2C, and SPI interfaces. The module is controlled via a built-in web interface. The device manufacturer provides an account on its Cloud platform in the price of the device. This platform can be used for integration with other control systems and data sharing on the Internet.

These platforms are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Platforms NodeMCU, Onion Omega 2 and Orange Pi.

These platforms can be used not only to create prototype systems, but also to build commercial data acquisition and control systems. An example of this type of solutions can be an agro-hydro-meteorological station, which was built on the basis of open hardware platforms. These platforms were used to integrate the IoT system with a professional meteorological station of the Vantage Pro company, and allowed to extend the functionality by measuring insolation, measuring evaporation and evapotranspiration, detecting the thickness of the snow cover, and measuring the water level. The constructed system is also used to generate alerts about dangerous weather events. The implemented system was installed in Krakow. It is currently used to transmit data and generate information about dangerous meteorological conditions. This system is fully autonomous due to power requirements. The physical installation of the system is shown in Figure 2. Pictures of installed stations were made available by InfoMet Katowice.

Figure 2. Meteo station based on open hardware platforms.

The relatively low price of the presented platforms allows their use also in educational projects. These platforms can be used in educational centers and schools that do not have large budget resources for their activities. One of the educational projects is a controlled robot platform based on the ESP8266 system, and a dedicated Motor Shield module. Thanks to these devices, it is possible to build an educational robot system. This system enables students to familiarize themselves with the basic problems of control, network communication and programming of embedded systems. This educational robot was also used in educational workshops as part of the ODM project. Despite the fact that the people participating in the workshop did not have any preparation in the field of computer science, they launched the presented robot platform. Participating in the workshop, he was able to familiarize himself with the methods of robot control, data transmission problems in Internet networks and programming of control systems in high level programming languages. The use of the robot in educational workshops as part of the ODM project is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Educational Robot Platform.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg8MelZsI2A&feature=youtu.be

The presented examples present the applications of popular single board platforms in education and commercial activities. Applications of open hardware solutions will continue to grow thanks to IoT systems. The dynamic development of independent projects such as DWeb or Ethereum will allow to create innovative solutions in the field of data processing based on open hardware and software platforms.

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Christian Villum: Giants such as Google and IBM have lately been followed by Canadian D-Wave, the leading developer of quantum computers, which opened up parts of their platform in January. But it’s not just the large, financially strong American technology companies who are painting the picture of open source as a global megatrend. Start-ups and small to medium-sized companies all over the world, and not just within the tech industry, are creating new and exciting open source-based physical products. 3D Robotics, Arduino and the British furniture company Open Desk, which is creating open design furniture in collaboration with 600 furniture creators all over the world, are just a few examples of how open source has become the foundation of some of the most innovative and interesting business models of our time.

Danish Design Centre has dived into this trend for the past year; a trend which is part of a large wave of technological disruption and digitization and which is currently top of mind for many companies. How do you get started with digitizing your business model, and how do you know if open source manufacturing is the future of your company? These questions aren’t easy to answer.

Growth programme for curious Danish production companies

This is why we, in collaboration with a range of partners, have initiated REMODEL, which is a growth programme for Danish manufacturing companies who wish to explore and develop new business models based on open-source principles, and which are tailor-made to fit their industry and their specific situation. REMODEL demystifies a complex concept and helps the company develop economically sustainable business models which can open op new markets and new economies.

We do this by using strategic design tools, which make up the foundation of the programme, and which are based on strong design virtues such as iterative experimentation, the development of rapid prototypes and most importantly, focusing on the needs of the end-user. On top of this, REMODEL also involves a global panel of experts, CEOs and researchers within the field of open source, which allows the programme to pull on expertise from some of the world’s most visionary innovators.

Timeline for the programme

REMODEL consists of a series of design-driven stages. Last year the programme was launched in a testing phase in which the Danish Design Centre collaborated with a handful of Danish manufacturing companies, including renowned hifi-manufacturing company Bang & Olufsen, who went through early modules of the programme over the course of the spring 2017. These modules were reiterated along the way based on the feedback from those tests.

The key learnings from these test as well as workshops with members of the expert panel then became the foundation for the official REMODEL programme, which launched on February 5, 2018, and where 10 pioneering companies are currently working their way through the programme, which has been set up as an 8 week design sprint. The outcome is for them to have gained a thorough strategic understand of the concept of open source hardware as it relates to their industry and furthermore a draft strategy to open one of the existing products in their portfolio.

Radical sharing of knowledge

Learnings, tools and methods from both the test runs and the main programme will be collected and shared in a REMODEL open source hardware business model toolkit, which will be freely available after the program.

On top of this we will be organising a REMODEL knowledge sharing summit in October 2018, where participating companies, the international expert panel, prominent speakers and anyone else who are interested are invited to Denmark to share their experiences and think about the next steps for open sourced-based business models and strategies for manufacture companies.

Discussing REMODEL internationally

In March 2018, Danish Design Centre is yet again participating in the world’s largest technology event, SXSW Interactive, in Austin, Texas. We have been invited to host a panel debate as part of the official schedule under the title ‘Open Source Innovation: The Internet on Your Team‘, where speakers from Bang & Olufsen, Thürmer Tools and Wikifactory will discuss the topic in general as well as tell stories from the REMODEL program.

Learn more

Curious to follow the REMODEL program in more depth? Read more here or sign up for the newsletter. Eager to discuss? Join the conversation on Twitter under the #remodelDK hashtag or contact Danish Design Centre Programme Director Christian Villum on cvi@ddc.dk

Originally published in danskdesigncenter.dk

Lead image: Open Desk builds furniture as open design. (c) Rory Gardiner

Text image: CC-BY-NC Agnete Schlichtkrull

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Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens: I’d like to start with outlining the issue, the problem around the emergence of peer production within the current neoliberal capitalist form of society and economy that we have. We now have a technology which allows us to globally scale small group dynamics, and to create huge productive communities, self-organized around the collaborative production of knowledge, code, and design. But the key issue is that we are not able to live from that, right?

The situation is that we have created communities consisting of people who are sometimes paid, sometimes volunteers, and by using open licenses, we are actually creating commonses – think about Linux, Wikipedia, Arduino, those kinds of things. But what is the problem? The problem is I can only make a living by still working for capital. So, there is an accumulation of the commons on the one side, we are effectively producing a commons, but we don’t have what Marx used to call social reproduction. We cannot create our own livelihood within that sphere. The solution that I propose is related to the work of Dmytri Kleiner – Dmytri proposed some years ago to create a peer production license. I’ll give you my interpretation of it; you can only use our commons if you reciprocate to some degree. So, instead of having a totally open commons, which allows multinationals to use our commons and reinforce the system of capital, the idea is to keep the accumulation within the sphere of the commons. Imagine that you have a community of producers, and around that you have an entrepreneurial coalition of cooperative, ethical, social, solidarity enterprise.

The idea is that you would have an immaterial commons of codes and knowledge, but then the material work, the work of working for clients and making a livelihood, would be done through co-ops. The result would be a type of open cooperative-ism, a kind of synthesis or convergence between peer production and cooperative modes of production. That’s the basic idea. I think that a number of things are happening around that, like solidarity co-ops, and other new forms of cooperative-ism.

The young people, the developers in open source or free software, the people who are in co-working centers, hacker spaces, maker spaces. When they are thinking of making a living, they think startups. They have been very influenced by this neoliberal atmosphere that has been dominant in their generation. They have a kind of generic reaction, “oh, let’s do a startup”, and then they look for venture funds. But this is a very dangerous path to take. Typically, the venture capital will ask for a controlling stake, they have the right to close down your start up whenever they feel like it, when they feel that they’re not going to make enough money. They forbid you to continue to work in the same sector after your company has failed, and you have a gag order, so you don’t even have free speech to talk about your negative experience. This is a very common experience. Don’t forget that with venture capital, only 1 out of 10 companies will actually make it, and they may be very rich, but it’s a winner-take-all system.

There is a real lack of knowledge within the young generation that there are other forms of enterprise possible. I think that the other way is also true. A lot of co-ops have been neo-liberalizing, as it were, have become competitive enterprises competing against other companies but also against other co-ops, and they don’t share their knowledge. They don’t have a commons of design or code, they privatize and patent, just like private competitive enterprise, their knowledge. They’re also not aware that there’s a new way of becoming more competitive through increased cooperation of open knowledge commons. This is the human side of it, and we need to work on the knowledge and mutual experience of these two sectors. Both are growing at the same time; after the crisis of 2008, we’ve had an explosion of the sharing economy and the peer production economy on the one side, but also a revitalization of the cooperative sector.

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It is therefore a remarkable development that this high-tech domain has recently been invaded by a project, OpenSPIM, in which researchers and engineers are cooperating on all levels under a regime of commons principles. The projects show the power and effectiveness of networked cooperation at the highest levels of scientific research and precision manufacturing.

SPIM is an acronym for “Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy,” which is also known by a more intuitive name, light-sheet microscopy. SPIM differs from other microscopic technologies in how it illuminates observed objects. In conventional instruments, the sample is usually illuminated along the optical axis,¹ either through a lens underneath the object or through the microscope objective in the viewing direction. In light-sheet microscopy, however, the illumination light traverses the object like a thin sheet from one side to the other, perpendicular to the optical axis and not from below or above. This unusual configuration gave rise to the technology’s name – selective plane illumination.

This illumination technique was first developed in the beginning of the twentieth century by Richard Zsigmondy and Henry Siedentopf in their so-called Ultramicroscope. When Zsigmondy was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1925, Professor Söderbaum described this instrument quite nicely in his presentation speech:

The idea originated from Zsigmondy and was developed in detail by him in cooperation with Siedentopf, an able optician with the firm of Zeiss. The principle of this instrument is briefly that the intensely illuminated object, the solution to be examined, is observed by means of a microscope from the side, i.e., vertically to the axis of the incident light beam. In this way it is possible to differentiate between particles of such small size that they could not be observed under an ordinary microscope, just as the dust particles suspended in the air in our rooms, which are invisible under ordinary conditions, sometimes become visible when the sun’s rays shine through the window in a definite direction in relation to the observer.²

For understanding the significance of the SPIM principle, it might be helpful to recall some basics of light microscopy. In transmitted light micro­scopy, nontransparent structures become visible because they absorb light and therefore appear darker. In contrast, reflected light microscopy makes objects visible through a reflection or scattering of light, which makes them brighter. Fluorescence microscopy can be regarded as a special case of reflection micro­scopy, where the illumination light is used to cause observable fluorescence of specific structures in the specimen under investigation. Fluorescence micro­scopy has grown dramatically in recent decades, especially with the invention of a variety of new biogenic dyes (e.g., Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and its spectral variants), letting researchers now observe processes in living cells, in whole organs, or even in intact living organisms.

The problem with this very powerful approach is the high photon density that is required to cause fluorescence in the sample. During an observation, the sample is exposed to such intense excitation light that dye molecules soon bleach away and the observed samples are damaged or even die. This damage gets particularly severe because the excitation light beam has to travel along the optical axis through the entire specimen; in three-dimensional objects, this destructive flood of photons needs to be repeated for each level of observation.

By using an elegant trick, however, SPIM revolutionizes fluorescence microscopy exactly at this point: The microscope is able to illuminate precisely and exclusively the plane of the object that one wishes to observe. Other parts of the object remain untouched by the intense ray of excitation light, and the points above or below the plane of focus are not even elevated to a glow.

Thus SPIM can actually produce an “optical sectioning” enlargement of thick three-dimensional samples “on the fly.” This is something that traditional “confocal microscopy” can accomplish only through an elaborate point scanning procedure. SPIM avoids this process by illuminating the entire plane of focus, which can now be imaged in milliseconds using high-speed digital cameras. This process also makes it possible to gently observe intact living samples for hours or even days and from multiple perspectives, without destroying the sample. Consequently, SPIM is typically used to observe insect larvae, zebra­fish embryos, the growth of tumors, organoids, and regenerating nerve fibers. Because of its versatility, SPIM has quickly attracted a growing community of enthusiastic followers among researchers interested in noninvasive microscopy on living organisms.

Figure 1: An OpenSPIM image of a 48-hour-old, living zebrafish embryo, in which certain structures like the nervous system and cell nuclei are labeled with the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). Photo by openSPIM, under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license, via OpenSpim.org

Globally, an estimated 100 SPIM systems had been “homebuilt” by this community before ZEISS introduced the first commercial light-sheet microscope in October 2012. Two years later, members of the SPIM community and curious researchers from all over the world converged on Barcelona to attend the First International Lightsheet Fluorescence Microscopy conference, where they eagerly exchanged experiences and ideas for applying and improving SPIM.

Among the speakers at this conference were Ernst Stelzer and Jan Huisken, who are regarded as key inventors of modern SPIM. The reanimation of the old oblique illumination principle known as SPIM in modern research drew upon academic research in which Huisken was significantly involved as a graduate student in Ernst Stelzer’s lab, at the renowned European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, Huisken later continued to adapt SPIM to biological applications before returning to Germany to start his own research group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden (Germany), where he obviously inspired a creative nucleus for further SPIM-related ideas.

It was there where the next breakthrough occurred: “OpenSPIM started, once upon time, at the institute’s canteen where they dreamed up SPIM in a suitcase,” as his colleague Pavel Tomancak tweeted. “It actually exists!” Supported by the international Human Frontiers Scientific Program, the idea was first developed through a wiki,³ which, consistent with the basic ideas of the commons, was published under a Copyleft (CC BY-SA 3.0) license.⁴ In this wiki, the interested researcher can find a precise list of necessary parts, assembly instructions and video tutorials describing how to build a ready-to-use OpenSPIM instrument in less than one hour, in fourteen discrete steps. From the beginning, the OpenSPIM project committed itself to the principles of open hardware and open software (Pitrone et al. 2013).

Figure 2. OpenSPIM in a suitcase. The camera is seen in the bottom left, the sample chamber in the upper left corner. The box in the center is the laser light-source from which the blue laser is reflected by several mirrors into the sample chamber. Photo by OpenSPIM, under a Creative Commons BY-SA license, 3.0, via OpenSPIM Gallery.

To fully appreciate the achievements of this project, one needs to understand the complex and challenging data-analysis requirements of SPIM microscopy. Depending on its configuration, a SPIM microscope can generate more than 100 megabytes of data per second, potentially during the course of an entire week, all of which must be handled, stored, analyzed and rendered. Simply storing such vast quantities of data, where individual datasets can comprise up to several terabytes, is prohibitively costly for normal computing systems. The system often requires specific software that can work on cloud computing platforms, i.e., high-performance computing on distributed computer networks. Performing such computation at acceptable speeds on individual machines is highly problematic.

Figure 3: The completed OpenSPIM as shown in the open assembly instruction. Photo by OpenSPIM, under a Creative Commons BY-SA license 3.0, via OpenSPIM.org.

Fortunately, the open structure of OpenSPIM provides a solid groundwork for mastering these challenges. For example, OpenSPIM uses only open source Arduino electronic components, and the operation of the system is controlled by the free software µManager. Data analysis and rendering are managed by specialized plugins to the software package Fiji/ImageJ, which is an extensive open source software project for the analysis and processing of scientific image data. Much of the work for those plugins has come from a team led by Pavel Tomancak, a congenial Czech who works at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden. This group is not only renowned as a driving force of the OpenSPIM project, but is highly respected for its missionary zeal in hosting workshops, conferences and academic collaborations to share its knowledge within the growing OpenSPIM community.

Since OpenSPIM started two years ago, the design plans for seven OpenSPIM instruments worldwide have been posted on the wiki.⁵ The number of unpublished systems is unknown, but more systems are certainly under construction. In any case, global interest in OpenSPIM is remarkable. Curious students and researchers use every possible opportunity to get familiar with the system. Experts say that OpenSPIM does not reach the standards of commercially available or sophisticated home-built systems, but due to its significantly lower costs it is widely accessible to a much broader user community. This makes applications possible, for example, for universities in countries that have very limited research budgets and that could not afford other SPIM systems. Because OpenSPIM is open to all and not proprietary, its usefulness in educational contexts is unparalleled. Anyone who buys a light-sheet microscope can use it, but anyone who assembles an OpenSPIM will also understand it! Beyond that, OpenSPIM also makes research more transparent. Experimental results can be understood and reproduced more easily by peers and thus be verified, which contributes to the integrity and authentication of research results.

Whether OpenSPIM will continue to expand or simply remain an exciting niche project remains to be seen. This will substantially depend on whether or not the SPIM community – including the DIY builders and commercial providers – recognize the value of their ongoing commoning and perceive themselves as active commoners. Will they let their project modifications and improvements continue to flow back to the community and contribute to its flourishing?

If the OpenSPIM platform is seen simply as a launch pad for the proprietary “secret projects” of either businesses or solitary nerds, it is quite possible the project will collapse. The community of OpenSPIM enthusiasts might at some point become exhausted by their voluntary efforts, and find it easier to retreat to their own private, proprietary interests. But there are reasons for optimism: In January 2015, the highly respected journal Nature Methods, which is affiliated with the prominent interdisciplinary scientific journal Nature, selected light-sheet microscopy as “Method of the Year 2014.”⁶ This will provide strong tailwinds for the OpenSPIM endeavor!

Jacques Paysan (Germany) holds a PhD in Neurobiology, and is a commons fan and SPIM Expert. He lives in the Jagst-Valley in Baden-Württemberg.

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Arduino was the brainchild of Italian Massimo Banzi and his colleagues David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino and David Mellis. Originally an educational project for students, the Arduino collaborators in 2005 expanded the venture as a way to make cheap but sophisticated computer boards more available to the open source community. It is also seen as a way to bring artists, engineers and creatives together to find new ways of using technologies for the greater good.

Since its founding, Arduino has become part of the larger worldwide movement of open innovation, technology and creativity. The reference designs for Arduino hardware are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, and the source code for its software is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). While Arduino technologies can be freely copied by anyone, Arduino has created its own line of self-produced “Arduino At Heart” branded products. The official product sales support the Arduino enterprise while still allowing competitors to make “clones” at cheaper prices.

Arduino is officially a business whose chief asset is its trademark, the name Arduino and its logo. Anyone can use the Arduino designs for free, but if they wish to sell them under the Arduino name, they must pay to use the trademark. Besides licensing the Arduino trademark, the firm produces its own line of Arduino-branded devices. Paradoxically, the ability of others to freely use Arduino designs does not undermine sales of the Arduino-branded products because this openness has merely enlarged the market for Arduino technology while boosting trust in the Arduino brand compared to cheap knockoffs. Massimo Banzi’s design firm also makes money creating customized Arduino-based products.

Besides computer boards, Arduino offers its own self-designed kits, materials for wearable technologies and 3D printers, tools, books, manuals and workshops. There is now a vast global community of Arduino users, with many regional networks and groups devoted to special types of microprocessing boards.

Arduino enthusiasts and companies see the open hardware platform as an important infrastructure for building a new economy based on collaboration and collective knowledge. While Arduino systems can perform familiar tasks such as remote control of a car or the doors of a house, they also have great potential as the core of cheap but powerful smartphones; systems to collect, purify and distribute water in marginal areas; and systems that can generate clean, renewable energies.

But achieving the full potential of Arduino-based open platforms will require more focused public education about its capabilities. In this regard, Arduino – and other open technologies – still have a long way to go. While many governments have created digital agendas to boost their economic and social development through information technologies, few public schools have recognized the great promise of open source principles by teaching students about open source coding or open hardware development.

Even in countries like Spain that require young people to take programming courses in school, the government and schools have ignored the open source revolution, preferring to make agreements with big companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP to teach students about (and buy) their proprietary software. The same blindness affects government procurement of information technology, where governments tend to buy technology from the big firms instead of encouraging or requiring open source technologies that could improve their domestic research and development.

There are some bright signs, however. There is now a global robotics competition for students called RoboCup, which hosts a number of competitions using Arduino kits in the creation and programming of machines. Some big companies like Intel and MediaTek with their own proprietary microprocessors have decided to design products that can communicate with Arduino platforms, thus expanding their usefulness and appeal.

The unmet challenge is for governments to put Arduino and other open source technology at the core of their development agenda and educational programs. The benefits would be especially significant for smaller, emerging economies which otherwise depend on expensive foreign technologies with restrictive intellectual property terms.

Arduino is that rare commons that has successfully combined stable social collaboration with market sales. As an open technology, it has significantly advanced innovation in computer hardware while enhancing economic opportunities for millions of people.

Patterns of Commoning, edited by Silke Helfrich and David Bollier, is being serialized in the P2P Foundation blog. Visit the Patterns of Commoning and Commons Strategies Group websites for more resources.

Julio Sanchez Onofre (Mexico) is a tech journalist for the newspaper El Economista in Mexico City.

Photo by dubiella

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