The ''Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs'' by Joshua M. Pearce was published in 2014 by

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...

. The academic book is a guide, which details the development of free and open-source hardware primarily for

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

s and university faculty. It provides step-by-step instructions on building laboratory hardware and

scientific instruments A scientific instrument is a device or tool used for scientific purposes, including the study of both natural phenomena and theoretical research. History Historically, the definition of a scientific instrument has varied, based on usage, laws, an ...

. It also provides instructions on digital design sharing,

Arduino Arduino () is an open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed unde ...

microcontrollers,

RepRap The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators worldwide. RepRap is short for rep''lic ...

3D Printers 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

for scientific use and how to use

open-source hardware Open-source hardware (OSH) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement and a ...

licenses. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' discusses how ideas in the ''Open-Source Lab'' could enable 3D printing to offer developing-world scientists savings on replica lab kits. The Open-Source Lab book has been covered extensively by the media. It was one of the top books chosen by Shareable for "New Books About Sharing, Cities and Happiness". The book itself is not open source and is sold under copyright by Elsevier.

Claims

The author claims the method enables researchers in every discipline to develop research tools at low costs following his previous research in open-source hardware published in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

''. These claims have been generally supported by others using the techniques, such as those in the

DIYbio Do-it-yourself biology (DIY biology, DIY bio) is a growing biotechnological social movement in which individuals, communities, and small organizations study biology and life science using the same methods as traditional research institutions. DI ...

community. While discussing the book in an interview with ''3-D Printing Industry'', Pearce has claimed to save thousands of dollars in his own lab, and his various studies on the economics of printing lab equipment, such as a '' PLOS ONE'' article on open-source optics have generally found over 90% savings. A study on the use of 3D printing in this context cited this book as also being good for the environment.

Chapters

# Introduction to Open-Source Hardware for Science # The Benefits of Sharing—Nice Guys and Girls do Finish First # Open Licensing—Advanced Sharing # Open-Source Microcontrollers for Science: How to Use, Design Automated Equipment With and Troubleshoot # RepRap for Science—How to Use, Design, and Troubleshoot the Self-Replicating 3-D Printer # Digital Designs and Scientific Hardware # The Future of Open-Source Hardware and Science

Uptake

Copies of ''Open-Source Lab'' were a prize in an

Instructables Instructables is a website specializing in user-created and uploaded do-it-yourself projects, currently owned by Autodesk. It was created by Eric Wilhelm and Saul Griffith and launched in August 2005. Instructables is dedicated to step-by-step ...

"Build My Lab" Contest sponsored by

Tekla Labs Tekla Labs (TeklaLabs.org) is a non-profit organization of researchers, educators and hobbyists committed to developing do it yourself (DIY) science infrastructure. Tekla Labs objective is to "enable scientists to construct their own high qualit ...

References

External links

* {{Official website * ''Open-source Lab'' at Appropedia 2014 non-fiction books Computer science books Elsevier books Free culture movement Open-source hardware

Claims

Chapters

Uptake

See also

References

External links