Invention and Intellectual Property

My project consists of 3 main parts: The Design, the Software and the Hardware. Almost all parts have been developped using open source code.

All the files and the essential documentation will be easily accessed through the Fab Academy students' pages, and will be hosted also in github.

The manufacturing can be done locally. In general the Fab Lab ethos is what made me wanting to do this course and also to be part of the Fab Lab community. With Olivia Kotsifa we are setting up the Fab Lab in Cardiff and we are doing our best to have this philosophy present in what our Lab will do. This idea of knowledge transfer through access to our projects through our mistakes, our tips and ways of overcoming problems, as well as open source code and files that can be downloaded is what helped me in my learning journey this year and I intend to continue it in order to help others.

This project is conceived to be open source. Since it is clearly an artistic sound installation, it is non-profitable. It will have an Open Source Hardware and Software licensed under MIT license.

According to the MIT licence permission is granted free of charge to anyone who includes the copyright/permission notice in all copies of the software.

All the files and the essential documentation can be easily accessed through the Fab Academy students' pages, and will be hosted also in github in the future.

Briefly my final project contains laser cut parts, CNC milled parts, electronic boards and shields and software. With the Eagle, the Rhino and the MAX files it is possible to download all the above files and fully recreate the project or even modify it.

Income

Income: This work is open source and free for anyone to download, modify, alter, share, etc. The hardware part could be sold if the person interested does not have access and time to use the large milling machine or the pcb milling machine.

The project can be done without the Laser cut parts but this is up to the person who wants to make a new one, to modify it according to their needs, aesthetics and access to equipment.

I wouldn't sell an electronics kit, simply because I believe that whoever wants to use such an instrument for a performance, would need to know some basics in order to troubleshoot if needed. The documentation and files are easy to follow and understand and I can also be available to people for any questions. In general this instrument is addressed to a public that are interested and have already experimented with new interfaces for musical expression or to people who would like to know more about it and spend a little time to understand the software [max and arduino]. I see this project open and free for anyone to use as long as [apart from the MIT licence requirements] they use it for free or very low-cost performances and for educational purposes and they keep their work open and free for others to see and use. I don't wish to make money from this project but I wish to share the concept of sharing knowledge and work with others.