Open Source Hardware & Robots displayed at Maker Faire in NYC

Many of the inventors at the Makers Faire had products for sale, but they also give out the designs to the open source community. The belief is that those with the time and skill can build them on their own, but most people may still purchase the systems to save time. Keeping the designs open source also means that people can enhance and alter the products freely.

The World Maker Faire New York was as much a way for tinkerers to show off their latest creations as it was a place for inventors to work on their projects with others.

The star of the show was Arduino, an open source platform created by the do-it-yourself community to create interactive electronic devices. It was behind most of the robotic hulls, beneath the glass of the Linux tablets, and within the face-detection tools of the paintball sentry guns. Arduino was the lifeblood of the machines.

“Open source is the future,” said Patrick Willutt from ArcBotics, who stood behind a booth showing off the company’s build-it-yourself hexypod robots.

Open source is based in a philosophy that promoting the free distribution of hardware and software and allowing the community to freely add to the projects helps innovation