Given the current price for a decent sized consumer 3D printer and having the urge to build anything, stumbling across the RepRap.org project (albeit a bit too late) was bound to lead to a 3D Printer project.

The Research:

So what the hell is the RepRap.org project, to summarise in one paragraph:

A technical dude called Adrian Bowyer at Bath University took the idea of symbiosis of insects and plants and applied it to 3D printing, the result is an open source platform where people are the insects and printers are the plants. What that really means is that the printers you build can then produce parts that can then be used to create more printers. Currently about 50% of the parts required to “Replicate” can be printed. However, with new conductive filaments and advances in 3D printing, we are not far off being able to actually print circuitry.

If you still want to know more, watch this video: