Nice project you've got there...

Since failing to reach the semifinals of the HaD space race, my project can reveal its true form:

a DIY space program. Soon those who mocked the mad scientist will cover in terror! HAHAHAHAHA! ^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W

A lot of the work that the open community is doing is uncoordinated, but that hardly matters. Great minds DO think alike to an uncanny extreme. - Most immediately to me, personally, this recently made the news:

http://hackaday.com/2014/08/22/plan-b-an-open-source-powder-based-3d-printer/

I need only to tack on my laser to this in order to make near-net parts out of metal superalloys or various kinds of glass. - I don't need to focus on the CNC part of my space program much at all. This is a huge workload which just gets done, because as far as anybody knows that is the way to do it. Others are working on computer vision approaches to continue on e.g. a half-finished 3D print, and there is plenty of thought going into controlling three-phase motors as if they were stepper motors. Fusor.net is hot on the heels of dense plasma fusion, and Xorg is finally getting fixed by being replaced with Weston/Wayland in its entirety. - Progress!

It is important that we keep up with each other's work and offer advice, not just so that we may progress quicker but so that we may maintain confidence in our abilities. I admit I was unsure about the viability of my project until someone pointed out in a comment that people already have used these cheap piezo discs, which are central to my low-cost precept, to build effective Atomic Force Microscopes! AFMs are, in case you missed it, capable of moving single atoms around by picking them up one by one and placing them exactly where you want them.

That was my unicorn moment which gave me the confidence to set my heart on the HaD grand prize. It told me that there was an industrial oversight to be corrected with the aid of technology which is already mature.

This brings me to a point, which I'd like to share: Energy shared in open hardware is not lost; it is multiplied. We gain much by integrating our community more deeply, and we can do this by not waiting to be asked to share our knowledge and instead volunteer it. Just a few words can mean a lot.