The Star Trek Economy and the _Art_ of Engineering

As an art project, largely to prove all the things I've been told about cycling are more often than not empty opinions (more on that stuff later) I'm deliberately engineering a classic 90s mountain bike into a modern "flyable" touring bike cum¹ "all terrain" bike.

The frame is "too small" for me, at 40cm (16") but this is fixable with a riser bar, a long seatpost and shortish cranks.

It has cantilever brake bosses but no disk bosses and, while I could use V brakes, I want disks, for a modern build.

It's a "pre-slack" frame design, a "roadie" with fat tubing and smaller wheels. This is being fixed with a new fork, which also "fixes" the front disk brake mount and is also "lightly suspension corrected," which should also slightly slacken the the steering geometry a little to match modern ATB standards.

The absent rear disk is fixed by that gadget in the screenshot up there ☝ and the "Star Trek Economy."

In the words of Steven K. Roberts, tech nomad and author, "Art without engineering is dreaming, engineering without art is calculating." There was a time not so long ago that, if I wanted to make a structural modification to a bicycle frame, I'd have had to have taken it to a frame builder, who would have laughed at me, and quoted me "kin's ransom" for building a copy of the original, but with new brackets and bosses added. "Reworking the frame would likely ruin it," would be a fair justification on the frame builder's part.

Now, by measuring the position of the rack bosses, relative to the axle centre of the rear wheel, I can design an ISO disk brake mount that can be fastened to my existing frame, such that the rack can still be mounted there (countering some of the braking forces) and the frame gets rear disk brake bosses.

I've just sent a prototype document, specific for my 199X Giant Sedona, triple butted chromo frame, to an online service who will now print me a physical, steel component, made in 316 stainless steel by lasers. This is the Star Trek economy, pure and simple. Replicators writ large, albeit in primitive form.

"Must have cost you a fortune!" you might exclaim. So, how about this?

To borrow from George R. R. Martin, I paid "the iron price," about US$10, posted to my "wide, brown land." AU$14.58!

I'm not writing to brag, I'm writing to encourage! You need to learn computer aided design (aka CAD), you really do. Be it FreeCAD, or Blender... or both! You really need to learn these tools! maybe you don't restore or build things, maybe you create artworks or jewellery, maybe reproduction medieival things. There are services who print in steel or titanium, there are services who also do aluminium. The finish is grainy, but this will help powdercoat or paint adhere better, and you could easily polish these with benchtop disk or belt sanders. For reproduction of antique looks, the grainy, slightly "oxidie" look is pretty nice, too, for the right things.

So, whether you have an engineering problem in your art project, or need more style to offset a dull, "dry" bracket, if you can imagine it, you can have it. Seriously. 5 days in the factory, a couple of weeks with the logistics people, then one day, you open your letterbox, and there it is! It's not quite, "Tea, Earl Grey, hot," yet, but it is a marvel of modern technology and the "t-model Ford" equivalent of what see on that beloved franchise

And to shamelessly mix franchises in an economy far, far away... sorry, not sorry... what's the dark side?

Well, maybe "IBM wins" and we bring these factories our bread and they toast it for us. However, I see this "genie" escaping the bottle and being a home power tool in the next 10 years. Home selective laser scintering machines, a forerunner process to the metal parts I'm talking about, selective laser melting², is already down to the price of a secondhand clunker of a car. Selective laser melting³ (the replicator in your garage) is only a leap in diode laser power that isn't much bigger jump than power transistors went through in the 1950s and 1960s.

Another dark side is home made weapons. Sadly, the dumb are always gunna gun. But, locally running AI tools could be embedded into the code of these machines to detect or prevent that, except for militaries or law enforcement, the original dark side that gives us bad engineering in the first place, sadly. I warn against these darker uses of "replicators" and home manufacturing, but I believe we have adequate laws for dealing with this already, such as "illegal firearms possession" laws in almost every country on earth, except the USA... *sigh*. Gun control isn't hard, even in a 3D printing context. 3D Metal is coming, all the politicians need to do is ask the artists, engineers and philosophers how best to legislate without restricting fair and reasonable uses like art, engineering and non-violent toolmaking.

And this is where engineering and art meet, and why artists need to be or befriend engineers, and why engineers need to hang with artists, with each learing from the other. Art and engineering together is discipline exploring intersection, and intersection is where colonoialism is broken down and ideas are currency. The intersection of art and engineering together builds better software and hardware. The artist is informed by intuition and feeling, the engineer is informed by possibility and structure. To unify these fields, harmoniously, is to create Rodenberry's visions of a just and truly equal future. a future where a Klingon can study yoga and even Vulcans and Romulans can find peace, because community is built locally, not globally. Around a pub, a granery or a smithy's forge.

Stand by for arrival and installation of the protoytpe brake bracket on my antique bike frame.

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1. Cum: Latin for with. In the above context, "combined with."
2. SLS: "Selective Laser Scintering," a process where fine particles of plastic or metal are partially melted by a tightly focused laser beam enough to form a strong bond between particles, layer by layer, but are not fully melted by the passing laser beam. This process cn be realised with affordable, semiconductor lasers, similar to those used in higher-end laser engravers.
3. SLM: Selective Laser Melting, a process where a tightly focused, moving laser beam completely melts the particles, layer by layer, creating a product with a consistency like metal casting or plastic injection molding. SLM machines usually require expensive, and significantly higher power lasers to accomplish spot melting.