What I'm really interested in is the 3D-printable 3D-printer. But a robot is half of the way. And needed to fill in the PLA.
RepRap is something like a 3D-printable 3D-printer. On the other hand a 3D printer won't print you computer chips anytime soon.
Yes. I wonder about the minimum infrastructure needed to create computing hardware comparable to modern ICs.
There exist lots of off-the-shelf programmable ICs, from single-board microcontrollers to FPGAs.
Why would you need to print your own custom ICs?
Because you can't create ICs yourself? You know a clockmaker (mechanical clocks) can create his own tools and working mechanical clocks in the farthest backwaters with only steel rods and his suitcase of tools (not very large; I have seen one). I admit that creating refined steel requires some more sizable - but nothing technologically advanced.
The same cannot be said about any part of modern electronics. Sure. You can print your case yourself. Sure, you can layout your board yourself. But you still depend on extremely highly integrated ICs and/or FPGAs. This means that if civilization collapses it falls down to mechanical tools - because those can be created locally with 'minimum' tools (at least where this knowhow was left). If not for the ICs we could have the same for electronics. Thus this could reduce an Xrisk.
Its name is Poppy.
"Both hardware and software are open source. There is not one single Poppy humanoid robot but as many as there are users. This makes it very attractive as it has grown from a purely technological tool to a real social platform."