The electronics are a RAMPS shield on a standard Arduino. The plastic parts are indeed printed by other 3d printers in the Lulzbot bot farm. So depending on your definition of "make" it can indeed make more 3D printers. The frame is based in large part on the MendelMax design. All of this is open source and available on the reprap.org site, and other related sites.

Kudos to the Lulzbot team.

Well as has been said, it depends on what you are teaching, but "High School Computer Teacher" may mean A+ computer repair, Programming, Microsoft office, etc. I taught computer repair, and the thing I wanted most was work space. It would be nice if the monitors could swing away under or behind the desks and have some hooks for keyboard and mouse on the side or something so you could clear the desk space for doing actual labs like tear down some donated computers and reassemble them, explore the parts etc. To facilitate this the computer should not be on top of the desk. In so many labs I've seen the computer/monitor/keyboard take up every inch of desk space so that you can't even find a good place for reference material, books, or other tools. If I go really crazy the classroom looks like this.

1. Small form factor computers under the desk or attached to the underside.
2. Pico projector and pull down/up screen built in rather than a monitor
3. Place to stow keyboard and mouse

The projector should automatically go to sleep when the screen is rolled up. Going from computers on to computers gone should take ~10 seconds. You do your lectures, labs and other exercises with the computers completely out of the way, and bring them right back up when they are required. Oh and the screens should be slightly translucent so you can see what the kids are doing from both the front and the back of the classroom.

A space elevator is one technology that needs no huge breakthroughs. We are within an order of magnitude of the required materials science to produce such a thing. The main obstacle is will to do. Given funding and an Apollo type effort, this could be a reality soon, and allow "cheap" access to space.

Africa is mainly a political problem, so I doubt any amount of technology will affect the situation there much. Africa is so far behind current tech that advances here make very little difference there. But current nuclear/solar/other power sources could revolutionize Africa if the warlords ever went away.

As for slavery and civil rights being products of advancing tech, I would tend to disagree. I think it might have been facilitated by advancing tech, but the elimination of slavery was first and foremost a political/social solution. Tech just made up the difference once slavery was outlawed. Try to tell all the estimated 12 million present day slaves (Not talking US here) that modern technology has made slavery a thing of the past.

Current lifespan is due almost entirely to vaccination and sanitation. Neither of those is cutting edge tech. But a large advance in lifespan would have to be technological, not political or social. You have me there.

Medical care is expensive in large part because it is so effective. The more effective the treatment the more complex it tends to be. The higher the technological advancement of the product, the more expensive it tends to be, (computer chips being possibly the only long term exception)

We could solve the fossil fuel problem right now if we wanted to with nuclear power. Fusion would be nice but isn't required. Fission could power the world quite well for a very long time. Unfortunately the greens hate nuke, and you can't do anything in this world without their blessing.

Gross oversimplification here

I hope not. It seems like doing video on an e-ink screen defeats the purpose. You suck down battery life because you are refreshing as fast as possible. That and all of a sudden the price of ereaders will rise as manufacturers jump on the color/video bandwagon. Just like the price of netbooks seems to be going up due to feature creep. And no one seems to want the high volume low price market. Just give me a $50 B&W ereader and a $100 netbook and I'll be happy.

Wow, utopia to distopia in a few nanoseconds. Did you get whiplash? :) All I was saying is that while nanotech may someday fulfill the promise of ending scarcity, it is not the only solution. And I agree with your commentary about the negative effects of elimination of scarcity to a point. It could certainly descend into police state very quickly. If a very few can provide for the many then they can also control them.

The main point was that while certain tech may make some things inevitable, it's not really technology that is holding us back from accomplishing any of the things mentioned above. It is political and social will to accomplish them.

That's femtofurlongs you insensitive clod! Long live the empire! Down with rational metrics! May the inch be ever defined as the length of the current queen's nose and the foot be eternally defined as the length of her pinky times pi*. At least that way we can all understand what we're talking about.

*Except in times of war, or in cases of amputation, in which case it would be index finger times e. **

**Not to include artificial fingernails. ***

*** Except in cases of very short queens in which case carefully selected artificial fingernails may be used to allow a reasonable transition period.

OK Kurzweil, calm down. Yes, nanotech could in some version of future reality do some of the things you mention, but it is not a prerequisite. Outer space : Accessible by "average" people in the "near" future using near future materials tech via a space elevator. (wonder how that will get modded :) And the quality control is not the only thing that makes a rocket expensive. How about the tons of high strength materials and fuel. You still have to pay for raw materials even in a nanotech world. Africa: Hmm, "To go there, or not to go there, that is the question ..." If you could wave a magic wand and fix the social and political structure, (Hah! sidestepped that one :) then nanotech might be a help, but then so might widely available electricity/desalination from nuclear plants. You have to get by the first big IF statement. The worlds population is fed with electricity and oil almost as much as it is fed with sunlight and water. And why do you want to get rid of bodies? (Oh, right, forgot I was on Slashdot for a second)

But it can't be a really useful tool until you can put it away and use other tools. Classrooms need computers that can be hidden instantly, leaving desk space and mind space free when other tools are needed (like a physical demonstrations, hands on labs, and horror of horrors, even lecture). Laptops on carts don't work, cause it takes too long to distribute them and collect them. If your hammer took 15 minutes to take down off the pegboard and 15 minutes to replace, would you use it? What if you couldn't ever put it away? Would you use anything else?

Exactly. The problem with laptops in class or lab classrooms is that it is either impossible (CS Lab/writing lab/ compiter classroom) to put the computers aside or very difficult (laptops). You can't use the best tool for the job if it takes 20 minutes to switch tooling. You end up picking the least bad tool and using it forever. My ideal classroom is one in which there are computers that are small enough to be out of the way, under the desk, built in to the desk or some such. The screen is a micro laser projector and a pull up/down screen (slightly translucent for classroom management purposes). The keyboard is either a laser projected keyboard or has an easy place to hang when not in use, and the mouse is the same. Time from "Hey lets do a quick computer lab" to "Now open VirtualChemLab and load lab 12" should be something like 30 seconds. Try doing that with a set of laptops. When the lab is done and we are ready to discuss the results and do some practice problems, it should take the same amount of time to have a clear desk. Students log in as they enter the classroom then can put the computers away but stay logged in all period long. (Even better log in as they get to school and stay logged in all day switching automatically as they move to different classrooms.) The internet connection should be nearly always off. Not blocked, since we all know that doesn't really deter the smart students, but actually not connected. No evading filters and blocks, no games, no cat and mouse, just have the internet connection on when it is needed/wanted and off otherwise. It should be like the computers, there when useful, and not distracting when not in use (A tool). Would any of this help a poor teacher teach better? Probably not. But it would enable good and great teachers to innovate without having the tech get in the way. In a chemistry classroom the standard 8 or 10 wet labs could be supplemented with many more mini virtual labs that fit seamlessly into the lecture (30 seconds remember :). In a physics classroom similar things can go on. But if you displace all the workspace with computers then you lose the ability to do real labs with hands and eyes. In a computer programming classroom, teachers might actually put the computers away every once in a while and teach fundamentals. In an english classroom, teachers wouldn't have to schedule time in the "computer lab", take the kids to the lab, get them logged in, help those who forgot their passwords because they only get into the lab every few months. etc. etc. etc. Oh, and a cell phone jammer :) And I call bull crap on all the posts that argue "all we need to know these days is how to google". Same to all those who say students need pervasive internet access. How many real world adults can shut out the thousands of distractions on the internet during work hours and work productively for a full day? Now how can you expect teen age infants to outperform you in a classroom without the financial incentive that enables you to "work productively" day in and day out.