HardwareX: New Open Access Journal for Open Source Hardware from Elsevier
HardwareX, a new open access journal from Elsevier, has been created to help accelerate the distribution of low-cost high-quality open source scientific hardware.
With the rise of digital manufacturing it is now possible to fabricate custom components for 1-10% of the cost of commercial instruments using tools like 3-D printers, laser cutters, and PCB mills. Simultaneously the field of open source electronics has expanded rapidly and now inexpensive minicomputers, microcontrollers and electronic prototyping platforms are available for a few dollars. This has resulted in an explosion of open source scientific hardware. The quantity and diversity of tools enable the creation of entirely open source labs. Following the open source evolutionary path, free scientific hardware is proliferating rapidly as scientists and engineers make progressively more sophisticated tools available for the scientific community.
However, our work is not done. Many scientific tools have yet to be brought into the open source ecosystem for the benefit of all science. We believe we are on the verge of a new era when you read of the latest advance in your sub-discipline and then follow a link to HardwareX to download the equipment plans. You can use them to recreate or perhaps improve upon the low-cost scientific open hardware alternative and then you may push the next breakthrough.
By sharing, we all win in helping make all scientific equipment open source, high-quality and low cost meaning that science moves faster than it ever has before.
Read the welcome letter here and submit your manuscripts today.
All accepted papers submitted in 2016 receive a free copy of the Open Source Lab.
Thank you,
Joshua M. Pearce
Todd Duncombe
Editors-in-Chief