The first Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH) took place in Geneva, Switzerland on March 2-5, 2016. The primary goal was to develop an initial roadmap to promote widespread use of open hardware in science, and it included the presence of a number of open science projects and organizations including OpenPlant, Hackteria, DropBot, OpenTrons, and more.
The biggest hurdle the community is working to address right now is the perception that open hardware isn’t as reliable as proprietary products. Reproducibility is key in science, so there needs to be a single repository of design information so that any scientist around the world can ensure they are building their experiments precisely. Some efforts have already been started to meet this need, including CERN’s open hardware repository, and the NIH 3d Print Exchange, but more work is needed here.
