#Welcome
This is the repo for files from BBC television series The Big Life Fix, which you can watch on Wednesday evenings on BBC Two (or catch up on iPlayer). The programme follows a group of designers, engineers, programmers and technology experts as they face the challenge of coming up with innovative inventions that will transform people’s lives.
From a man with locked-in syndrome who wants to communicate with his family, to an 11-year-old boy born without hands and feet who is desperate to ride a bike, the series offers extraordinary insight into the lives of those whose dreams seem to be beyond grasp and who need the help of experts.
In order to solve these and other challenges, the Big Life Fix team worked with presenter Simon Reeve to come up with new inventions using smart but creative cutting-edge technology, and we think you’ll find it fascinating to watch the process, see the results and meet the people involved.
The products you will see on the screen are designed to meet the specific needs of the people involved, and aren’t ready for production of widespread use. So the Make it Digital team has worked with the designers to provide access to the raw materials of some of the inventions – the source code, design files and build notes that were used to print, shape and operate the fabulous devices featured in the show.
A selcetion of CAD files for some of the fixes are available for you to download and work with. The files are intended for experienced makers and designers – you can’t just download the files, press a button and have your own camera mount or wiggling ears, we’re afraid. But if you’re an experienced designer or developer who would like to take the work done in the programme and extend it, or use elements in your own projects, we hope you’ll find it of interest. Sample software is released under the MIT licence (http://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/), while the hardware elements are provided under the CERN Open Hardware Licence 1.2 (http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cernohl/wiki)
CatEars: a small code fragment used to make animatronic ears wiggle ZocusRig: 3D print a rig that can be used in conjunction with the Zocus app to control a DSLR camera SheepRustling: two prototype devices intended to deter sheep rustlers
Watch the Big Life Fix on BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b084ztrw/episodes