Yup, If a file fails, they might look at it and say…“We have to print that and see why it did that!”
1 Like
I think I love you!
This is a fair point to bring up, I don’t mean to blow off the question.
Especially this part:
Are there limitations to what we can do with the things we would be making or the files we used to make them?
That was really not specified one way or the other, but I think it is something that would come in the form of the forewarned legal documentation were one to be chosen as a beta tester.
1 Like
Good question. Your designs and prints will be yours to do with as you please.
8 Likes
Answered by Dan above.
I am sure that Glowforge will not be particularly interested at this point in what “Design” you cut or engrave, but only that the materials are compatible with the laser in what it can perform and what is expected. I know from cutting plastic in my other antique laser, some material like PVC become a toxic gas mess and shouldn’t be done at all. There certainly will be an experimental trial effort to catalog what materials and thicknesses work with Glowforge, the PPS rate and speeds of cutting for each to be right.
The knowledge gained can be translated to materials and “Recipies” or settings that are pre known with a given material, thereby insuring a correct and suceeessful job.
Will you be asking the group to focus on doing certain styles of prints, or working in certain materials at times to work on problem areas? Or do you feel it is better just to let each individual to use it how they would on a day to day basis? I can see both sides of it my self.
I think the FAQ said that they would ask different things of different people, depending on their skill set.
I’m sure someone with a lot of design experience may be asked to make and cut their own designs. But someone who is a beginner may be asked to perform other more basic operations.
Makes sense. They will need people with less experience to test the marketplace as well, to make sure the marketplace is easy to use, and the designs on it can be used by anybody! regardless of their experience.
Development and operational testing of H/W and S/W is what I do. I want to stress to the community in the strongest terms that typical Beta testing is NOT about handing over the Beta unit and letting folks just play with it. Yes, there will be useful information to be gained through freeplay but don’t assume that building cool things and posting pictures will answer the questions that need to be answered. The Beta testers are selected to independently verify (independent of the designers and engineers) functional, performance and useability questions in a real world setting. This will be for both the H/W and S/W interfaces. It might be tedious or fun depending on how the program is structured. If selected, the more time you spend on answering the needs of the Beta program instead of just cutting fun stuff, the earlier we all get a production unit. (though the two may not be mutually exclusive.)
9 Likes
I have to agree with @rpegg. I also work in H/W and S/W quality assurance, but as a test automation developer. Some of the tests that are performed during a beta run can be long and tedious, depending on the type of product we are developing. But often times, the really long soak tests are typically done in-house before they are given to Beta customers. Beta customers are often told to just use the product in their day to day and report any problems they see.
It really depends on how much of the testing will be done in-house before they ship their Beta units. I’m not sure what kind of testing team Glowforge has put together at this point. There is kind of a blurry line between an official in-house test team, and a “volunteer corps” of Beta testers.
If Glowforge can get a lot of their testing done for “free” by volunteers, it will make the actual product ship faster, with higher quality. It really depends on how many volunteers they get, and what kind of tests those volunteers can perform. Given the volume of posts I’ve seen that says “I want my machine a.s.a.p.”, I think they will get a fairly large pool of “free” testers. I’m not putting this down in any way (since I volunteered myself). I think it’s actually a good strategy for getting a lot testing done for a relatively small price (shipping the machines).
I’ve never worked at a place where there was so much anticipation for the product we were developing.
5 Likes
I wish I could afford the 10 hours to write up a week, this would be great experience. Have lots of ideas!
I don’t believe the 10 hours was intended to be just writing. I’m positive it will require a lot of documentation, but also design and actual laser time as well. I intend to put a lot more than 10 hours in if I’m selected but that is up to GF.
Since there has not been any public announcement on the exact nature of the work that Glowforge is expecting from the Volunteers, we are all free to speculate!
For instance, it may not be “formal” beta testing…
Perhaps they are looking for a few people to try cutting things they did not expect, or to push the interface in ways that the internal testers would not. If we get lucky, @rpegg it may indeed just be " building cool things and posting pictures". 
At this point we are all just guessing.
2 Likes
yep
The 10 hours sounds like that would include design time, cutting, and reporting how things are working.
1 Like
Well, we know that stress testing the cloud is not an issue. So just telling you to print a lot of small things in a specified time window is unlikely.
Doing temperature profiles of basic and pro in various environments would be a golden opportunity only available by shipping units out to vastly different climates. So that would be a likely test requested when they start shipping across the country. Seattle covers them for high humidity and cold right now, so expect some cold low humidity and various humidity hot locations to improve your odds of being selected at that stage. But it would come with a request to run some really long “Cut” jobs. With a decent change that they just tell you to load in an inch deep of cardboard across the whole bed and then it proceeds to raster the entire surface a few times (longest possible continual opperation. Though doing a bunch of figure skater trips around the bed on vector cuts could work well as a test of the belts and motors for possible slippage).
What other tests seem reasonable, due to the nature of needing different locations or large quantities of users?
Testing material types isn’t really a reasonable test to expect, since they can test plenty themselves, and for the most part you can just google search for 40W CO2 laser and get an answer in moments.
The camera systems are the main potion which is novel. So a decent chunk of the beta would likely just be making sure that alignment works out appropriately. Cut things and take measures afterward. Load materials with odd surface profiles to see if the auto-focus follows the contour properly, or if the camera deals well with hidden details due to sharp ridges in the profile far from the camera.
I imagine quite a fair amount of the Beta testers will just be input on what features would be nice to have. Where to focus effort for the best possible experience at launch. Typical agile development software stuff.
5 Likes
I think that’s quite clear what’s expected as far as time and tasks expected. Whether or not some of your projects will be directed or it will be a free for all is unknow.
1 Like
I could easily see putting in 10 hours setting up, documenting, and experimenting with it just on the day it arrives. It’s actually harder for me to imagine leaving the shop knowing that I could be experimenting with a laser. Of course, with an unfinished, feature-disabled, (other potential non-conformity), beta unit, the excitement and obsession could taper off. Slightly.
Really, I think about the unknown. There are a lot of creative people here, many of whom have limited experience in many areas related to aspects of the process. I, for example, have never used a laser to cut or engrave anything. Because they are trying to make this as accessible as possible, a consumer device for the home, They are going to want to try as hard as possible to make it idiot-proof. Which brings me (once again) to these quotes from Douglas Adams:
“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”
and
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
4 Likes
Agreed, my post doesn’t conflict with what you or anyone is saying. I wasn’t trying to imply that the testers would be running through some rigorous well documented process and be a bunch of low paid drones following a script. Just that folks that want to worry more about “what” they are producing rather than focusing on whether the GF and user interfaces helped them to get a great end result, would not be doing us any favors. Also, if a person plans to do the same type of thing over and over with just slight variations, that doesn’t provide much useful info other than reliability. Yes doing things in ways the developers did not envision is one of the primary functions of Beta testing.