Okay, so I have to say this is one of the neatest spots I’ve had the opportunity to work on in quite a while; and is one I’ve had on my mind for a while. 3D printers… this is something you’re going to want to pay attention to.
3D printers are nothing new; they’ve actually been around for quite a while now (a very long time if you count a CNC machine as a 3D printer of sorts). What is interesting about this though is that there are consumer models coming out now with nice resolutions and at affordable prices. So what exactly does a 3D printer do? Hang with me here.
When most people think of printing, they think of printing out on paper. 3D printers actually print out lines of plastic and instead of documents, you can create objects like plastic wrenches or plastic spoons. A spoon that you can literally pick up and eat cereal with if you wanted to. Stew on that for just a second. If you’ve ever thought to yourself “I wish someone would make ____”, well now YOU can make it; and sell it for a profit if the design is good! The super neat thing about it is that there are entire websites out there devoted to sharing these “things” that you’ve come up with, like thingiverse.com. You can download designs for model planes to snap-together lamps. Pretty neat stuff! Imagine a world where you no longer buy model plane kits, you simply buy the design… and then you can make as many as you want! Another interesting thing about 3D printing is that the software you use to design with, speaks the same “language” as the machines that manufacturing companies use. Got a cool design that everyone loves? Ship it overseas and have a million of them made and start selling them on eBay!
Like a lot of good emerging technologies, 3D printers has a lot of buzz… and a few lawsuits to boot. A good number of people are comparing 3D printers to the early days of MP3s, back when we all used to steal music instead of paying for it. The reason is this, if you’re good enough with 3D design software (or if 3D scanners ever make it to market) you can rip-off other people’s stuff like game pieces mentioned in the linked article above (here again). Fascinating stuff for sure; we’ll have to keep our eyes pealed on this one to see if manufacturers start working WITH hobbyists, or against them.
For more information on the subject; check out my WBIR spot below. Special thanks to Carmike Cinemas for letting us film at their Wynnsong location and to Makerbot for the sweet demo videos. If you’re interested in a 3D printer, the Replicator 2 from Makerbot is the one to buy.
–Dan Thompson