The moment we are having with manufacturing
Over the weekend, I watched “Print the Legend” multiple times. It’s a fantastic film about the rise of 3D printing. One of the most important quotes was by Chris Anderson, founder of 3D Robotics -
“Suddenly we put [these tools] in the hands of regular people, who will come up, if history is any guide, better uses, more exciting uses, than any professional ever could. That is the moment we are having with manufacturing.”
On Tindie, I see this daily with over 3,300 products listed over the last 2 years. One of those being, Tapster, a 3D printed robot for mobile app testing, by Jason Huggins. Last week he posted this tweet from Yahoo’s headquarters in Silicon Valley—
https://twitter.com/hugs/status/523234089654960128/
The idea that a single inventor could design and produce products that the top companies use has only been possible in the last few years. Manufacturing techniques, like 3D printing, are now cheap enough for regular people to harness and utilize. As that happens, we’ll only see more projects like Tapster — specialized, artisanal, and small batch. Hardware is beginning to look less like those cheap radios we have on our nightstands, and more like the bespoke crafts on Etsy.
It is the moment we are having with manufacturing, and it’s only accelerating.
