Solar Powered 3D printers
In our studio we use a 3D printer. We’ve had it for a while and it’s been very useful. We use it for thinking in three dimensions as well as making little inventions, a small Yoda head, a squeezy toy and things with the impossible geometry that have contributed to some of the success of these devices. Making prototypes and mockups of designs is really how it earns its keep though.
This is clearly very important for us and a useful application but surely these clever robots are destined for greater things?
In the 15th century the printing revolution made it possible for normal people and individual authors to have their works printed and published and read by hundreds of thousands. Although Thingiverse and fab labs have certainly made it easier for people to get things 3D printed, the printing press’s 21st century cousins haven’t democratised creating in quite the same way yet. For several years now we’ve been reading stories about people who’ve 3D printed prosthetics, food or even living tissue, but how much do these really affect us? For most people, I imagine that 3D printers are usually used to just make stuff and none of us in the West really need more stuff.
Democratising Design
There are parts of the world, however, where being able to create your own products would be truly democratising, useful and even lifesaving. Not living tissue but small, simple plastic things. Developing countries that are heavily dependent on imports of medical equipment for example, could use 3D printing to leapfrog an industrial revolution into a digital one.
We started to think about this during a project developing a new solar light for Africa. We’ve designed it to be small and easy to use, and replaces kerosene lanterns which are expensive, polluting and dangerous. We think we’ve done a good job too, but these lights have been designed in Manchester, for a company in Europe, been manufactured in China, shipped to Africa and then delivered to people who need them.
This seems a bit counterintuitive to us. Not only does our light travel all the way around the world and back again before it’s actually used, the money made, the expertise, the skills learned and business it supports all seem to bypass the people actually using it. So perhaps rather than giving solar lights to people in Africa we could give them skills and tools to create their own (and anything else for that matter). And maybe this is exactly where 3D printers could really be put to the test? So instead of sending lights powered by the sun, we started to look at sending 3D printers powered by the sun.
People are already thinking about this
Lots of people are already thinking in this area including professor Joshua Pearce at Michigan Technological University. He has invented the first portable, solar-powered 3D printer and Field Ready have been helping people in disaster relief areas to design and create products that would otherwise be difficult to get hold of or take a long time to arrive. So far 3D printers have been used to create umbilical cord clips, vein finders, bespoke prosthetics and syringes (to name a few).
Despite this, we’re a long way off having a fully self sustaining system. 3D modelling software takes time to learn and shipping raw materials is expensive but there will be ways that these problems can be tackled. It will require some material ingenuity, using recycled plastics like the upstart but no less earnest ‘designer’ William.I.am and his Ekocycle Cube 3D printer venture. People have even used sand to 3D print glass. But perhaps more importantly it would require companies like Field Ready to embark upon more teaching exercises, helping people to get a better grip on CAD programmes and give them a better understanding of design in general.
Ideally every stage of this process would be designed, created and managed by the people using the products or at least by people in the areas where things like prosthetics and umbilical cord clips are most needed but this will take time. Teaching people the skills needed and to provide and support an IT infrastructure or work out the shipping of raw materials isn’t going to happen overnight and frankly it’s not something that design companies have expertise in.
However there are jobs that we can be getting on with. Until the skills are learned then there is need for CAD talents at least and design thinking and service design at most. We can be creating open source CAD files that can help to sow the seeds of this system change and even work with people like Joshua Pearce to design the next generation of solar powered printers.
Perhaps we are a long way from a new 3D printed revolution but we’ve got our work cut out until that comes about.
