This evening, I attended a talk on three dimensional (3D) printing, held by the Vermont Makers a group that encourage projects that fuse together technology and art, by utilizing open source hardware, micro-controllers and other available resources. 3D printers are truly a disruptive technology (A Disruptive technology is a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new technology that unexpectedly displaces an established technology), now you can print a variety of three dimensional objects instead of buying them. No longer does creating something truly innovative lie in the hands of the few. The printers work by adding layers of material to form different shapes, this is different from traditional machining where material is removed.
Growing up I always hated when one part in a toy broke and you had to throw away the entire toy and buy a new one if you couldn’t fix it. Now you might not have to, pick up the part scan it in a 3D scanner, generate a CAD (computer automated design) layout, and start printing that part out and replaced your broken part.Eventually a manufacture might send you the CAD file to download and print your own replacement part for something under-warranty eliminating the need for a warehouse of parts and making you wait until the part arrives.
As someone mentioned tonight this is maybe as close as we’re going to get to Star Trek’s object replicator a device that can create any object in a matter of seconds. I was pretty excited and decided to take up learning how to use some auto-cad software better so I can create my own parts, being an electrical engineer learning CAD wasn’t part of the standard fare.
References:
http://www.makerbot.com/
http://vermontmakers.org/
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/disruptive-technology
Shawn Adderly 