Drawingmachine by Eske Rex from Core77 on Vimeo.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
The technology of fabrication and the means by which it can improve lives.
After writing the last few blog posts, which I hope in some vague way covered some of the basics of new and emerging systems of fabrication, I guess I’m left wondering where the actual future lies. Those who champion the virtues of the next big thing are always going to be somewhat utopian in their vision. The steam engine, electricity and nuclear power, aside from their often irrational detractors sadly also had an equal number of irrational advocates. While these advances in technology have yet to definitively destroy the earth, neither did they end poverty, famine or cure all known diseases and make a three day work week standard. For all that technology often inspires dreams of a better future, those visions need to be bound by what is actually possible. When the initial discoveries about electricity were being made there was an eruption of ridiculous claims about its power, the novel Frankenstein was in many respects a kind of summary of these crackpot theories. More interesting though are those claims that lie within the boundaries of what is physically possible and yet never see the fruition their champion’s desire. With the advent of nuclear power as a means of generating electricity, there some who believed there would soon be a day when every home might possess one. Practical issues, and subsequent discoveries about its danger meant we would never see a micro reactor replace the gas boiler. While the link between nuclear power and nuclear warfare meant applications in a civilian context would have to be limited. Many of the nuclear reactors built used a design that enabled them to yield nuclear material meant for nuclear weaponry.
Nuclear power is something of a red herring for this blog, which concentrates on technology available to the typical consumer, but it does highlight what I want to discuss today. Were it not for the demand for materials suitable for nuclear weapons, nuclear technology could have developed very differently. There is certainly no question that the world we live in has benefited because of nuclear technology in general. Alas, the legacy of nuclear weapons have left us with nuclear reactors far more dangerous than they needed to be. There is reason for guarded optimism, new designs offer nuclear power that is more efficient and far less toxic. For instance serious research into Thorium molten salt reactors. Thorium, a heavy metal far more common that the materials required for current reactors and with a much shorter time span during which waste materials are dangerous, could offer a new generation of nuclear power, not only less hazardous but incapable of being used to produce materials necessary for nuclear weapons.
This leads us back to my point about the way in which scientific discoveries and new technology, while they may have any number of possible applications, in the end enter a marketplace that will have a profound effect on the way it is used. It was the necessity to build large arsenalsa of nuclear weapons that led to the design for reactors most common today. In much the same way, mass production has shaped the kinds of technology we can possess. We live in an age where we can have something cheap provided millions of people can have and afford the same thing too. This means that if you want something unique, bespoke made just for you it will cost far more than the equivalent manufactured item. For all practical purposes what you can get that is unique is somewhat limited too. For items like household electronics and other devices, it is impractical regardless of budget to have machinery built just for you. There is at least one good reason for this, aside from the cost of developing the next big thing, be it faster computer processors, better vacuum cleaners or more efficient light bulbs there is no need for many of these items to be custom made. Once they are designed, manufacture reduces these goods almost to the level of undistinguishable commodities. There may be people who want a particular product to be customised to their own aesthetic tastes, but the internal components of the resulting machine or device are likely to be little different in form or function than the equivalent item bought at bargain basement prices. A good example are personal computers designed for the professional computer game players (yes, such people exist!). These computers are a far cry from those most people would experience in their home or workplace and considerably more powerful. All so that those enjoy the PC as a gaming machine can squeeze a few extra frames from their set-up. You might think spending a few hundred euros for a PC is sufficient but the truly dedicated player can easily part with several thousand. The architecture is the same, but the individual components are all top of the line and from the perspective of design, they sure look pretty(Take a look at this set-up from Alienware).
So there is a market for those who want to put their own stamp on the items they own, but will the technology to do so lowering in price and availability will there ever be a real demand for it. Will the demand for product differentiation ever get to the point where the typical consumer will expect there device to be unique. I doubt it, part of the reason for the success of mass production is that not only are devices cheap, because they share so much of the same functionality; learning to use one such device means using others like it is so much easier. There is a point to be made about psychology too. Ownership of these goods is often a declaration of what kind of person you are and which groups and communities you have an affinity with. Macs versus P.C.s being a good example. There is a desire among consumers to forego customisation to declare loyalty to communities that favour certain goods over another, sometimes at the expense of quality, value and utility (The strange decisions supposedly rational consumers make really is a puzzle for those who study the marketplace). If the advances being in made in fabrication are going to enter the marketplace in a big way, I suspect that something approaching a revolution is needed. If it doesn’t happen in this little corner of the planet, could it happen somewhere else?
To be continued...
After writing the last few blog posts, which I hope in some vague way covered some of the basics of new and emerging systems of fabrication, I guess I’m left wondering where the actual future lies. Those who champion the virtues of the next big thing are always going to be somewhat utopian in their vision. The steam engine, electricity and nuclear power, aside from their often irrational detractors sadly also had an equal number of irrational advocates. While these advances in technology have yet to definitively destroy the earth, neither did they end poverty, famine or cure all known diseases and make a three day work week standard. For all that technology often inspires dreams of a better future, those visions need to be bound by what is actually possible. When the initial discoveries about electricity were being made there was an eruption of ridiculous claims about its power, the novel Frankenstein was in many respects a kind of summary of these crackpot theories. More interesting though are those claims that lie within the boundaries of what is physically possible and yet never see the fruition their champion’s desire. With the advent of nuclear power as a means of generating electricity, there some who believed there would soon be a day when every home might possess one. Practical issues, and subsequent discoveries about its danger meant we would never see a micro reactor replace the gas boiler. While the link between nuclear power and nuclear warfare meant applications in a civilian context would have to be limited. Many of the nuclear reactors built used a design that enabled them to yield nuclear material meant for nuclear weaponry.
Nuclear power is something of a red herring for this blog, which concentrates on technology available to the typical consumer, but it does highlight what I want to discuss today. Were it not for the demand for materials suitable for nuclear weapons, nuclear technology could have developed very differently. There is certainly no question that the world we live in has benefited because of nuclear technology in general. Alas, the legacy of nuclear weapons have left us with nuclear reactors far more dangerous than they needed to be. There is reason for guarded optimism, new designs offer nuclear power that is more efficient and far less toxic. For instance serious research into Thorium molten salt reactors. Thorium, a heavy metal far more common that the materials required for current reactors and with a much shorter time span during which waste materials are dangerous, could offer a new generation of nuclear power, not only less hazardous but incapable of being used to produce materials necessary for nuclear weapons.
This leads us back to my point about the way in which scientific discoveries and new technology, while they may have any number of possible applications, in the end enter a marketplace that will have a profound effect on the way it is used. It was the necessity to build large arsenalsa of nuclear weapons that led to the design for reactors most common today. In much the same way, mass production has shaped the kinds of technology we can possess. We live in an age where we can have something cheap provided millions of people can have and afford the same thing too. This means that if you want something unique, bespoke made just for you it will cost far more than the equivalent manufactured item. For all practical purposes what you can get that is unique is somewhat limited too. For items like household electronics and other devices, it is impractical regardless of budget to have machinery built just for you. There is at least one good reason for this, aside from the cost of developing the next big thing, be it faster computer processors, better vacuum cleaners or more efficient light bulbs there is no need for many of these items to be custom made. Once they are designed, manufacture reduces these goods almost to the level of undistinguishable commodities. There may be people who want a particular product to be customised to their own aesthetic tastes, but the internal components of the resulting machine or device are likely to be little different in form or function than the equivalent item bought at bargain basement prices. A good example are personal computers designed for the professional computer game players (yes, such people exist!). These computers are a far cry from those most people would experience in their home or workplace and considerably more powerful. All so that those enjoy the PC as a gaming machine can squeeze a few extra frames from their set-up. You might think spending a few hundred euros for a PC is sufficient but the truly dedicated player can easily part with several thousand. The architecture is the same, but the individual components are all top of the line and from the perspective of design, they sure look pretty(Take a look at this set-up from Alienware).
So there is a market for those who want to put their own stamp on the items they own, but will the technology to do so lowering in price and availability will there ever be a real demand for it. Will the demand for product differentiation ever get to the point where the typical consumer will expect there device to be unique. I doubt it, part of the reason for the success of mass production is that not only are devices cheap, because they share so much of the same functionality; learning to use one such device means using others like it is so much easier. There is a point to be made about psychology too. Ownership of these goods is often a declaration of what kind of person you are and which groups and communities you have an affinity with. Macs versus P.C.s being a good example. There is a desire among consumers to forego customisation to declare loyalty to communities that favour certain goods over another, sometimes at the expense of quality, value and utility (The strange decisions supposedly rational consumers make really is a puzzle for those who study the marketplace). If the advances being in made in fabrication are going to enter the marketplace in a big way, I suspect that something approaching a revolution is needed. If it doesn’t happen in this little corner of the planet, could it happen somewhere else?
To be continued...
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Nerd Art
Just a quickie, came across this on Wired and thought it fitted into the themes of this blog pretty well. Despite everything I said about the bland anonymity of mass production, someone somewhere will find a way to put their individual stamp on things. Even though in this case, it's art no-one is physically capable of seeing (unless your eyes can magnify objects 200-500 times). Check out the article here: Wired: Microscopic art.
For a more comprehensive gallery from ChipWorks, the company that found these very little masterpieces, click here:
For a more comprehensive gallery from ChipWorks, the company that found these very little masterpieces, click here:
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Someday
Where was I?
Funny, but the last few articles on the power of new technologies, leads to an interruption to the usual programming and take a short detail through the politics of manufacture. A brief and sketchy interlude it will be too. Now and again in preceding posts I mentioned the marketplace, the demand for this technology and the kinds of people who might benefit from it. It seems to me that at this moment demand is mostly limited to hard core technophiles, hobbyists who might find a use for it in their chosen past-times and some random collection of dilettantes wanting to play with the next big thing. In terms of actual industrial application, these devices are used predominantly in two ways: To prototype objects for testing, evaluation and experimenting before they are approved for mass production or for the production of high cost objects and devices for which demand is relatively low. The notion that mass production might be in some way threatened by the advent of these devices becoming available to the home user not at this point in time a real issue. So far these devices only produce simple objects typically made from one material. Objects with more than one material can be made but typically this would require they be assembled after each piece is printed. There is an upper limit in the complexity of these newly manufactured objects. Motors, electronic components, fabrics and other kinds of product, all require specialised and often expensive manufacturing techniques. As yet, no device exists cheap enough and versatile enough to fabricate these items, they are still the purview of large corporations creating these objects in bulk. This is not to say that the hobbyist has no means to make their own electronic devices. The individual components; resistors, microchips printed circuit boards et al can all be purchased. Though it does not receive much by way of press attention there is an active community of people building their own sophisticated devices and making them available to others for purchase or simply distributing their blueprints for others to make their own copies.
I could wax lyrical at this point about the dissemination of knowledge through the medium of good ol' W3v2.0. I could make some kind of profound point about the evolution of information transmission and how it is transforming the world before our eyes quite apart from the physical infrastructure upon which it relies. In effect there is nothing that is not a commodity. Stuff + Information = Goods and Services of any kind. It goes without saying this is as exclusive a club as there has ever been. A hobbyist, some strange hermit like creature with tendrils wrapped around the necessary server nodes might indeed be able to boast that he can build everything he needs, but he would be a liar. There some items you just can't build outside a factory or the multi-million dollar equipped lab which designs its product line and the machinery used to build more machinery. The hobbyist has a long way to go before he/she starts out with silicon crystals and copper and ends up with an Xbox. You can shop for the bits and bobs you need, or salvage it from the flotsam and jetsam of our consumer age, but right now there is a limit. Still though, the inherent complexity of building stuff, in this case especially electronic stuff, is a barrier rapidly eroding. It is not the high cost that is the issue, I suspect components have never been cheaper, and even though blueprints are readily available on-line for many types of doodad, the skill set is still limited to the professional engineer and the dedicated hobbyist. I might be able to knock together my own little graphing calculator, vacuum cleaner, or washing machine but it would be difficult to imagine making enough of them at the right price to make a living, not when one is competing with multi-billion dollar industries. In fact, would such a thing be even possible?
Let's take a trip to a strange and exciting place, far far distant and peopled by creatures perhaps very different than the sort we are used to. In this odd world there is no hunger, no stupidity, no shortage of resources, no corrupt bankers and no dirty stinking politicians (or is that corrupt politicians and dirty stinking bankers?). Many of you like myself might have difficulty visualising such a place and myself I can hardly imagine such people to have the same number of arms, legs eyes and ears as we do, and if all that weren't ridiculous enough let's assume for the hell of it that everyone one of these strange alien people is a polymath. Everyone here is perfectly educated, all the skills and knowledge required in this world is known to everyone. Anyone can build a car or a plane, participate effectively in government, perform a heart transplant (or whatever organ these weirdos use to pump their bodily fluids) and should they feel so inclined write a novel or sing a song of such artistry, heart searing emotional truth and technical wizardry as to make the very stones weep. Actually that last bit might be a bit of stretch, I'll settle for mere technical know-how and an ethic of self reliance. I'll leave it to an even stranger race of freaks to be universally endowed with all of the artistic talent of our greatest prodigies combined. Anyway in this perfect world and perfect society what need is there of consumerism and mass production. It would be an insult to the honour of such folk to think that they would need to buy something they could not make for themselves. Instead they would call up the library on their fancy 'puters give themselves a quick reminder of the materials they need and forthwith set about creating the devices they and each one would be made to suit the individual tastes of their maker. In truth they don't always do this, but in this strange near Spartan land to be a citizen requires they be so qualified to do so. Unlike us, by law they are required to understand intimately any device they own all in the name of the sovereignty of the individual they hold so dear. They may 'allow' others to build things for them, citizens may be allowed to specialise to increase the sum level of expertise in their society but without fail each of these people has one item in their home. It may be more advanced than anything mere humans have yet invented but in essence it is little different than the 3D printers we have been speaking of.
The question is would enough people be capable of using these machines effectively in the world we live in. How could such a system develop? Imagine something like an app store, divided into two main sections: blueprints (including tutorials, project planning templates etc) and materials (either raw materials or simple components). In theory a huge range of goods could be stored here, home furnishings and machinery, cars, you name it and in some form it is here). Companies specialising in simply providing resources to the home manufacturer might provide the highest quality and easiest to manufacture goods, but others might provide simple modifications you can incorporate into your version (just be sure to check their quality ratings!). Could there be an advantage to this approach that conventional devices lack? The answer lies in our expectations of the goods we own. It seems the age has long since when we expected to be able to repair let alone even make our own stuff. Yet there is no real reason for this other than the nature of the design of the goods themselves. It would take relatively little to design goods in such a way that repair and even assembly from kits would be possible. Sadly, since the consumer is now considered both extremely fragile and most likely thicker than two planks, for our own safety we are quite often prevented from opening up our doodads and messing around with their insides. Because of this I think we are losing out, we own devices that are not only utter mysteries to us but frightening strange machines auguring death should they be defiled. Yet if there was demand, not only would we be invited inside to marvel at how they work, we could opt to assemble them ourselves, customise them so they fit us, rather than the other way around. Instead of being warned away with arcane symbols warning of doom instead we would see instructions flattering our intellects and enriching our lives.
Someday, someday...
Funny, but the last few articles on the power of new technologies, leads to an interruption to the usual programming and take a short detail through the politics of manufacture. A brief and sketchy interlude it will be too. Now and again in preceding posts I mentioned the marketplace, the demand for this technology and the kinds of people who might benefit from it. It seems to me that at this moment demand is mostly limited to hard core technophiles, hobbyists who might find a use for it in their chosen past-times and some random collection of dilettantes wanting to play with the next big thing. In terms of actual industrial application, these devices are used predominantly in two ways: To prototype objects for testing, evaluation and experimenting before they are approved for mass production or for the production of high cost objects and devices for which demand is relatively low. The notion that mass production might be in some way threatened by the advent of these devices becoming available to the home user not at this point in time a real issue. So far these devices only produce simple objects typically made from one material. Objects with more than one material can be made but typically this would require they be assembled after each piece is printed. There is an upper limit in the complexity of these newly manufactured objects. Motors, electronic components, fabrics and other kinds of product, all require specialised and often expensive manufacturing techniques. As yet, no device exists cheap enough and versatile enough to fabricate these items, they are still the purview of large corporations creating these objects in bulk. This is not to say that the hobbyist has no means to make their own electronic devices. The individual components; resistors, microchips printed circuit boards et al can all be purchased. Though it does not receive much by way of press attention there is an active community of people building their own sophisticated devices and making them available to others for purchase or simply distributing their blueprints for others to make their own copies.
I could wax lyrical at this point about the dissemination of knowledge through the medium of good ol' W3v2.0. I could make some kind of profound point about the evolution of information transmission and how it is transforming the world before our eyes quite apart from the physical infrastructure upon which it relies. In effect there is nothing that is not a commodity. Stuff + Information = Goods and Services of any kind. It goes without saying this is as exclusive a club as there has ever been. A hobbyist, some strange hermit like creature with tendrils wrapped around the necessary server nodes might indeed be able to boast that he can build everything he needs, but he would be a liar. There some items you just can't build outside a factory or the multi-million dollar equipped lab which designs its product line and the machinery used to build more machinery. The hobbyist has a long way to go before he/she starts out with silicon crystals and copper and ends up with an Xbox. You can shop for the bits and bobs you need, or salvage it from the flotsam and jetsam of our consumer age, but right now there is a limit. Still though, the inherent complexity of building stuff, in this case especially electronic stuff, is a barrier rapidly eroding. It is not the high cost that is the issue, I suspect components have never been cheaper, and even though blueprints are readily available on-line for many types of doodad, the skill set is still limited to the professional engineer and the dedicated hobbyist. I might be able to knock together my own little graphing calculator, vacuum cleaner, or washing machine but it would be difficult to imagine making enough of them at the right price to make a living, not when one is competing with multi-billion dollar industries. In fact, would such a thing be even possible?
Let's take a trip to a strange and exciting place, far far distant and peopled by creatures perhaps very different than the sort we are used to. In this odd world there is no hunger, no stupidity, no shortage of resources, no corrupt bankers and no dirty stinking politicians (or is that corrupt politicians and dirty stinking bankers?). Many of you like myself might have difficulty visualising such a place and myself I can hardly imagine such people to have the same number of arms, legs eyes and ears as we do, and if all that weren't ridiculous enough let's assume for the hell of it that everyone one of these strange alien people is a polymath. Everyone here is perfectly educated, all the skills and knowledge required in this world is known to everyone. Anyone can build a car or a plane, participate effectively in government, perform a heart transplant (or whatever organ these weirdos use to pump their bodily fluids) and should they feel so inclined write a novel or sing a song of such artistry, heart searing emotional truth and technical wizardry as to make the very stones weep. Actually that last bit might be a bit of stretch, I'll settle for mere technical know-how and an ethic of self reliance. I'll leave it to an even stranger race of freaks to be universally endowed with all of the artistic talent of our greatest prodigies combined. Anyway in this perfect world and perfect society what need is there of consumerism and mass production. It would be an insult to the honour of such folk to think that they would need to buy something they could not make for themselves. Instead they would call up the library on their fancy 'puters give themselves a quick reminder of the materials they need and forthwith set about creating the devices they and each one would be made to suit the individual tastes of their maker. In truth they don't always do this, but in this strange near Spartan land to be a citizen requires they be so qualified to do so. Unlike us, by law they are required to understand intimately any device they own all in the name of the sovereignty of the individual they hold so dear. They may 'allow' others to build things for them, citizens may be allowed to specialise to increase the sum level of expertise in their society but without fail each of these people has one item in their home. It may be more advanced than anything mere humans have yet invented but in essence it is little different than the 3D printers we have been speaking of.
The question is would enough people be capable of using these machines effectively in the world we live in. How could such a system develop? Imagine something like an app store, divided into two main sections: blueprints (including tutorials, project planning templates etc) and materials (either raw materials or simple components). In theory a huge range of goods could be stored here, home furnishings and machinery, cars, you name it and in some form it is here). Companies specialising in simply providing resources to the home manufacturer might provide the highest quality and easiest to manufacture goods, but others might provide simple modifications you can incorporate into your version (just be sure to check their quality ratings!). Could there be an advantage to this approach that conventional devices lack? The answer lies in our expectations of the goods we own. It seems the age has long since when we expected to be able to repair let alone even make our own stuff. Yet there is no real reason for this other than the nature of the design of the goods themselves. It would take relatively little to design goods in such a way that repair and even assembly from kits would be possible. Sadly, since the consumer is now considered both extremely fragile and most likely thicker than two planks, for our own safety we are quite often prevented from opening up our doodads and messing around with their insides. Because of this I think we are losing out, we own devices that are not only utter mysteries to us but frightening strange machines auguring death should they be defiled. Yet if there was demand, not only would we be invited inside to marvel at how they work, we could opt to assemble them ourselves, customise them so they fit us, rather than the other way around. Instead of being warned away with arcane symbols warning of doom instead we would see instructions flattering our intellects and enriching our lives.
Someday, someday...
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Thinking about the marketplace
The question I asked last time was whether there was a marketplace for 3D printers in the home. Right now if there is such a market I would that it is quite small. There may be small groups of hobbyists or SME (small to medium sized enterprises) who might find such a device useful but this would not of itself constitute a sizeable marketplace. If this is the case, could it ever be the case that many homes might have a 3D printing device as part of their inventory of home machinery, sitting in some corner beside their washing machine or in the shed next to the lawnmower. Not right now, no. In fact as I see it a lot would have to change for this ever to happen.
Owning and operating a 3D printer is quite expensive right now, companies that use can afford to do so because they lower the costs of building test models of their products. They do so in two ways; the task of creating even a simple prototype can take several days of labour using a team of several trained technicians, with the aid of a printer this task is streamlined. Also, due to the fact that a printer can be kept in operation twenty four hours a day means it’s potential output trumps that of a human being. Another point to consider stems from the success of contemporary industry’s success at both defining and meeting the demands of the consumer for devices designed to make life that much easier. Would the owning of a 3D printing system in the home be compatible with industry’s need for passive consumers? Right now that is not such an issue, since few people would have the wherewithal to even attempt to build from scratch any of the machinery on which the modern home depends. DIY seems to be the upper limit of what people can achieve, with some perhaps at best capable of repairing some of the machinery in their home. The point here is that there is no incentive to try to self fabricate devices and machinery the home depends on; it will always be cheaper, easier and more prudent to buy goods that exceed a certain complexity.
Supplying goods and services to the hobbyist tends to be seen as something of a niche market. Take hobbyists who restore classic cars or build kit cars for weekend racing. They may need on occasion to have special pieces built for their project. The car restorer may someone to supply a missing component, the kit car enthusiast might need a gasket. In most cases these are supplied through specialist vendors, but if the circumstances warrant it they may be able to get the piece made. We are still in the conventional model of consumer demand in the market place. We are entering a time now where the availability of these new fangled 3D printers where a customer can design the piece he needs on his home computer and have some third party fabricate the piece for him.
As the demand for these technologies improves, it is a truism of economics that the prices will fall. Someone skilled enough and working on a project where this technology will substantially improve his or her ability to create goods may find the investment worthwhile. It is very likely that hobbyist groups will turn to this technology as and when it becomes an economically viable alternative. For this technology to bridge the gap from relatively small niche markets to becoming widespread enough to become something typically found in the home several concurrent things need to happen. The cost needs to be reduced significantly, the level of expertise required to use this technology effectively needs to be within the grasp of a large subsection of the population and complementary goods and services that allow the home user to make the most of this new technology needs to become available.
Right now some of these things are happening, albeit on a small scale. The open source RepRap community in many ways are the exemplar of this movement. As an open source project, hobbyists and semi-professionals have designed a functioning 3D printer. If you want to get your hands on one right now, you can buy either kits or fully assembled printers (if you’re interested the latest model is the Mendel. I could write several articles on RepRap and other similar open source projects, and someday I might just do that but for now I just want to point out some key features.
One of the primary goals of the reprap community is to one day build a device that can fabricate al of the parts necessary to build another printer. Right now I think it is fair to say there is along way to go before this can be achieved. Even the latest model; the Mendel, is not yet equal to professional equipment and most variants are limited with the kinds of material they can use to build objects. As yet, only various kinds of plastics and acrylics are possible and while there are members of the community working on variants that can use a technique called selective laser sintering +link to wiki to enable these machines to create metal objects, this is not yet standard. So far these printers can only produce some of the parts necessary. Most of the key components; stepper motors, metal guide rails, electronics etc, need to be purchased in order to actually build the printer. It will be a long time before these devices evolve through successive iterations before a device capable of reproducing all of the complex parts necessary for another machine is possible.
To make these devices practical for the home, several advances to the hardware are necessary. The range of objects they can produce must be made from materials that are practical, in particular several kinds of metal would be a definite requirement. Copper, steel, aluminium are present in many devices in the home and so a device that cannot use these materials would be severely limited to what it could produce. Also, the home user could not be expected to design the devices she or he needs to build. This is where the open source community could become a very useful thing indeed. Imagine a repository of online blueprints for all of the things you need in the home. These blueprints would be optimised for production by a 3D fabricator. You download the blueprints, the printer configuration files and purchase cartridges of the raw materials you require and several hours later you could have the missing fiddly bits that broke off your dishwasher, some new delf and all the bits you need to rebuild the motor in your vacuum cleaner. Machines capable of rendering these objects alreadty exist although priced somewhat out of reach to the average person. I suspect also that the skills needed to use it properly are also beyond the reach of many. Yet with most advances required being in the realm of ensuring ease of use the technology itself is already there.
So there you have it, the question is only one of market demand, will it ever be possible for this technology to compete in the marketplace. Next I will discuss what markets there could be for this technology, examine the culture of consumerism that might mitigate against and just for laughs take a quick look at the terrifying consequences of it's abuse
Owning and operating a 3D printer is quite expensive right now, companies that use can afford to do so because they lower the costs of building test models of their products. They do so in two ways; the task of creating even a simple prototype can take several days of labour using a team of several trained technicians, with the aid of a printer this task is streamlined. Also, due to the fact that a printer can be kept in operation twenty four hours a day means it’s potential output trumps that of a human being. Another point to consider stems from the success of contemporary industry’s success at both defining and meeting the demands of the consumer for devices designed to make life that much easier. Would the owning of a 3D printing system in the home be compatible with industry’s need for passive consumers? Right now that is not such an issue, since few people would have the wherewithal to even attempt to build from scratch any of the machinery on which the modern home depends. DIY seems to be the upper limit of what people can achieve, with some perhaps at best capable of repairing some of the machinery in their home. The point here is that there is no incentive to try to self fabricate devices and machinery the home depends on; it will always be cheaper, easier and more prudent to buy goods that exceed a certain complexity.
Supplying goods and services to the hobbyist tends to be seen as something of a niche market. Take hobbyists who restore classic cars or build kit cars for weekend racing. They may need on occasion to have special pieces built for their project. The car restorer may someone to supply a missing component, the kit car enthusiast might need a gasket. In most cases these are supplied through specialist vendors, but if the circumstances warrant it they may be able to get the piece made. We are still in the conventional model of consumer demand in the market place. We are entering a time now where the availability of these new fangled 3D printers where a customer can design the piece he needs on his home computer and have some third party fabricate the piece for him.
As the demand for these technologies improves, it is a truism of economics that the prices will fall. Someone skilled enough and working on a project where this technology will substantially improve his or her ability to create goods may find the investment worthwhile. It is very likely that hobbyist groups will turn to this technology as and when it becomes an economically viable alternative. For this technology to bridge the gap from relatively small niche markets to becoming widespread enough to become something typically found in the home several concurrent things need to happen. The cost needs to be reduced significantly, the level of expertise required to use this technology effectively needs to be within the grasp of a large subsection of the population and complementary goods and services that allow the home user to make the most of this new technology needs to become available.
Right now some of these things are happening, albeit on a small scale. The open source RepRap community in many ways are the exemplar of this movement. As an open source project, hobbyists and semi-professionals have designed a functioning 3D printer. If you want to get your hands on one right now, you can buy either kits or fully assembled printers (if you’re interested the latest model is the Mendel. I could write several articles on RepRap and other similar open source projects, and someday I might just do that but for now I just want to point out some key features.
One of the primary goals of the reprap community is to one day build a device that can fabricate al of the parts necessary to build another printer. Right now I think it is fair to say there is along way to go before this can be achieved. Even the latest model; the Mendel, is not yet equal to professional equipment and most variants are limited with the kinds of material they can use to build objects. As yet, only various kinds of plastics and acrylics are possible and while there are members of the community working on variants that can use a technique called selective laser sintering +link to wiki to enable these machines to create metal objects, this is not yet standard. So far these printers can only produce some of the parts necessary. Most of the key components; stepper motors, metal guide rails, electronics etc, need to be purchased in order to actually build the printer. It will be a long time before these devices evolve through successive iterations before a device capable of reproducing all of the complex parts necessary for another machine is possible.
To make these devices practical for the home, several advances to the hardware are necessary. The range of objects they can produce must be made from materials that are practical, in particular several kinds of metal would be a definite requirement. Copper, steel, aluminium are present in many devices in the home and so a device that cannot use these materials would be severely limited to what it could produce. Also, the home user could not be expected to design the devices she or he needs to build. This is where the open source community could become a very useful thing indeed. Imagine a repository of online blueprints for all of the things you need in the home. These blueprints would be optimised for production by a 3D fabricator. You download the blueprints, the printer configuration files and purchase cartridges of the raw materials you require and several hours later you could have the missing fiddly bits that broke off your dishwasher, some new delf and all the bits you need to rebuild the motor in your vacuum cleaner. Machines capable of rendering these objects alreadty exist although priced somewhat out of reach to the average person. I suspect also that the skills needed to use it properly are also beyond the reach of many. Yet with most advances required being in the realm of ensuring ease of use the technology itself is already there.
So there you have it, the question is only one of market demand, will it ever be possible for this technology to compete in the marketplace. Next I will discuss what markets there could be for this technology, examine the culture of consumerism that might mitigate against and just for laughs take a quick look at the terrifying consequences of it's abuse
Monday, 14 March 2011
Building Stuff
I wonder how many people are like me?
Those people with a room full of stuff and buried in there, some random pile full of unfinished business. A half-assed wallet made of duct tape, a partially disassembled ipod they keep meaning to repair or an old craft magazine with plans and diagrams for people who might want to build their own sofa-bed. It embarrasses me to admit, especially coming from a family of artisan types, cabinet makers, electricians and mechanics, the kinds of people that build the stuff all the other people live in. I should be too were it not for the unbridgeable gulf between my hands and my plans. I might dream someday of building my own house, or car, or I-phone app and in my head. In that wonderful magical place I can see all those things waving to me from a warm and fuzzy future that might someday be; a perfect future where I get to unleash this so far untapped potential. So I get sad sometimes when I ponder my next project all the while trying to ignore the pile of unfinished achievements sitting abandoned in the corner. I try hard to forget it and let myself be seduced by some new distraction. I guess that explains my enthusiasm for all these new technologies, all beckoning and inviting me to build and create.
In a roundabout way I guess I am wondering is there a real demand for these technologies in the home. Outside of a dedicated hobbyist market how many people would want a factory in the home, how many homes would need that technology. In a previous post I covered how effective the industrialisation of manufacturing has been to increasing our access to goods and technology has been. It seems a truism, for better or worse, that we will always want more. Something else worth mentioning, one of the many advances we have made as a culture is the seperation of the home from the workplace. For those of us fortunate enough to be born in this particular hemisphere we too easily forget this fundamental change in our lives. Cottage industry, a term we now often take to mean contemporary artisans eaking a romantic living from their crafts, is a historic term predating the eponimous idustrial revolution when cottages and factories were often the same thing. To catch a glimpse of the reality of this, it would make sense to look at the thousands of one room factories in the slums of Mumbai, where workers clean up every night to prepare some space in which to sleep. They do so because it is the only they can earn enough to eat, in a developing nation with very few of the safety nets that protect most citizens of western nations from the true misery of poverty. The welfare state (more on the history of that sometime soon) is a privelege few nations can truly afford. Which brings me back to the point I was making, we benefit hugely from these cheap production centers, it is very likely that most of the cheap goods and consumables originate from these slum factories, sweatshops and maquiladoras (Mexican factories with often harsh employment conditions (relative to european standards) producing goods exclusively for export to the U.S.A. And Europe). Perhaps for the ethical consumer the opportunity to build these items using a liitle machine tucked away in the corner of the utility room might become an attractive proposition. Not that this is without it's own set of ethical problems, and we will discuss those another time.
Those people with a room full of stuff and buried in there, some random pile full of unfinished business. A half-assed wallet made of duct tape, a partially disassembled ipod they keep meaning to repair or an old craft magazine with plans and diagrams for people who might want to build their own sofa-bed. It embarrasses me to admit, especially coming from a family of artisan types, cabinet makers, electricians and mechanics, the kinds of people that build the stuff all the other people live in. I should be too were it not for the unbridgeable gulf between my hands and my plans. I might dream someday of building my own house, or car, or I-phone app and in my head. In that wonderful magical place I can see all those things waving to me from a warm and fuzzy future that might someday be; a perfect future where I get to unleash this so far untapped potential. So I get sad sometimes when I ponder my next project all the while trying to ignore the pile of unfinished achievements sitting abandoned in the corner. I try hard to forget it and let myself be seduced by some new distraction. I guess that explains my enthusiasm for all these new technologies, all beckoning and inviting me to build and create.
In a roundabout way I guess I am wondering is there a real demand for these technologies in the home. Outside of a dedicated hobbyist market how many people would want a factory in the home, how many homes would need that technology. In a previous post I covered how effective the industrialisation of manufacturing has been to increasing our access to goods and technology has been. It seems a truism, for better or worse, that we will always want more. Something else worth mentioning, one of the many advances we have made as a culture is the seperation of the home from the workplace. For those of us fortunate enough to be born in this particular hemisphere we too easily forget this fundamental change in our lives. Cottage industry, a term we now often take to mean contemporary artisans eaking a romantic living from their crafts, is a historic term predating the eponimous idustrial revolution when cottages and factories were often the same thing. To catch a glimpse of the reality of this, it would make sense to look at the thousands of one room factories in the slums of Mumbai, where workers clean up every night to prepare some space in which to sleep. They do so because it is the only they can earn enough to eat, in a developing nation with very few of the safety nets that protect most citizens of western nations from the true misery of poverty. The welfare state (more on the history of that sometime soon) is a privelege few nations can truly afford. Which brings me back to the point I was making, we benefit hugely from these cheap production centers, it is very likely that most of the cheap goods and consumables originate from these slum factories, sweatshops and maquiladoras (Mexican factories with often harsh employment conditions (relative to european standards) producing goods exclusively for export to the U.S.A. And Europe). Perhaps for the ethical consumer the opportunity to build these items using a liitle machine tucked away in the corner of the utility room might become an attractive proposition. Not that this is without it's own set of ethical problems, and we will discuss those another time.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Bits of essays, I might get around to finishing someday...
Models for manufacturing in a knowledge economy.
It used to be, if you wanted something you bought it. This meant shopping in all it’s various forms. You could go to the shops, or buy from a catalogue and get your order delivered. The advent of the internet certainly had an impact on our shopping habits, if you could afford the shipping charges you could buy your goods from a global marketplace. It is a long list of web based companies that offer these services to us, their prospective clients. These technologies, these new means to purchase our goods and services could itself be about to change. The limits of conventional manufacturing may themselves soon be rendered obsolete.
The relationship between the consumer and the manufacturer.
If you look to the history of manufacturing always there is the relationship between the producer and the consumer. It has been a long history, prior to the industrial revolution and the advent of mass production, communities were relatively self sufficient. Within any given community the goods and services available were for the most part produced by local craftsmen. The study of our earliest histories, shows us there was trade happening at many different scales. There is plenty of evidence, (citation) of trade at what we would call now international level, the ancient silk road for instance, or the trade in gold from Celtic Ireland (native jewellery from that period has been discovered in Switzerland(Citation)). Perhaps I should point out the proclivity for pillage and plunder exercised by so many historic civilisations could well have been the means by which this ‘trade’ was exacted. The terms and conditions under which trade takes place may in some circumstances have improved the relationship between producer and customer but the raw mechanisms remain intact of supply and demand remain intact, even if the those who demand don't explicitly wave swords about ….in the pursuit of favourable terms...during price negotiations. Despite the advent of industrialised manufacturing, the decline of what we would now consider craft based industries unable to compete with cheaper mass produced goods, a core mechanism is still in play; the physical exchange of goods. While money may have become increasingly ephemeral and in a somewhat ironic twist all the more dangerous for it, there is no getting around the belligerent necessity of stuff. It comes from further afield than ever before in history and at a molecular level there have never been more complicated chemicals and substances at your fingertips. Yet still, you have to buy it from somewhere and it has to get delivered to your door. The technology underlying these transactions, credit systems, logistics, research and design all have benefited from the onward march of progress and now we are beginning to see some fundamental transformations in the relationship we have with this process. The oft decried critique of mass production, is the reduction in choice. As Henry Ford declared 'You can have it in any colour as long as it is black' The compensation in this alleged lack of choice is the reduction in cost to the consumer, and for many this seems a fair trade, those nostalgic for those halcyon days of handmade goods and diligent craftsmanship also forget the crushing intensity of physical labour so many suffered for so many centuries. The mawkish sentiment for rigidly enforced social castes aside there has been a a substantial benefit in return, a more equal society brought about by better access to labour saving goods and services. Those who point out the abuse of this technology forget how those same core technologies make their critique possible at all.
This potted history of the benefits of manufacture, leads us to the fundamentals of the modern consumer society. The availability of cheap goods, the resulting improvements to baseline living standards and as a result of this; an ever growing market of consumers looking to acquire ever better goods and services. The point I started out trying to make, and seem only to make passing mention of after a digression or two is the advent of new production techniques that may forever change the consumer's relationship with the manufacturer. As I said, except in those cases where someone can afford the handmade option for goods (Where practical, or instead go with 'exclusive and high cost' manufacturers for that extra cache at the dinner table/golf club/wifeswapping party, we are subject to the whims of large corporations for the majority of our manufactured goods. The cost of manufacturing one's own goods is outside the reach of many, and there are none I suspect capable of building from scratch every device or object they might require. I can only think of one character even in fiction and that was Robinson Crusoe in a time when even his set of skills was remarkable and highly unlikely. Also God doesn't count, I suppose technically he could build anything he wanted (like say, earth), yet as a being transcendent of the material world; omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent I suspect he has little need to record The Glenn Beck Show on a home made DVR. He probably sticks to carpentry (and sending people to hell).
Right, so back to the future of manufactured, goods. The point is goods are cheap because of massive economies of scale, you can make the same by the millions for very little cost per item. If for instance you decided you wanted everything in your home to be in some way unique, to reflect to those invited inside your own personal tastes, you would have to spend a lot of money, as discussed above. Now, with the advent of cheap fabrication devices we can expect these prices begin to fall. The question is, will it ever become practical for the typical consumer to take a greater hand in the manufactured goods they want. Let's start by taking a look at businesses that are already in the business of building prototypes, taking visual concepts for objects (glasses, cars, household goods and electronic doodads) and building the first prototypes. Often these are mere mock-ups, the shell that someday might be filled with the engines and computers that add the functionality. As part of the process of design it is often invaluable for a company to have something tangible they can interact with. While the costs are still high from a home use perspective, for companies the steady reduction in costs of this equipment mean many companies will now have this equipment in house. In other words the cost of building prototypes is steadily falling in price, so in the next issue, will there ever be market for factories in the home?
It used to be, if you wanted something you bought it. This meant shopping in all it’s various forms. You could go to the shops, or buy from a catalogue and get your order delivered. The advent of the internet certainly had an impact on our shopping habits, if you could afford the shipping charges you could buy your goods from a global marketplace. It is a long list of web based companies that offer these services to us, their prospective clients. These technologies, these new means to purchase our goods and services could itself be about to change. The limits of conventional manufacturing may themselves soon be rendered obsolete.
The relationship between the consumer and the manufacturer.
If you look to the history of manufacturing always there is the relationship between the producer and the consumer. It has been a long history, prior to the industrial revolution and the advent of mass production, communities were relatively self sufficient. Within any given community the goods and services available were for the most part produced by local craftsmen. The study of our earliest histories, shows us there was trade happening at many different scales. There is plenty of evidence, (citation) of trade at what we would call now international level, the ancient silk road for instance, or the trade in gold from Celtic Ireland (native jewellery from that period has been discovered in Switzerland(Citation)). Perhaps I should point out the proclivity for pillage and plunder exercised by so many historic civilisations could well have been the means by which this ‘trade’ was exacted. The terms and conditions under which trade takes place may in some circumstances have improved the relationship between producer and customer but the raw mechanisms remain intact of supply and demand remain intact, even if the those who demand don't explicitly wave swords about ….in the pursuit of favourable terms...during price negotiations. Despite the advent of industrialised manufacturing, the decline of what we would now consider craft based industries unable to compete with cheaper mass produced goods, a core mechanism is still in play; the physical exchange of goods. While money may have become increasingly ephemeral and in a somewhat ironic twist all the more dangerous for it, there is no getting around the belligerent necessity of stuff. It comes from further afield than ever before in history and at a molecular level there have never been more complicated chemicals and substances at your fingertips. Yet still, you have to buy it from somewhere and it has to get delivered to your door. The technology underlying these transactions, credit systems, logistics, research and design all have benefited from the onward march of progress and now we are beginning to see some fundamental transformations in the relationship we have with this process. The oft decried critique of mass production, is the reduction in choice. As Henry Ford declared 'You can have it in any colour as long as it is black' The compensation in this alleged lack of choice is the reduction in cost to the consumer, and for many this seems a fair trade, those nostalgic for those halcyon days of handmade goods and diligent craftsmanship also forget the crushing intensity of physical labour so many suffered for so many centuries. The mawkish sentiment for rigidly enforced social castes aside there has been a a substantial benefit in return, a more equal society brought about by better access to labour saving goods and services. Those who point out the abuse of this technology forget how those same core technologies make their critique possible at all.
This potted history of the benefits of manufacture, leads us to the fundamentals of the modern consumer society. The availability of cheap goods, the resulting improvements to baseline living standards and as a result of this; an ever growing market of consumers looking to acquire ever better goods and services. The point I started out trying to make, and seem only to make passing mention of after a digression or two is the advent of new production techniques that may forever change the consumer's relationship with the manufacturer. As I said, except in those cases where someone can afford the handmade option for goods (Where practical, or instead go with 'exclusive and high cost' manufacturers for that extra cache at the dinner table/golf club/wifeswapping party, we are subject to the whims of large corporations for the majority of our manufactured goods. The cost of manufacturing one's own goods is outside the reach of many, and there are none I suspect capable of building from scratch every device or object they might require. I can only think of one character even in fiction and that was Robinson Crusoe in a time when even his set of skills was remarkable and highly unlikely. Also God doesn't count, I suppose technically he could build anything he wanted (like say, earth), yet as a being transcendent of the material world; omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent I suspect he has little need to record The Glenn Beck Show on a home made DVR. He probably sticks to carpentry (and sending people to hell).
Right, so back to the future of manufactured, goods. The point is goods are cheap because of massive economies of scale, you can make the same by the millions for very little cost per item. If for instance you decided you wanted everything in your home to be in some way unique, to reflect to those invited inside your own personal tastes, you would have to spend a lot of money, as discussed above. Now, with the advent of cheap fabrication devices we can expect these prices begin to fall. The question is, will it ever become practical for the typical consumer to take a greater hand in the manufactured goods they want. Let's start by taking a look at businesses that are already in the business of building prototypes, taking visual concepts for objects (glasses, cars, household goods and electronic doodads) and building the first prototypes. Often these are mere mock-ups, the shell that someday might be filled with the engines and computers that add the functionality. As part of the process of design it is often invaluable for a company to have something tangible they can interact with. While the costs are still high from a home use perspective, for companies the steady reduction in costs of this equipment mean many companies will now have this equipment in house. In other words the cost of building prototypes is steadily falling in price, so in the next issue, will there ever be market for factories in the home?
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