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and software among enthusiasts), the price
of the machines has reached the consumer
level. Now, a growing community of makers,
designers, and artists are embracing the
technology and taking it in new directions.
And you don't have to own one of the ma-
chines to use them—there are service pro-
viders that will do the printing for you. What
you do with all this desktop manufacturing
power is up to you.
To borrow a line (paraphrased from Karl
Marx) from
Wired
Editor-in-Chief Chris An-
derson's topic,
Makers: The New Industrial
Revolution
, power belongs to those who
control the means of production. The power
to manufacture a growing list of objects
(toys, jewelry, spare parts, even prosthetic
limbs) is now available to the masses—and
the technology fits on your desktop.
“A new class of users will produce a new class
of uses,” says Anderson. “I think it's historic.”
Will 3D printers become as common in the
home as DVD players and computers? Won-
ky software and documentation are the
weak links now, but that will surely change.
For now, Anderson tells parents this is the
year to buy their kids a 3D printer for Christ-
mas.
“They're not going to be quite sure what to
do with it, but their kids will figure it out.
That's the way big things start.”
Dale Dougherty, founder and publisher of
MAKE
, isn't ready to pronounce the 3D print-
er a revolution just yet.
“I think we're at the very early stages, with
hackers and early adopters figuring out what
to do with it,” he says. “It's opening new ave-
nues for people who are creative and making
things.”
But the transformative potential is plain to
see, Dougherty states. “It's Wal-Mart in the
palm of your hand. That's the crazy promise
of it.”
“Global manufacturing can now work on any
scale,“ Anderson states, “from one to mil-
lions. Customization and small batches are
no longer impossible—in fact, they're the
future.”
He too sees revolution in the air: “The third
industrial revolution is best seen as the com-
bination of digital manufacturing and per-
sonal manufacturing: the industrialization of
the maker movement.”
Part of the excitement that surrounds 3D
printing is the belief that now the barrier to
entry has dropped; the genie is out of the
bottle. Where this goes, nobody knows. “We
live in a 3D world, but we currently create
things in 2D,” says Dougherty. What will it
mean to have the means to live and create in
the same dimension?
Looking at the growing number of
consumer-level 3D printers on the market
has Anderson seeing 1983 all over again—
the so-called “Mac moment” when Apple
gave the masses a computer of their own: the
Apple II. Apple didn't invent the computer,
they just democratized it, Anderson notes.
The same can be said of RepRap and Maker-
Bot, two pioneers in the affordable consum-
er 3D printer market.
“We may go to a very different place.”
Stett Holbrook is a senior editor at MAKE.
