The Economist on 3D printing.
Posted on | February 14, 2011 | No Comments
The Economist has a cover story on 3D printing this week, as well as a longer briefing on the topic. They mention the work of Peter Schmitt, a PhD student here at the Media Lab, as well as Neri Oxman, a professor here and one of my thesis readers. The article is quite insightful regarding the potential of the technology; here’s a particularly nice quote:
By reducing the barriers to entry for manufacturing, 3D printing should also promote innovation. If you can design a shape on a computer, you can turn it into an object. You can print a dozen, see if there is a market for them, and print 50 more if there is, modifying the design using feedback from early users. This will be a boon to inventors and start-ups, because trying out new products will become less risky and expensive. And just as open-source programmers collaborate by sharing software code, engineers are already starting to collaborate on open-source designs for objects and hardware.
It’s good to see this topic getting such impressive mainstream press.
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Chronicling the master's thesis of David A. Mellis, a student in the High-Low Tech group at the MIT Media Lab.
