{"id":431,"date":"2009-08-24T17:17:58","date_gmt":"2009-08-25T00:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/?p=431"},"modified":"2009-08-24T17:17:58","modified_gmt":"2009-08-25T00:17:58","slug":"plasticiety-society-meets-the-makerbot-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/?p=431","title":{"rendered":"Plasticiety: Society Meets The MakerBot Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Every movie in the 80’s talked about plastics being the wave of the future.\u00a0 As I sit here in my office surrounded by plastic gizmos and gadgets, typing away on my plastic keyboard, and listening to music crank out my plastic speakers; there is no doubt that those predictions have come true\u2026 almost.\u00a0 In truth, we’ve only seen the first phase of the plastic boom – the top down, manufactured approach where companies make<\/em> and consumers buy<\/em>.\u00a0 Well strap on your seatbelts folks, because Plasticiety is rapidly approaching and the wave it’s riding is called MakerBot<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the not-so-distant future, we will all have MakerBots on our desktops or in our garages.\u00a0 They will do to manufacturing what desktop publishing did to printing; put it in the hands of the commoner.\u00a0 Makerbots are\u00a0open source 3D printers.\u00a0 Similar to how a hot glue gun works – plastic tubing goes in one side, gets heated up into a liquid stream and is injected onto a surface (layer by layer) to form a 3-D object.\u00a0 Today the 3D object is limited in size to 4″x4″x6″, but that will increase in the wake of Plasticiety. Products will dawn stickers that\u00a0define what percentage of MakerBot printable parts comprise them. Consumer purchasing decisions will be partially based off of this volunteer rating because it will mean the products can be easily repaired.\u00a0 Did the knob break off of your stove?\u00a0 No problem, just go to GE.com and download the 3D knob object that matches your part number and print out a new one.\u00a0 Tired of losing or breaking the battery cover for your remote controls?\u00a0 Put down the duct tape and have Makerbot print a new one.\u00a0 Uh oh, the kids lost the toothpaste cap again, surf over to Crest.com, download the object, and print a few spares.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that describes only the tip of the iceberg! Sharing\u00a0 and community will do to manufacturing what it has done to music\u2026\u00a0irrevocably flip it on its head.\u00a0 Just visit some of the many object sharing communities that this revolution will foster, download the\u00a0object models\u00a0that intrigue you, and then print them into existence.\u00a0 Objects will be simple at first: hooks and hangers, Jello molds, cookie cutters, spatulas, spoons, measuring cups,\u00a0salt and pepper shakers, coasters, bottle caps,\u00a0etc. – but they will become more complex as the phenomenon takes off.\u00a0 In addition to the plastic tubing (aka – print cartridges), our local hardware and office supply stores will\u00a0sell bundles of simple parts like springs, hinges and simple motors.\u00a0 With\u00a0easily downloadable instructions, you will quickly be able to assemble your homemade parts into more complex creations.\u00a0 Likew\"\"ise, when you find or invent items that are useful, it will be easy to post them to the community and share them with your friends.<\/p>\n

As noted above, today these MakerBots only make items that are smaller than 4″ by 4″ by 6″ and the objects they create have limitations –\u00a0but that will change as time goes on.\u00a0 The bots you have in your home will become efficient at creating items of larger sizes and at higher qualities.\u00a0 Likewise, 3D object printing shops will begin to show up around town (the Kinkos of Plasticiety) and enable much larger or specialized projects to be completed with the same relative ease and low cost.<\/p>\n

You are Here.\u00a0 At the crossroads of\u00a0 hyper-manufacturing and consumer empowerment…\u00a0 where digital turns back into physical and where ideas become tangible objects.\u00a0 Welcome to Plasticiety.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a glimpse of this future today, check out MakerBot’s<\/a> website\u00a0 and the open source object marketplace at Thingiverse.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every movie in the 80’s talked about plastics being the wave of the future.\u00a0 As I sit here in my office surrounded by plastic gizmos and gadgets, typing away on my plastic keyboard, and listening to music crank out my plastic speakers; there is no doubt that those predictions have come true\u2026 almost.\u00a0 In truth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[65,85,113],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-makerbot","tag-plasticiety","tag-thingiverse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crapmonkey.com\/podcast\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}