#3dprintconfhk

1. NO MORE TOYS
Why Amateur 3D Printing
Has the Potential to Change the World
Graham Leach, School of Design (PolyU)
&
FRIENDS

2. DEFINITELY NOT A TOY
2008: 1st Printer
• Stratasys uPrint
• Dual Filament
• Heated Chamber
• 1.75mm ABS
• FOR WORK
• USD15,000.00

3. DEFINITELY A TOY
2013: 2nd Printer
• RepRap Prusa Mendel
• Single Filament
• Heated Print Bed?
• 3mm PLA
• AN EXPERIMENT
• USD300.00

4. NO LONGER A TOY
2014: 3rd Printer
• Printrbot Plus
• Single Filament
• Heated Print Bed
• 1.75mm ABS
• FOR WORK
• USD500.00

5. The High Priests of 3D Printing
Industrial 3D Specialists:
• Elite printing is limited to certain experts only
• The experts are currently very focused by their
bosses on rapid prototyping -> for production.
• They are not normally allowed or encouraged to
go “play” with their machines
• Every iota of machine utilization is accounted for
• To me…this sounds like old mainframe culture

6. The Rabble of 3D Printing
Hobbyist 3D Printers:
• Usage of these printers is limited to geeks
• A lot of geek time & energy is devoted to simply
getting and keeping the machines up and running
• Geeks play with their machines a LOT, but there’s
no easy way for non geeks to get onboard
• Filament is cheap - but relevance is weak
• To me…this sounds like early Open Source culture

7. Rabble Unite!
Linus & Richard (Two Very Different Geniuses):
• In the early 1990’s a student named Linus put out
an open call on Usenet to get help developing a
Unix look-alike kernel wrapped with the GNU
tools that Richard Stallman had spent years
developing. I helped out with that effort.
• Coming in just the right way at the right time,
Linus Torvalds was able to program, motivate and
galvanize a global community to build Linux in a
way that Richard Stallman never could have.

8. Linux Crosses the Rubicon
The Point of Inflection:
• Linux, after much experimentation, flirting with
the desktop and other false starts, became
relevant to normal people by powering the Web.
• This was largely because IBM and Microsoft have
a major blind spot. Their revenue model revolves
around authentication, not an anonymous
Internet. This left a gap for Linux to fill…so it did!

9. Where’s the LAMP of 3D Printing?
The Linux Killer App Was Actually a Suite:
• After 5 to 10 years of fierce competition, a cluster
of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP became the
dominant eCommerce platform.
• LAMP IS FREE – But it has made many people
very, very rich. Some famous, some infamous.
• Knowing this, I wonder if the 3D Printing folks still
have something to learn from Open Source
beyond its infrastructure development model?

10. Why 3D Printing Amateurs Matter
Staying Sharp:
• One of the interesting things that happened in
the Open Source ecosystem was people would
work on things until they got very, very good and
then go off and start their own companies.
• Or they went to work for big companies that put
their highly developed talents to good use – by
giving them big problems and deep resources so
they could manifest their creative genius.

11. It’s All About the Money
Disruptive Innovation:
• Disruptive Innovation triggers massive wealth
transfer because it de-stabilizes the status quo, or
ecosystem, creating new winners and new losers.
• Normally, the disruptive innovation catches the
incumbents completely by surprise because it
comes from outside of the domain of expertise
they come from and the market that they are
constantly scanning just to stay competitive.

12. The Rest is On YOU
The Challenge:
• I think we can stay sharp, have a global impact
and help guide the 3D Printing community to its
own individual Rubicon moment, where normal
people start saying “YES! YES! I GET IT NOW”
• My favorite? PARAMETRIC PROSTHETICS where
we change peoples lives by by designing and
crowd-printing new limbs for them much faster
than their (broke/slow) social services could ever
hope to serve them.

13. So…Are We Going to Do This?

14. Or This?

15. Thanks!
Now Let’s Talk!