While the world has been suffering through the Great Recession and many still worry about all the manufacturing jobs lost overseas, the next industrial revolution was quietly launched in garages, basements, and labs right here at home. This new method of producing goods will cause greater changes and more social upheaval than anything since Henry Ford started up his assembly line. This new technology is called 3D printing and it will change how we make everything from what we wear and what we eat to the vehicles we drive and the jobs we perform. 3D printing will give the average person the freedom of expression and specialty crafted goods which was once the exclusive realm of royalty and the super-rich. Not just in the abundance of “bespoke” objects available as customized products or reproductions of rare artworks, either, but in terms of the sheer variety of things also. The ability to render mathematical expressions in solid form gives designers, engineers, and architects a tool of incredible power. Since the 1980s, expensive professional devices have been able to prototype new gadgets. But the tech is now finally poised to enter the consumer market. 3D printing is, of course, the latest step in the digitization of the world. It may be helpful in imagining the effects of this new way of doing things by recalling how digital 2D printing altered everything. Before the invention of the personal computer, printing was an established … Continue reading
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