Our World Is Changing Fast

Will 3D printers change the world as we know it?  Are Bot factories showing us the way to the future of manufacturing?  At the Bot Cave in Brooklyn, the company MakerBot uses its Replicator 2  to create products with eco-friendly materials.  It’s just the beginning of 3D printing, meaning that the output is often not exactly impressive. But, did you know that custom dental fittings are created through 3D printing and that many buildings, consumer items, and electronic gadgets were “prototyped on a 3D printer”?  In Japan, you can buy a 3D “action figure” of yourself, but you’ll need a head scan to do this. Students at school or home can turn their CAD designs into jewelry, figurines, and geometric puzzles. One day, 3D printers will be able to help you replace broken parts for products in your home, create fancy foods, and let you put your imagination to work to produce exactly what you want. The fact that these printers will soon be able to create electric circuits opens a whole new realm of possibility.  It seems to be important that just like our students were introduced to the first computers, they should be introduced to 3D printing. It is the beginning of what could become, as the Chris Anderson’s article in Wired says, “a Macintosh moment.”