It was great to see the student/faculty interest in the lab, at the 3D printing event organized at BIF jointly with AIS. Over 30 students/faculty got themselves scanned using the Kinect and the prints will be made available soon. Some photos from the event are available on our facebook page. An interview with Matt Lavieri, Vice President of AIS, at the event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyVuQYi45Hc
Come join the AIS students as they prepare to convert Atoms to Bits and back, using Kinect scanners and 3D printers in the BIF Atrium , Wednesday, Dec 5th, 11:00 to 4:00 pm. Willing volunteers will be scanned (only the head this time) using Kinect's(Atoms to Bits). These scans will then be printed out in front of you(Bits to atoms) using a 3D printer. Learn more about why 3D printing is such a buzzword these days and get involved with the third industrial revolution.
It was great to see the enthusiasm among Business Council members, when we presented the 3D printer during Tech Week,on 23rd October in BIF. The students had great questions and we look forward to more student organizations developing projects leveraging this new technology.We demonstrated a Whistle being built and a short video of the build is available below. I would also like to announce the launch of the Youtube Channel for the lab, so you can subscribe and get to see all the fun stuff we are getting into.
http://youtu.be/LQOn4Fc9tBY
It is quite timely to read of this new book from Chris Anderson, The Editor-in-Chief at Wired Magazine, titled "Makers: The New Industrial revolution". Chris Anderson has been a champion of the Maker community, launching his own startup to tinker around in this space (Read about his collaboration on a arduino based, OpenSprinkler). In this book, he puts forward a case for DIY-manufacturing, made possible due to a convergence of several technologies leveraging a movement towards open innovation. He suggests that with the advent of technologies such as desktop 3D printing/robotic manufacturing and the movement towards open innovation, the speed of innovation in the digital realm, will now flow through to the physical realm. This will allow small to medium scale custom manufacturing to return to the developed economies, which have lost out due to higher labor costs.This trend was also covered by the Economist, when they dubbed it the "Third Industrial Revolution".
He envisions a world with "low barriers to entry, rapid innovation, intense entrepreneurship", which was once the domain of digital businesses, to transform the manufacturing industry, allowing (nimble) developed economies to reduce the labor cost disadvantages.
We hope this 3D printing lab, will be a step in the right direction to equip our students to compete and innovate in such an economy. Since this lab is trying to inform students of a new paradigm of the consumer as a creator, it is good to see such initiatives being promoted in high-schools as well, by none other than ..... DARPA (which was a cause for some concern).
There seems to be a lot of buzz around 3D printing these days. The recent cover of the Design issue of the Wired Magazine, claims that the new MakerBot Replicator2 will change the world . In the same issue there are reports of an electronics manufacturer asking customers to print some plastic parts of a popular synthesizer, OP1, by putting 3D models of some of the parts on shapeways, a site that provides a platform for creating, sharing and printing 3D models. While the industrial use of 3D printing is over two decades old, the big players in the industrial market are also making plays in the consumer market(even the young consumer market). 3D Systems, a behemoth in industrial 3D printing, claims to have a design-to-print solution that a 7 year old can use, branded Cubify. With these launches 3D printers have moved from DIY kits to fully automated print solutions. Now you can even buy these printers at fairs.
If you look at the 'buzz' around this phenomenon on Google trends, we see search traffic taking starting on a different trajectory in 2012. Students are also excited to see themselves as 'creators' and we hope to leverage their enthusiasm with this new lab at the college of business.
Welcome to the home page of the new 3-D printing lab at the College of Business. This lab will be operational in Spring 2013, with several MakerBot 3D printers. Please stay tuned for updates on the 3D printing initiative at the College of Business
Learn. Make. Share.
