6 Replies to “3d Printing (Emma Collins)”

  1. I really like that you constantly address the dynamic shift between commercialization, consumerism, but also creativity and craft industry. We’ve noted the shift away from craft industry during the industrial revolution, and address the Cold War era with innovation, but have kind of ignored the fact that we’ve of fallen back into a commercial mindset (although I’d argue that once again we are shifting back towards innovation). I like the point you made about hacking, in using some technology for some other unintended purpose, but at the same time I think did not fit in smoothly with the rest of the narrative. I feel like open-source innovation is more along the lines of what you should have explored, as sharing files, models, etc have become a big part of 3D printing today, and how it inherently spurs on the shift towards shared innovation rather than the standardization we have seen for so long. Overall, you tied in the history of innovation and problem solving with printing to great effect, and it made it very easy to see what direction you could have gone in when addressing he potential of the technology in the future. I think it would have been interesting to add in certain 3D printing techniques such as printing a house, which I believe has occurred in a few different contexts, to offer even larger scale ideas of where this technology can go. With your delivery, It seemed like you used one long audio clip then transitioned to shorter ones to the end, one of which gets cut off short before you could finish your thoughts. I think if you did all one audio clip or all separate ones, you could have made it feel a little smoother but you did a great job in communicating what you wanted to otherwise.

  2. Your early discussion of the first industrial revolution and shift from craft to industry was a great starting point. I really like that you drew from topics we talked about in class including the textile industry and Le Encyclopedie as examples of this shift. Though you mentioned that the first and second industrial revolutions solidified distancing people from making, I feel that this transition could have been better connected to 3D printing. 3D printing is a relatively new technology so I understand that you needed to build up the history before introducing the new technology. However, 3D printing is not mentioned until about halfway through the video and I think that the history could be used to better contextualize the technology today if you had mentioned it sooner. I really liked that you discussed the technology as a Davis and Goliath story because this helped contextualize the struggle of producing a product that would be in high demanded and affordable. I also really liked your predictions for the future of 3D printing, which showed what could be possible with the technology. My only other comment is that, at times, the audio was cut off. Besides that, however, it was a really well done video!

  3. I enjoyed seeing the entire story about the shift from craft to industry. I liked your opinion that 3D printing is allowing the shift to go back, that the consumers can become individual producers again. I had never thought of 3D printing in that way before. Another aspect that I liked was mentioning Henry George and how he helped lay the foundation of the open source world, a world that allows people to take back production and share it between each other and not have to rely on large companies to produce goods. The viewpoint that the 3D printer is a natural extension of the 2D printer helped me understand some of the motivation behind creating the 3D printer. The 2D printer allowed average people to start producing printed goods in their home in the same way that 3D printers are allowing people to produce objects in their home. Throughout your entire presentation I liked how you highlighted examples about democratizing production methods to help demonstrate that 3D printing has not come out of the blue; we as a society have been on this trend for a long time.

  4. I thought the topic was very interesting because I did not have much knowledge of 3D printing before listening to your slidecast. I thought you waited a little too long to mention the 3D printer itself because in the beginning I was confused about how you were going to tie the ideas together. For example the industrial revolution explanation didn’t directly connect to printing, but it did show the importance of consumer culture on the development of at-home printing. I liked how you connected craft to industry and mentioned the textiles and the Le Encyclopedie, which we had talked about in class. I thought you could’ve added something about why the 3D printer was developed. I see the connection between 2D and 3D printing, where 2D allowed people to print papers at home, and 3D will allow people to print objects at home. However, I didn’t think this point was made clear enough. The pacing of the slidecast was good, but there were a few issues with the audio. Overall, I thought the slidecast was well done and very informative.

  5. I was really excited to watch this slidecast, because I love 3D printing, and on the whole, I think you did a really good job and learned some things I hadn’t known beforehand. There were some places at the beginning, especially when you began talking about LeEncyclopedia where I wasn’t really sure where you were going with this, but I wasn’t disappointed when you managed to tie it all together by talking about open-source media. I will say there were a couple points where I felt that you jumped from idea to idea without giving a good transition, like when you began speaking about hacking, but you did manage to tie it all together after switching ideas. From a technical standpoint, however, I do feel like you were trying to say too many things in the short time period, and at times, you were speaking so quickly that it was difficult to understand what you were saying. While your information was interesting, I feel that you may have been better served by cutting down your information a little bit and slowing down your speech. In conclusion, this was really well done and very interesting, but perhaps a little bit dense and difficult to understand at times.

  6. Emma,

    This was awesome! You did a great job of connecting this topic back to class topics…the shifts from craft to industry, the Encyclopedie, the rise of consumerism, etc. I loved the example you used of John Draper hacking AT&T as a “David and Goliath” scenario in the technological realm. You had a nice chronology which led up to current 3d printing today. You mentioned 3d printing homes and ironically enough I saw a video recently of a giant 3d printer that uses cement to produce temporary shelter for people in disaster relief areas. I think it shows the kinds of values that are being embedded in these technologies for the rapid prototyping and building you mentioned. You also discussed Open Bionics which made me think of a local connection to me. At the Rochester Institute of Technology, a professor started a global network of people who have 3d printers, to print the necessary parts for children for prosthetic arms. Such a cool thing that these technologies and these values can bring people together and really enable people to change the lives of others. Finally, I liked how you ended with a summary of what you had covered in your presentation, it tied everything together. Great job!

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