Connecting Dots in Hardware Innovation

In gestalt psychology there is a principle called the Law of Closure, defined by Wikipedia as “the mind experiencing elements it does not perceive through sensation, in order to complete a figure”. The illustration below is an illustration of this principle. We perceive a white triangle overlapping circles and another large triangle rather than 6 disjointed shapes.

While reading tech blogs focused on physical products I’ve seen a number of parallel projects that may or may not succeed independently. No matter the individual outcome they are filling niches in the space between bits and atoms and will likely form the basis for future projects that can combine elements of each. a couple examples:

Erector Sets for Grownups

Contraptor is a new kit of mechanical parts that is intended to be used for the construction of fabrication machines like CNC routers and 3D printers. Specifically the structural and movement related components. The assumption is that if there is a uniform set of mechanical parts to build something routine like an X/Y table more time can be focused on novel elements like extruders for the 3D printers. Follow Contraptor on Twitter to keep up with their progress.

MakerBeam is a similar concept at a smaller scale. The goal of this project is to create an open source set of components to build enclosures, robots, and other structures for electronics projects. For a sense of scale, in the image below the center channel is perfectly sized to fit a PCB. The project is off to a phenomenal start having raised nearly twice the working capital it required via KickStarter. Follow MakerBeam on Twitter as well.

Conductive Inks

A similar percolation of ideas seems to be happening with “Printable” electronics. Xerox announced a new conductive ink that is printable, flexible, inexpensive and could theoretically be used on plastic and fabric substrates. It is a cool concept that seems to make the rounds on gadget blogs every six months, but is slow to penetrate the marketplace.

Conversely, a project called “Bare Conductive“  (conductive inks that can be painted on your body) came out of an art school rather than an R&D facility. The project itself is unimpressive and has all the trademarks of an MFA project (Overemphasis on concept over execution, almost no aesthetic value, etc.), but is out in the world and can be improved upon by anyone. The cross pollination of art schools and technology programs is an exciting development. Thanks to @WulfDesign for the tip.

Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying “Creativity is just having enough dots to connect . . . connect experiences and synthesize new things. The reason creative people are able to do that is that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people.”

Projects like MakerBeam and Bare Conductive may not ultimately succeed, but they are putting dots on the page and giving the next generation of makers a plethora of ideas to connect and build on.

Tagged as: 3D printer, 80/20, CNC, Contraptor, Kickstarter, makerbeam, Open source, Printed circuit board, Steve Jobs, Technology, Wikipedia