Link-O-Rama 01-30-10: Wired, Hot Rods, and Walnut Woodgrain

by Joseph Flaherty on January 30, 2010

Wired Takes on Bits and Atoms

Chris Anderson, creator of the “Long Tail” meme and Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine has written what will be the most influential feature on custom manufacturing to date, titled: In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits. It is a must read if for no other reason it will shape the thinking of everyone else on the subject. The content will likely be old news to most readers of this blog but there are many interesting tidbits in the feature.

MakerBot Cars and the Hot Rod Culture

@ClothBot shared this image from @Lossif showing off some model cars made with the MakerBot. The MakerBot is still a “Hot Rod” platform in that the object you print out or the machine operator can have a significant impact on the outcome. Compare these cars to the portrait below. Scale, design, and skill lead to very different outcomes.

Shapeways Mini Link-O Rama

Joris has been on fire with blog posts and tweets that are too good not to pass along:

1. Articulated Robot Printed in 3D

An amazing follow up by a distinguished Shapeways community member.

2. Interview with Bre Pettis of MakerBot

This interview covers the basics of MakerBot with a little more human interest than usual. Proposals for questions for future interviewers:

a. How are you going to mainstream MakerBot? Distribution partnerships? Internal expansion?

b. How will you continue to develop the project without infringing on patents of Stratasys that haven’t expired yet?

c. How would you react to an established company taking your open source kit and offering a slightly more expensive version (~$2,500) with better sales and support?

3. Podcasts on manufacturing

The University of Cambridge has a collection of short podcasts covering manufacturing from a macro policy level down to the future on inkjet micro manufacturing.

How 3D Printing Informs the Design Process

Josh at SolidSmack shared a video that does a nice job explaining how 3D printing can be used in the design process to improve product quality while reducing cycle time, in the context of high performance eye wear.

Core 77 Covers The Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction Conference at MIT

Core77 has a nice round up of work presented at MIT’s Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction Conference. Most of the projects are highly conceptual, but show off how exciting a world that combines walnut woodgrain with the World Wide Web could be.