REPLICATOR » Crafts and Do-It-Yourself

Laser cut pancakes are going to be bigger than 3D printing

Joseph Flaherty — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:33:33 +0000

CutLaserCut is a service bureau that offers laser cutting for creative professionals. They’ve done work for Google and Braun, but also reserve time for experimentation. Like any good alpha geeks they wanted to see how far they could push their tools and decided to use their industrial laser cutter to cook a pancake. While it might seem like a frivolous use of such a powerful tool it is important to remember how early we are in the development of home manufacturing. It is hard to make a direct comparison between desktop computing and bench top manufacturing, but imagine if we stopped imagining new uses for computers in 1977.

Also, consider that laser cut pancakes could be bigger than 3D printing. Before you dismiss me as crazy a company called Provocraft turned industrial CNC vinyl cutters into a consumer tech franchise called Cricut that generates ~$250MM a year in revenue. That is ~$100MM more annual revenue than Stratasys or 3D Systems (the two largest 3D printer manufacturers) generate in a year. Provocraft is a quiet company in Utah, that never gets written about in the New York Times or Economist think pieces, but is selling more digital fabrication equipment to every day users than any other company in the world.

To show how these things can come full circle, Cricut turned industrial vinyl/paper cutters into a kitchen friendly tool called the “Cricut Cake” that can digitally cut out fondant for cake decorating and sells it for under $400. It will take a lot of innovation to bring a laser cutter down to that cost, but it is easy to see how it could happen conceptually. Just as Pinterest flew under the radar of the tech cognescenti, Cricut is huge in the suburbs, but not so much in hacker spaces.

Photo Credit

This pancake project is also just cool looking on a purely aesthetic level. The spiral design is neat and you can imagine how all sorts of fun customizations would be possible from illustrative decorative designs to CPC (Cost per Cake) advertising. Disneyworld restaurants are already famous for Mickey Mouse pancakes, now your local molecular gastronomy restaurant can offer brunch emblazoned with Durer etchings.

Tim O’Reilly has a saying that to see what is coming in the future, you should pay attention to the “Alpha Geeks” and that hobbyists will create the future for fun before the capitalists do. This project seems like a perfect embodiment of that statement. I have no doubt that these tools will revolutionize the kitchen as well as the factory and the team at CutLaserCut is giving us a sneak preview of how it will happen.

Thanks to Andrew Sliwinski for the tip!

IDEA! DIY “Nutrition Facts Label”

Joseph Flaherty — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:12:51 +0000

Skier Jonny Mosely tweeted this picture of a sign that helped joggers equate their physical exertion to caloric intake. Depressingly you have to log 4.5 miles of running to work off one slice of pizza. It’s an unfortunate calculation, but it is certainly better to have the information.

What if the same principle was applied to amusement gluttony? If you read Clay Shirky’s excellent book “The Cognitive Surplus” you’ll learn that the time American’s spend watching TV every year would be sufficient to complete 3-4 new projects with the size and importance of Wikipedia. To put it another way, we could have 3-4 new excellent resources that make the world a better place OR we can have season 19 of Two and a Half Men”.

What if there was a “Nutrition Facts Label” or simple rules of thumb people could use to measure investment in learning a skill vs. watching TV. For example:

- The time you spend watching “Friends” (8 seasons x 24 episodes X 30 min) you could have mastered 20 new recipes.

- The average American watches 4.2 hours of TV a day. If you cut that in half, you could speak passable Italian in a year. You could speak fluently in 2.

- Cutting out a single one hour cable news program a week saves 52 hours, enough time to make a quilt or hope chest that will last for 50+ years.

Junk food and TV have a lot in common. Both are plentiful and very enjoyable in the short term. It is easy to add calories or lose hours without some kind of sign posts. Even with those numbers it is helpful to have tools like the sign above to be reminded of context. Maybe its time for a “DIY Nutrition Facts Label”?

Facebook’s Analog Research Group – Web Meets World Posters

Joseph Flaherty — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:45:20 +0000

Collector’s Weekly is an awesome blog that covers the world of “antiques” from the Victorian era to the modern day. Everything from Daguerreotypes to screen printed posters made at Facebook’s HQ in San Francisco.

According to their excellent article a Facebook designer named Ben Berry created the “Analog Research Lab” in an unused part of the company’s headquarters. He made posters to commemorate internal hackathons, propaganda style posters to institutionalize lessons from respected managers e.g. “Done is better than perfect”, and others that helped infuse the tech and hacker focused company with a little design sense.

It speaks well of Facebook’s culture and willingness to experiment that they allow a project like this to continue. In most companies of their size, with the amount of scrutiny they receive, a project like this would be stamped out by HR or some other image focused part of the company.

It is also a great reminder that in an age where we can connect with people across the globe instantly via $200 computers in our pocket that there is still an deep human desire for tangible things. While the cost of online storage continues to plummet, the amount of space in a cubicle or living room stays roughly the same. Wall space is precious and if you decide to hang a poster it has meaning. Web meets World.

“I thought about making stuff, but it’s easier to buy” Posts to Ponder

Joseph Flaherty — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Maker and educator extraordinaire Chris Connors shared this tweet which was presumably about making vs. buying gifts for Christmas. It is an interesting insight into the psychology of someone who is interested in making stuff, but see’s more barriers than opportunities.

+ Tools – This is a major barrier for many people and few are lucky enough to have a well appointed workshop, but there is always the Singer Problem. If tools were the major problem, why don’t more people sew their own clothes (sewing machines are cheap and wide spread), experiment more with cooking, or create computer graphics master pieces.

+ Supplies – Again, there is a kernel of truth here, and you may not be able to cheaply and readily source exotic hardwoods or performance thermoplastics, but fabric, food, and pixels are all affordable.

+ Time – I think this is the biggest creativity and maker killer. At the most basic level, you can interpret this as the time it takes to actually make one widget, but there are many other facets:

+ Procrastination – It’s easy to put off making forcing you to buy something at the last minute. I think this tendency to put things off has its basis in fear. Fear of:

+ Ideas – Will I think of a clever enough idea?

+ Quality – Will I be able to execute this well? What if I invest a couple hours and my product isn’t impressive enough?

A little bit of fear and trepidations is probably a good thing in the world of DIY, otherwise we’d be flooded with horribly knit sweaters and inedible fruit cakes, but removing fear and maybe giving people “Hand Turkeys” we could help amplify new voices and create new customers.

Metal Working Post-Apocalype or Eternal Damnation

Joseph Flaherty — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

This has been a great week for metal working enthusiasts who also like nightmarish subject matter whether your taste is 13th century Italian poetry, or 21st century zombie pop culture.

This amazing suit of armor would fit perfectly into the Walking Dead or other Zombie fare.

Via Makezine

And this stunning knife does a great job capturing the story from Dante’s masterpiece.

Via BoingBoing

The juxtaposition of these two projects reminds me fondly of art school where a subject and media would be assigned, but the solution to the problems could come in dramatically different forms.

__________-Of-The-Month Clubs?

Joseph Flaherty — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

The always interesting Professor Thomas posted a request to Twitter wondering if there was a “Board game of the month club” or similar offering as a holiday gift. Unfortunately, I know of no such service, but it got me thinking. Subscription ecommerce has been a hot area in the tech world this year with companies like BirchBox coming out of no where. The Christmas season has to be the busiest time for “_______-of-the-month” club purchases, but there doesn’t seem to be much innovation in the space. You can find dozens of services that will ship wine, cigars, chocolate, and other savory treats on a monthly basis, but they don’t do much to expand horizons or educate their audience. Could the “_______-of-the-month” club do more? What about:

Game-of-the-month clubs – This is a great idea. German/hex style board games one month, Dominion/deck games the next, dice games, table top games, and so on. Most clubs of this kind are an attempt to broaden your aesthetic sensibilities, so why not do the same with products that appeal to the intellect rather than appetite?

Fitness-of-the-month-clubs – The spiritual successor to the “Couch-to-5K” program. Every month you get a new supplement, work out tool, diet guide, or other fitness product. A gentle reminder that you should resolve to think about your health every month, not just around new years.

Craft-of-the-month clubs – KiwiCrate and BabbaCo both are approaching this market for kids, but what about adults? Do you have a relative who has always wanted to get into wood working or quilting? What if every month you got a new tool and block of wood to experiment with? Would this make the undertakings seem less monumental?

Chef-of-the-month clubs – What if every month you got a new ingredient or implement and ideas for dishes you could prepare with it? Could you create a dynamic like the Iron Chef competitions where people share their various creations online? Could this ignite innovation in kitchens across the country?

There are a lot of barriers to make these kinds of programs work, but there is a spark of a cool idea here. In the past, the monthly gift did more for the giver by reminding the recipient of who is sending them these monthly parcels, but what if we could use this appointment dynamic to improve the life of the person who receives it?

Maker’s Remorse – Dermablend for DIY Gone Awry

Joseph Flaherty — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:14:37 +0000

This banner ad for industrial strength cosmetic Dermablend was recently on YouTube’s home page. The ad and it’s accompanying video cleverly shows the product’s strength by concealing the full body tattoo of the model and slowly revealing the skin art underneath. It’s an effective demo for the product, but highlights a bigger trend. As much as people like to build and tinker there are consequences and opportunities with DIY gone awry.

There is even a sub-genre of television programs dedicated to the challenge of craftsmanship gone bad. TLC has a program called “In Over Your Head” which chronicles the stories of home owners who thought they could remodel their kitchen, but ended up leaving their house in shambles. We’d all like to roll up our sleeves and get to work there is a lot of skill and taste required to successfully execute DIY projects.

An executive at a customization company once told me that there are now more people under 30 with tattoos than blue eyes. At some point many of these people will develop “Maker’s Remorse” and will look for solutions to undo their creativity. Along with coverup, I wonder if we will see a market open up for gently used table saws, RepRaps, and other DIY tools that never got to live up to their true potential.

MakerBot, Salt Water Taffy, and DIY Retail

Joseph Flaherty — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:05:14 +0000

If you visit any seaside town in the northeast of the USA you will likely find an old time commercial district with a board walk, games of chance, and a candy store that is making fresh saltwater taffy in the front window. This demo, where the candy is repeatedly stretched using a civil war era mechanical contraption never fails to draw crowds and sell otherwise underwhelming candy.

I wonder if the MakerBot and laser cutters could serve the same purpose for a next generation of DIY shops? A glittering lure to bring people through the doors where they could be sold all the DIY tools they could need. Salt water taffy is an inferior product by any metric, but millions of pounds of it are sold each year because of these gravity defying machines that make the process look magical.

Current DIY retail is a waste land. Michael’s owns suburban art supplies and generates $4B a year in revenue in cavernous, but uninspiring stores. New breed retailers like Ponoko help people make custom products, but all the magic happens behind closed doors and requires weeks of waiting. There seems to be an exciting opportunity to fill that gap with a store or service that provides all the staples you need to build things with the wizardry of next gen DIY tools.

The Future of… Art School, Home Shopping Channels, Product Satire, and Combat Robotics

Joseph Flaherty — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 06:29:00 +0000

One of the best design firms in the world is sharing it’s technical tricks for free online. Art School will barely exist as we know it in 10 years. Oh and currently for profit, online art education is worth ~$2B/year.

QVC is the second most profitable channel on television with revenue in excess of $5B. YouTube is now offering a tech platform that will let tens of thousands of bands (and other folks in the future) create their own QVC/HSN channels.

With increasing access to machines that can produce production quality goods at quantities of 1 we are going to see more high quality product satire like these cereal box mock ups.

Combat robotics seem like the natural evolution of UFC and NASCAR, but are currently limited to the world of fantasy at this point (Unless you count the BattleBots that look like toasters). However, this behind the scenes feature from the movie Real Steel talks about how the robots are made for the silver screen.

User Generated Content and Community DIY Sites by the Numbers

Joseph Flaherty — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:52:31 +0000

The DIY urge waxes and wanes over time. The Arts and Crafts movement came into being during the industrial revolution as a counterweight to poorly made goods coming out of factories. During the depression people “used things up, wore them out, made do, or did without” out of necessity. In the 1970′s, environmental activism and increased cultural awareness led the masses to macrame and caning. Martha Stewart brought DIY out of the doily cupboard in the mid 90′s and now on the border of 2012 we see elements of all these prior waves coming together, but super charged with communication tools.

Whenever I learn about a new site that focuses on DIY i’m always interested to check out the quality of the site and it’s traffic. Usually I’m shocked that some poorly designed site focused on some niche of a niche has a thriving community with more unique visitors than a consumer web tech company that has raised $25 million dollars.

I like having dashboards to check the pulse of an industry so I compiled and embedded reports from Compete.com for all the user generated content/community driven DIY sites I could find. Please let me know if I missed any good sites (e.g. there must be a bigger/better hobby robotics site). Also, if there is a tool that automates this kind of reporting, let me know!

Two things popped out when looking at all these sites:

Tech < Community – You don’t need much more than VBulletin or PHPBB to get 100K+ unique views per month. Many lightly customized message boards have 500K+ user bases while some high profile VC funded sites struggle to find an audience. The ad revenue they generate might be insignificant, but they have demonstrated the ability to gather an audience.
“Makers” vs. Crafters - There is a lot of excitement about the “Maker Movement“, but O’Reilly Media’s flagship site Makezine.com gets less traffic than niche sites Cake Central and Dave’s Gardens. This is a huge opportunity for O’Reilly and anyone else interested in DIY as a business.