Week 8 (Eindhoven)

Doing
This week was definitely a doing week, Quick trip to Eindhoven for the 3d printing at home conference there were some great speakers here are some of the people and what they were getting at, there were many more including A1 technologies, but I couldn't get to them all.
Erik de Bruijn, founder of Ultimaker, an interesting RP machine that is affordable. He was commenting how ‘making is getting easier’ this is important but people still need to input into these machines and he was showing 3dtin and other open source software which made things more interesting, he presented many different people making also medical applications from thingiverse and Joris Van Tubergen, 3D printing by the minute. He also pointed out how Eric Von Hippel’s democratising innovation is becoming real.

Joris Peels, Founder of Origo, 3D printing for 10 year olds. He had an interesting approach commenting on how ‘one size fits none’ and ‘everything sucks because it is made for everyone’. He had an interesting analogy for 3D printing like a bread maker, people will buy it, but how often will they use it and keep re-using it. The company is looking into sustainable making and liquefying spare products for their material.

Bas Van Abel, Creative director Waag Society. The whole idea of a knowledge economy and how different directions are important, something true to my heart is that ‘the most interesting thing is not the technology, but how people use it’. He used the example of the fair phone and the Nintendo DS screwdriver as a story for ‘if we can’t open it, then we do not own it’.

David Cranor, MIT Researcher was talking about an interesting approach to digital gastronomy and the notion of printing food. There is a beautiful video by Maya Rota Klien Fauxtoshop Baking. Commenting on who you would ‘mask out the fat’ on a steak that you might print.
Fab@home were talking about their version of ‘inside the cake’ and how you could think about food production in a new and unique way.

Zjenja Doubrovski, PhD researcher, TU Deflt was looking on how we would optimise rapid prototyping as a production tool, looking at acoustics but as a production process in its own right, how would we engage with it? Use it? Optimise it? They had a very interesting argument as to when and where it should be used… as the ‘right tool for the job’. Currently looking at different events, institutions that I can start organising some design workshops, email me your thoughts.

Talking
To the lovely people at 100% open at summerset house who are putting together a comprehensive list of making groups in the country and all the lovely people at the 3D printing event.

Reading
The artificial ape, how technology changed the course of human evolution, Timothy Taylor. Told from the point of view of an archaeologist but very interesting and insightful.