Transcriber: Bob Prottas Reviewer: Victor Chaveneau
Hello Hamburg, and let's ask that question right off,
I'm talking about 3D printing.
Who here had heard of 3D printing before? By show of hands.
Fantastic, that's 90%. And of those numbers,
how many of you have actually seen
or interacted with a 3D printer, actually used one?
Okay, so it's about cut in half from there.
Let me just reaffirm that if you'd like to tweet any of this
please grab me on Twitter @dfflanders.
But right on to the topic.
The reason why I'm passionate about 3D printing
is because I work in universities, and we have this group
called pif3D, which stands for Pay It Forward 3D Printing.
And what we do is we're a group that just enjoys this stuff.
We'll come to your University, we'll put on a 24-hour party
and we will give you the skills to be able to build one of these 3D printers,
and the best part is this printer, once you've made it,
it can print its own parts and build another one.
So it can have children, if you will. (Laughter)
I think one of the really exciting things, as I said,
is this goes back to childhood love of
just enjoying things, and having an idea,
and using your imagination to just build something out of nothing,
and that's what excites me about 3D printing
on a personal and core level.
But today, what I'm really going to talk about
is the larger idea of what 3D printing can achieve for us
on a grand scale.
So here's the hypothesis:
humans can turn the Web off, they can't turn reality off.
Which makes it significant.
We'll always like real objects more than virtual ones.
So my simple example is this: I'm willing to stand up here today
and give you my best ideas for free, for nothing.
However, if you want my phone in my pocket,
I'm probably going to expect a little bit of a cash reimbursement for that.
3D printing will change everything, and more to the point,
because it's physical reality,
I think it's especially going to change the way we think about money,
and also all the opportunities for making money from these objects.
Okay, so why do I think it's a big technology?
So a graph up here, percentage of change on the vertical,
and the years, date here, on the horizontal.
And as you can see, these significant technologies
all had this momentum, where actually at some point,
they take off from innovation,
and they start to significantly change who and what we do.
Onto obviously one of the big ones here, and it's just begun.
Again this is number of servers on the vertical,
and this is years along the horizontal,
and again right in about '98, boom!
we see this massive shift in the number of servers across the planet.
And of course, we're just on the journey,
we haven't even begun to realize how much
the Internet's going to effect and change us.
So, 3D printing, a brief history.
How does it fit into this model?
Well, it's older than you think.
1980 was the first rapid prototyping 3D printer.
It was a commercial printer, cost $30,000 and above.
In fact they're much more expensive, that's just the cheapest one.
In 2007 a land mark, a red-letter date occurred,
where this group, under the RepRap, self-replicating printer,
actually created a desktop printer.
So, unlike the commercial large ones, this will sit on your desk,
and it will print objects of about a foot by a foot by a foot.
And of course the significant bit is the fact that it can actually print itself.
Which is what we're doing.
And then Makerbot is a company that now sells these printers.
So if you don't want to make it yourself, you can just buy one outright.
We can build one for around 300 Euros,
300 to 500 Euros, depending on what parts.
Makerbot sells them for around 1,000 or so,
but check their website, please.
And then finally, the real question I'm asking here is
does 3D printing fit into the bigger thing?
Well, since that 2007, this is the map where people have just registered
to say that we're actually building printers,
and willing to help you build printers.
So it's starting to take off, and that's kind of where this graph goes.
So, here's where we are, right.
And the question is, are we going to see that big sweep?
And that's what I'm going to talk to you about today.
It's really the big question of, how is this going to change?
I don't want to talk about the technology.
I want to talk to you about,
is there ideas here, that you could build into all of your creativity,
and all the things you're doing, and I think there's a possibility of that.
So, there's four types of things, four types of change,
that I think these printers can effect,
and I'm going to go through each one of these,
and give examples of each one, and in fact,
all of the pictures following here, all of them are 3D printed.
These are not photoshopped, these are real 3D printed objects
that have been printed either by desktop, or commercial 3D printers.
First one, okay, this is kind of the boring stuff.
Change the everyday things, right.
So this is what I call the "Made in China" stuff.
So this is my belt buckle. These are the things you find in your office,
that you've got an entire cabinet full of things,
that you've overstocked and probably won't use,
and will probably get thrown away some day.
So I think that's going to change the way we think about those things.
I think it's also going to change the way we think about what is luxurious.
So there's a great company called "i.Materialize"
that's starting to do lamps.
And I was in Hamburg actually this weekend,
enjoying shopping around with my wife.
And we were looking at lamps, and saying,
wow these are brilliant, and then the cost of them.
I was just -- they're incredibly expensive.
Well, 3D printing gives you the capability to do this at a much lower cost,
than you would imagine, with the same quality,
if not even more, bespoke customization,
that you can do inside of these things.
This is one of my favorite examples,
it's called "The Chandelier of the Damned".
As the beautiful chandelier here is,
you can imagine what that would have cost to carve,
say and what the cost would be.
Well, that can be printed, and even more powerful,
the design for that can be re-uploaded digitally,
so that you could remaster it.
So instead of doing a Rodin's Damned, you could do Rodin's Parade, all right.
So you could change the Chandelier to be a bit more positive, perhaps.
Change how we buy -- and this is important.
So these objects are things that we do spend significant amounts of money on.
And you will notice, that again, these are all 3D printed objects.
That's right, they printed a motorcycle.
In fact, this motorcycle was shown at a TED conference,
and they've even gone so far as to build the parts for this
low-level energy consumption car, as well as an airplane.
Now all of that stuff, as amazing as it is,
and indeed I mean seeing a running motorcycle that was printed,
is incredible, but the trouble is, is it's just copying things.
It's not rethinking about what the technology can do for us,
and how it can change.
So that's what I'm going to talk about next,
it's what are the objects we really care about,
and start to want to rethink how we design, and how we use them.
So, what do we enjoy?
Well, one of the significant bits is fashion, right?
It changes our core self interest in what we think of ourselves,
and how it works.
And again, what's great about fashion is that being able to customize things,
that's exactly what a 3D printer can do.
It can give you infinite level of customization.
Change the way we have fun --
right, so this is one of my personal favorites,
the sports equipment side.
So on the left there, with the surfboard,
that's a skeleton that you can print,
and so, my friend, who's half the weight of me, who surfs,
can give me that design, I can scale up that design to fit my body weight,
and be able to actually print a surfboard for my usage.
The same with the football boots.
So the football boots, imagine the industry,
and the amount of money that's going to be made,
by people who want custom-made football boots, to their foot.
Not only to fit, but also to be able to kick the ball in very specific ways.
Change the way we experience --
Right, so this is one of my favorites.
Many of you probably saw this article in the Economist,
about printing a Stradivarius.
Yes indeed they're starting to with work that,
but again, the question is, is moving beyond just copying?
So at MIT they've started to do this flute,
and you can reprint the different parts of it
so that you can have bigger fingers, or smaller fingers,
depending on what size instrument you need.
And then more importantly,
reimagining what we can completely do with instruments.
What would a 7-horn trumpet look like?
and being able to use and play that.
There's really exciting potential for creativity in art here.
So I've talked about the things that we like,
but now we need to talk about the necessary things.
These are the things that make us survive,
and enable us to exist, right.
So let's think about food.
This is quite exciting, they've adapted the desktop printer
to be able to push out ice in a freezer, so that you could print ice sculptures.
Maybe not a massive significant thing, in terms of survival,
but it's starting to push that bounds, and those limits of what we can achieve.
Another one here, this is using a syringe-type method,
so that you can do layer upon layer cake.
So, you can actually build up multiple cookie designs or something like that.
Another one here, this is using multiple print heads to do multiple food types.
So you can imagine your appetizer, or your canapé
being delivered to you from a 3D printer,
just being able to print that up.
So buildings, these are important.
Can we actually imagine a 3D printer printing a building?
Well, someone's already done it.
In Italy, they're experimenting with printing cement.
So this is on a much larger design,
and they plan to scale this up even further to make this next step
to actually be even a larger size, the size of say a house or so on.
So this is one of the most exciting ones, I think of all.
There's already several Universities in the States,
who are actually starting to be able to graph skin cells from you,
cultivate those skin cells, put them in a syringe type mechanism,
be able to put your hand down, or other body part,
lay the printer over the top, and actually print a new layer of skin on you.
This is actually happening.
And even more significant than that,
and this is where I think this could really change lives full stop,
is the fact that Wakefield Forrest has already demonstrated
the ability to actually cultivate your liver cells, cultivate those,
and then print you a new liver.
Now that doesn't mean you should stop signing your organ donor cards.
This technology's not fully capable yet,
but it's well on it's way, and it's starting to get there.
Okay, so finally, the big one.
The next set of these is actually asking the bigger question,
so it's a bit speculative, but it's the question of
does 3D printing become
a significant technology that changes the century?
Is it going to do that big up curve in the way we do thing?
So, here's a simple example.
Let's think about this in a more holistic way.
Imagine shoes, kids growing up 5-years of age,
every mother can tell you how quickly they grow out of those shoes.
Well, there's no reason why those shoes can't be shredded down
as a base plastic that's organic.
You take a milk bottle from your refrigerator,
and you shred that along with the other plastic,
you scale up your design 0.01% to be the next sized foot,
and you reprint the shoe.
Imagine the cost savings from shipping all of those shoes,
the amount of energy you saved, wasted,
and the amount of time, you're gonna be having to go shoe shopping,
and all the rest with your kids.
This could start to fundamentally change the way we do things.
With the good, comes the bad.
I can print this up tomorrow.
I can print up a gun out of plastic, that would not be detected
by most metal detectors in airports.
Doesn't mean I can get the bullets through,
but there is the capability of being able to sneak that through.
It's going to change the way we think about safety.
Laws are going to have to be rethought.
There's going to be new ways of thinking about these things.
Now finally I want to suggest to you a bit larger of an idea.
So this is me just trying to be creative,
because I do think there's new businesses to be had,
and especially when you combine it with something like the web.
So, let's pretend something--
well, let's not pretend, we know that the earthquake happened in Japan,
and obviously we want to help them.
Well, you can imagine by using another significant technology, like the web,
where you can setup a site where the Japanese
could come along and request the items that they need,
because they've lost it in the Earthquake.
Enough printers around the country could actually print those things,
and then we'd be able to send those objects over to them
to help them in their time of crisis.
How munch more significant would that be than sending money?
Knowing that you're printing an object, and giving it to someone else?
How is that going to change the way you see helping out other countries?
Most importantly, this one we're quite excited about,
we're trying to stage a little group to go down to Egypt
and get these printers into the hands of people
who are just going to be able to use these things,
and that's what becomes really exciting.
If we get these 3D printers in the hands of people who need these things,
and can print the objects they need,
we're going to be able change their fundamental economy
and the way they're doing things.
So, I hope I've inspired you today.
I hope you have some ideas,
and I would love it if you would come up to me,
and share those ideas with me.
And more importantly, if you'd like to put on a 3D print party,
and have some of me and my developer friends come
and show you how to build your own printer so you can get started,
there are my contact details.
Thank you all very much. Cheers.
(Applause)