MakerBot Industries

One of MakerBot’s interns, Jack Poon, about printing large scale projects.¹

Crowdsourcing has endless possibilities especially in the hands of creators, inventors and the curious public. So far in the past, Makerbot has invited members of the 3D printing community to create printed pulleys for Makerbot kits. On top of that, Effalo, a thingiverse member, has invited members of the 3D printing community to print out parts for a geodesic dome. He has even offered 2$ for parts sent in to build a geodesic dome. Other projects included a Halloween design challenge, a humane mousetrap design challenge as well as the Deep Water Horizon Challenge.

One of the cool things about crowdsourcing is that it invites people from all over the place to commit to a common goal. These goals can range from practical applications to works of art. People of different backgrounds and experiences can all offer different insights into the problems we face today. So far the combined efforts of everyone has resulted in remarkable feats and diverse ideas. I foresee even greater opportunity for utilizing 3D printers and crowdsourcing. One opportunity is the construction of large scale, complex projects. Imagine if all the people who had access to 3d printers were to print out buildings of an entire city. In no time at all, we could create a scale sized city and invite people to see the city, maybe even rearrange the city. One day, should we ever plan on building a lunar base on the moon, the base could be replicated on Earth first and people would be free to walk through the base and maybe even suggest some ideas of their own. How cool would that be! These are just some of the possibilities of crowdsourcing combined with rapid prototyping. If you know some people around your area with 3D printers, why not start a project like the ones listed above. Get them together to brainstorm and solve problems in the community. In fact, invite members of the community to see some of the prototyped parts created and even leave suggestions and ideas!

Lets print the world!

1. Photo courtesy of NASA [↩]