The World's First 3D Printed Musical Instrument - A 3D Printed Flute

Is this a breakthrough? A flute, printed in 3D.

Is 3D Printing a niche technology? Just one of several fabrication techniques. Or is it a significant breakthrough that will transform manufacturing supply chains and economies with impacts on the scale of the first industrial revolution, or, the invention of Gutenberg's book printing press. Some examples of newly 3D-printed objects hint at what's to come.

Watch this fascinating video of the team at MIT Media Lab who have attempted - and succeeded - to 3D print a working flute (perhaps the first 3D printed musical instrument?).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwHgszH0aqI

Are Voxels next?

Imagine a desktop fabricator capable of making perfectly repeatable, arbitrary, multi material 3D objects with microscale precision. The objects would be composed of millions or even billions of small physical building blocks (voxels). Some building blocks could be hard, some could be soft. Some could be red, others green or blue. Some could be conductive and others could perform computation or store energy. Some could even be sensors and others actuators, and so on and so forth. With a relatively small repertoire of building block types and a rapid assembler, one could assemble a relatively large variety of machines at high resolution. How would that work?

http://ccsl.mae.cornell.edu/Rapid_Assembler

Is Shapeways a shop or a fab shop?

Is Shapeways a shop, or a fab shop? It's both of these today, but is that the right model? Offering the service of printing a design is very different from offering a shop from which to buy things. I can get jewelry, art, home decor etc, from 1000s of outlets. Some of it may even have been 3D printed. Is it realistic for Shapeways to specialize as an outlet for 3D printed objects? Wouldn't it be better for Shapeways to focus on being the best online 3D print shop, and to work with other retail outlets for distribution and channel? Isn't it simply a distraction for Shapeways to try to be a shop as well as a printer? Doesn't it limit the audience? For example, wouldn't authors of 3D work prefer their output to be available on Amazon? Wouldn't people who print through Shapeways appreciate placing their work (if not for personal use) through Amazon, with Shapeways for fulfillment? Wouldn't this generate more orders to Shapeways?

No doubt Shapeways have thought deeply about business model options. I have not. I'm just throwing this out for discussion. Let's go a step further.

If 3D print shops open up all over the planet, what will make you use one or the other? Will it be the experience of designing an object, or of placing an order, or the range of starter designs to mass-customize, or the repository of reusable objects to draw from, or the quality of the printing, or the simplicity of fulfillment, or some other factor? Will having already printed objects (in store) in a gallery make any difference? Does Shapeways want to be vertically integrated, or to work with retail and channel partners? What's going to drive the market? Unless the market blooms for on-demand consumer 3D printing, Shapeways will also be limited. So, what's the single thing that Shapeways can do to drive demand from consumers for 3D printed objects?

Looking at the Shapeways site today, its kind of a hybrid luxury goods shop, and bespoke tailor. Is this the future for consumer 3D printing? Or some other model? Indeed, when 'goods' can be printed, how does the relationship between designer, manufacturer, supply chain and consumer change? Where is the sweet spot for Shapeways?

ZCorp ZPrinter 650 Marketing Video

390,000 colors, 600x540 dpi, feature size 0.1mm, vertical build speed 28mm/hour, layer thickness 0.089mm to 0.102mm, number of jets 1520 .... Watch the video:

http://www.zcorp.com/documents/259_650Video.wvx