Forbes: Last year Golan Levin’s son decided to build a car. Aside from the minor inconvenience of being 4 years old, the younger Levin faced an engineering challenge. His Tinkertoys, which he wanted to use for the vehicle’s frame, wouldn’t attach to his K’Nex, the pieces he wanted to use for the wheels. It took his father, an artist, hacker and professor at Carnegie Mellon, a year to solve that problem. In the process he cracked open a much larger one: In an age when anyone can share, download and create not just digital files but also physical things, thanks to the proliferation of cheap 3-D printers, are companies at risk of losing control of the objects they sell?
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
How A Geek Dad And His 3D Printer Aim To Liberate Legos
Forbes: Last year Golan Levin’s son decided to build a car. Aside from the minor inconvenience of being 4 years old, the younger Levin faced an engineering challenge. His Tinkertoys, which he wanted to use for the vehicle’s frame, wouldn’t attach to his K’Nex, the pieces he wanted to use for the wheels. It took his father, an artist, hacker and professor at Carnegie Mellon, a year to solve that problem. In the process he cracked open a much larger one: In an age when anyone can share, download and create not just digital files but also physical things, thanks to the proliferation of cheap 3-D printers, are companies at risk of losing control of the objects they sell?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
It's great how a silly little problem (which probably seemed like a great big problem to that 4 year-old) can inspire a truly marketable innovation. What was created from this scenario was not just another makeshift device that makes pieces that don't exactly fit hold in one way or another, but a whole new line of items which I think can actually hold their place in that particular industry. This is also fairly relevant to theatre. We are constantly needing to put pieces together where they don't fit organically. So, we made different tools, we made connector cables, etc. When faced with an issue of connectivity, don't call it quits, make it work in a feasible way.
This is awesome. I feel like I should write things about copyright laws and the future of business and art, but I just can't get over the fact that I could connect my magnet buildings to my log cabins. The little kid in me wants to get out all my old toys and make this insane structure with everything. I was always disappointed when my pieces ran out.
But back to the subject, I think this is a brillant use of 3D printers. Computer models of things like this, and replacement toy parts, and even small household items, will probably become widely available as more people own 3D printers. Think of having your vacuum break, going to the manufacture's website if it's under warranty, and downloading a model that your printer can print of the broken part.
As a kid who played with Legos and Tinkertoys constantly, I think this is absolutely wonderful. I don't know much about Fischertechnik, Krinkles, ZomeTools, or Zoobs, but I think that Legos, Duplos, K'Nex, Lincoln Logs, and Tinkertoys are some of the best toys you could possibly buy for a child. They're fun and educational, but not in an "educational toy" sort of way. They all inspire self-determined exploration and creativity. I can assure you that any practical understanding of physics I have was embedded in my brain through hands-on exploration with toys like this.
It's so cool that someone actually created pieces that connect these different systems. I think its wonderful. I just wonder if they ever contemplated this product's name in acronym form...
It's really cool to see that somebody is bringing together all these different old build-able toys that many of us had bunches of fun with. And it also speaks to the further proliferation of the 3D printer that there is even the opportunity to use these and that a decent number of people have. It'll be interesting to see going forward how the idea of copyright will adapt to the 3D printer and this further abundance of plans for tweaking and changing producers original products. Copyright certainly is going to have a radical change sometime down the line.
Post a Comment