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Sunday, August 24, 2014
The Home Depot Now Stocks 3-D Printers
Remodeling: The Home Depot is teaming up with 3-D printing hardware maker MakerBot to bring the future technology to the masses, at least the masses that live near 12 stores across the states of California, Illinois, and New York.
8 comments:
Philip Rheinheimer
said...
Technology like 3-D printers is becoming more and more accessible to the everyday consumer. While still not exactly cheap, putting products like this out on the more open market helps both with development but also exposure for the companies that produce them. While I do agree that the uses are still somewhat limited, putting this technology in the hands of the every day user will only help increase the possibilities for it's use. You never know how people will adapt this technology to fit uses that were never thought of before. I think this is a smart move for MakerBot even if it doesn't lead to a huge increase in sales, it makes their products more visible to those who may have never seen 3-D printers before. Making technology more accessible is usually a good call.
This is really cool and not really that surprising since it has been sort of obvious how 3D Printing has been building up over the past few years. Here at CMU many departments and student orgs have been using devices marketed as 3D printers or devices that effectively are 3D printers. I can't wait to see what people will be making as the cost goes down and the ease of use goes up. This is definitely going to change how manufacturing small, seldom used, complex pieces/tools/parts works.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. My first reaction to this is that now new technology is available to anyone. However, then I got to thinking about it. What good would this do? First off, 3D printers are expensive. Secondly, Home Depot tends to be used by people who are looking to do some home improvement a variety of scales. Once someone has spent their money and purchased the expensive 3D printer what are they going to do with this? Basically, there is potential for this to be a great innovation, but I don't think the Home Depot customer is interested in a 3D printer.
Before coming into the world of theater 3-D printers were not something that I heard a lot about. Since being in the School of Drama I feel as if 3-D printing is one of the main subjects of discussion. I have seen it on this blog multiple times used in a large variety of ways. Up until now I do not believe that this technology has been readily available to the everyday person. Making more available can lead to many new uses and creations from the device. However, the fact is unless you have a lot of knowledge about the equipment and the software that goes with it using may not come easy. The article says that they have kiosks set up for demonstration which are probably limited in what they do and have some sort of supervision over it. Taking one of these home may lead to a challenge and decrease its popularity.
On a serious note, I think buying this sort of tool on a consumer level comes with some caveats. Mainly, I feel that the main limitation for accessibility is the software learning curve. 3-D modeling is definitely not something you can master over the weekend. Although simple objects can be built off templates or downloaded recipes, I believe the limiting factor for complexity is the ability to model your idea.
My high school recently purchased a MakerBot Replicator as part of a tech surge grant. Yet, I fear that the software learning curve will be a great barrier to entry, especially given the lack of knowledgable personnel that students will ask questions.
My friend's brother has a 3D printer and I don't think he uses it... I honestly don't know what the average consumer would need a 3D printer for but I guess it's pretty cool that they can have one if they want to... And who knows, now that the technology is available, maybe it will inspire people to learn how to make things and then who knows... take over the world! (Joking! but still, who knows, this might inspire the future millionaire to start learning how to use the 3D printer!) This kind of reminds me how there is a laser cutter at the Ikea here in Pittsburgh. This, at first, confused the heck out of me because I couldn't figure out why people would want to get something laser cut at ikea... but then I saw people going over to get designs engraved in their glass cups etc. and you know, why not have the laser cutter? Personalize your plates and glasses! Why not! I don't have a really strong preference to making this new technology available to the everyday consumer.
While yes, it is very cool that, slowly but surely, 3D printing tech is becoming more and more available to everyday people, it struck me a little odd that the article writer’s opinion of the printers was “Not very useful”. Yes, common lower end 3D printers are not particularly useful for much other than making interesting models. However, the 3D printing industry in the high end is already at the point of manufacturing specialized tools, and manufacturing viable products.
I find it pretty amazing that something as specific and so technologically advanced is making its way to users and consumers in such an easily accessible way.. If you can afford it. Regardless of the price, I think that Philip has the right idea here in saying that this will only benefit both the developers and the 3D printing community. Nobody can tell how the everyday consumer or tinkerer will use this technology or how it may develop from future use. I think that this was most definitely a smart move by MakerBot and will only help them.
8 comments:
Technology like 3-D printers is becoming more and more accessible to the everyday consumer. While still not exactly cheap, putting products like this out on the more open market helps both with development but also exposure for the companies that produce them. While I do agree that the uses are still somewhat limited, putting this technology in the hands of the every day user will only help increase the possibilities for it's use. You never know how people will adapt this technology to fit uses that were never thought of before. I think this is a smart move for MakerBot even if it doesn't lead to a huge increase in sales, it makes their products more visible to those who may have never seen 3-D printers before. Making technology more accessible is usually a good call.
This is really cool and not really that surprising since it has been sort of obvious how 3D Printing has been building up over the past few years. Here at CMU many departments and student orgs have been using devices marketed as 3D printers or devices that effectively are 3D printers. I can't wait to see what people will be making as the cost goes down and the ease of use goes up. This is definitely going to change how manufacturing small, seldom used, complex pieces/tools/parts works.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. My first reaction to this is that now new technology is available to anyone. However, then I got to thinking about it. What good would this do? First off, 3D printers are expensive. Secondly, Home Depot tends to be used by people who are looking to do some home improvement a variety of scales. Once someone has spent their money and purchased the expensive 3D printer what are they going to do with this? Basically, there is potential for this to be a great innovation, but I don't think the Home Depot customer is interested in a 3D printer.
Before coming into the world of theater 3-D printers were not something that I heard a lot about. Since being in the School of Drama I feel as if 3-D printing is one of the main subjects of discussion. I have seen it on this blog multiple times used in a large variety of ways. Up until now I do not believe that this technology has been readily available to the everyday person. Making more available can lead to many new uses and creations from the device. However, the fact is unless you have a lot of knowledge about the equipment and the software that goes with it using may not come easy. The article says that they have kiosks set up for demonstration which are probably limited in what they do and have some sort of supervision over it. Taking one of these home may lead to a challenge and decrease its popularity.
3-D printers for the masses!!! Wohoo!!11!
On a serious note, I think buying this sort of tool on a consumer level comes with some caveats. Mainly, I feel that the main limitation for accessibility is the software learning curve. 3-D modeling is definitely not something you can master over the weekend. Although simple objects can be built off templates or downloaded recipes, I believe the limiting factor for complexity is the ability to model your idea.
My high school recently purchased a MakerBot Replicator as part of a tech surge grant. Yet, I fear that the software learning curve will be a great barrier to entry, especially given the lack of knowledgable personnel that students will ask questions.
My friend's brother has a 3D printer and I don't think he uses it... I honestly don't know what the average consumer would need a 3D printer for but I guess it's pretty cool that they can have one if they want to... And who knows, now that the technology is available, maybe it will inspire people to learn how to make things and then who knows... take over the world! (Joking! but still, who knows, this might inspire the future millionaire to start learning how to use the 3D printer!) This kind of reminds me how there is a laser cutter at the Ikea here in Pittsburgh. This, at first, confused the heck out of me because I couldn't figure out why people would want to get something laser cut at ikea... but then I saw people going over to get designs engraved in their glass cups etc. and you know, why not have the laser cutter? Personalize your plates and glasses! Why not! I don't have a really strong preference to making this new technology available to the everyday consumer.
While yes, it is very cool that, slowly but surely, 3D printing tech is becoming more and more available to everyday people, it struck me a little odd that the article writer’s opinion of the printers was “Not very useful”. Yes, common lower end 3D printers are not particularly useful for much other than making interesting models. However, the 3D printing industry in the high end is already at the point of manufacturing specialized tools, and manufacturing viable products.
I find it pretty amazing that something as specific and so technologically advanced is making its way to users and consumers in such an easily accessible way.. If you can afford it. Regardless of the price, I think that Philip has the right idea here in saying that this will only benefit both the developers and the 3D printing community. Nobody can tell how the everyday consumer or tinkerer will use this technology or how it may develop from future use. I think that this was most definitely a smart move by MakerBot and will only help them.
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