Innovation - Not Multiplication

As I read the various posts on this forum, I form the opinion that 3D Printing at the consumer level will become quite popular in the North Americas and Europe where population levels permit the application of Economies of Scale and special interest activities, like the creation of artworks (including jewellery), fashion and furnishings, have very many practitioners.

Here in Australia we have a relatively small population of around 22 million, inhabiting a land mass the size of the 48 States of the USA. In the past, our major income source was the export of agricultural produces, mainly wool and meat. Now we export iron ore and coal. With the continual expansion of Globalistation, what manufacturing industries we had are going off-shore. We no longer make iron and steel or refine oil. Ford, General Motors and Toyota are closing their car manufacturing plants in the next couple of years, so all our vehicles arrive from Asia, the US and Europe by ship. We have never processed the wool we grow. Our orchardists cannot sell their fruit for processing because our major fruit canneries are closing down. Even our iconic foods like Vegemite (a product we spread on on our toast) and Tim Tams (a chocolate coated, cream filled biscuit) are owned by Nestle and Nabisco.

So how does this apply to 3D printing?

Well, we are supposed to be a First World country. We have a good education system with high literacy levels. Because virtually all manufacturing has now moved to China, we cannot rely on secondary industry to sustain our economy and provide employment into the future. Our only option is to become innovative and produce the designs for items that can be mass produced in Asia. Our only hope is to develop and hold Intellectual Property. It is it attaining this goal that I see 3D printing as having a major role.

Our children are quite adept at using technology from an early age. My grandson, who is 17 months old, knows what switches, TV remotes, mobile phones, computer mice and many other electronic devices are for, although his dexterity with them is not great. It is his generation we should be teaching to use the tools of innovation. I'm sure that by the time he starts school at age 5, he will know how to use Pop's printer machine. Hopefully there will be some computer based version of Etch-a-Sketch that he will have mastered for drawing. I suppose it falls to me to teach him measurement and design drawing as well as teaching him how to hold a pencil to draw.

So this is where I see the economic future of my Nation. Well-educated people using tools like 3D printing to bring into being new devices for the betterment of Mankind.

Old Man Emu

Great post. I think you bring up some excellent points. However, I think China has already caught onto 3D Printing. If you browse all the 3D printing patents that have been filed in the past few years, you will see an overwhelming amount of them being from china. Obama really needs to take some more initiative and grant money to schools and universities for 3D printing technology. It's the young kids that will come up with the groundbreaking ideas. Like, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did.

Dear Old Man Emu, (btw, isn't that an off-road suspension system made in Australia?)

Your 17 month old grandson is going to live in a world very much unlike our own. We currently have bionic hearing and vision (Argus II, Cochlear Implant). Those technologies will improve over the next five years to become better than the organic originals you were born with. People will be able to opt-in to a wider spectrum of sight and sound with an upgrade surgery. By the time he graduates high school he won't think in terms of a computer, he will think in terms of the ever present, ever connected cloud knowledge processor available through augmented reality viewed through bionic eyes and ears. That means it will be far more important for him to have a good character rather than a good skill set. For example, if he wants to cook a meal he will have a master chef (automated) walk him through the steps for making a 5 star meal. As he reaches for the wrong sauce the chef will say 'no, not that one, the one to the left". And if those things aren't commonplace in 16 years, they will be in 20. If your grandson needs a math tutor he will learn through a virtual reality game that makes mathematical concepts more clear than anything a traditional teacher can provide. Learning algorithms (Khan Academy) will track his progress and know when to refresh his memory on various subjects or push him to learn more advanced concepts. Education will be ever present and seamless with his daily life.

Do you see why our concept of a four year college education will be obsolete in the not to distant future?

Regarding the economic future of your nation. Our perceptions of wealth will change. By the time your grandson is 30 (perhaps sooner) robots will manufacture every physical item humans desire. But humans will posses unlimited wealth through virtual reality. Everyone will have a beachfront house in a virtual world. It will be so realistic due to the bionic implants feeding signals to our brains that it won't be perceived as something fake. In a future like that, nationalism and economic GDP doesn't make much sense.