Outside of its own community, 3D printing continues to be a controversial topic. On the one hand there are those who believe that it may destroy capitalism by putting the means of production into the hands of the majority. Meanwhile, at the more sceptical end of the spectrum, critics continue to denounce 3D printing as having little real potential to make any substantial impact on the business world.
Following the publication of my book “3D Printing: The Next Industrial Revolution” back in May, I have been invited to talk to many mainstream business audiences about 3D printing. Many such companies have included accountancy and consultancy firms, banks, and others who are not in the manufacturing sector. In this article (and its accompanying video) I’m therefore going to summarize the key messages I’ve been discussing with companies who want to learn more about 3D printing, but who are currently making little or no use of the technology. You may of course disagree with everything that I say! But if nothing else, I hope to spark further debate. As the growing number of articles on 3Dprinter.net demonstrate, 3D printing may now be developing very rapidly indeed. This said, until it can really transition into the mainstream, it will remain a somewhat niche set of technologies with limited business relevance.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
Adafruit has had paid day off for voting for our team for years, if you need help getting that going for your organization, let us know – we can share how and why we did this as well as the good results. Here are some resources for voting by mail, voting in person, and some NY resources for our NY based teams as well. If there are additional resources to add, please let us know – adafruit.com/vote
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
