My hands were in another T3 video! This time though, I’m not playing Santa turning on the Makerbot. Instead I walk through the amazing Nokia partnership with Makerbot, that has really made custom 3Dprinting super easy.
What is super interesting about this is that a phone manufacturer, is enabling customers to make part of their product. The implications for what that could mean in the future are astounding.
A tree-hugger tangent
For me, being green is important, and i don’t buy alot of “things” because of the amount of waste it creates — specifically plastic, which is traditionally petroleum based. So i had my otterbox for years — it was big & ugly but it did the job. Now however, i make things all the time on the Makerbot and don’t worry about it since it uses PLA.
PLA is a corn bi-product, which means that it is bio-degradable and can be melted down to create more filament to make new things. Imagine if all the trinkets & plastic ware that is so prevalent was made of PLA rather than traditional ABS petroleum plastic. The environmental impact would be massive.
Now extend that. Because what is starting with this Makerbot Nokia partnership is the idea of putting into the consumers hands the means of easy, green production. This cuts out drilling for material; most of the packaging, shipping and merchandising. It also means, when you tire of something and want something new — you can just take the old thing, melt it down and 3Dprint a new thing.
Our disposable culture could actually become green and sustainable.
Tara Connolly 