I gave a talk at Institute for the Future about my work in digital manufacturing and hardware startups + they wanted me to talk about what I though of "Maker Cities"
3. ⢠Get space creatively
⢠Behind every hackerspace is a cool landlord
⢠Get members ďŹrst, get them to pay up
⢠Be open to the community, open shop
Thursday, April 25, 2013
4. ⢠Started as distributed fabbing marketplace
⢠Donât do this...
⢠Then automated 3D printing
⢠Then injection mold quoting software
Thursday, April 25, 2013
8. Why Hardware Startups?
⢠Real Problems: Food, water, shelter,
medicine... We canât solve these by
just adding software - new machines
and devices need to be made.
⢠Big Companies arenât moving fast
enough - we need startups to solve these
hardware problems faster and more widely.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
9. First Startup Dec 2011 March 2012 July 2012 -
Location
San
Francisco
Shenzhen
China
San
Francisco
Boston
Startups 9 9 1(?) 0
Services
- Mentors
- Workspace
- Mfg. Resources
- Mentors
- Space
- Near Shenzhen
supply base
- Seeed Studio
- Mentors
- Full Proto Shop
- PCH Mfg.
Resources
- Mentors
- Full Proto Shop
- Dragon Inno.
Mfg. Resources
Funding Funds: $25-100K
- Equity: 3-10%
Funds: $25K
- Equity: 6-10%
Funds: ?
- Equity: ?
- Licensing Model?
Funds: ?
- Equity: ?
- Licensing Model
Hardware Accelerators
Thursday, April 25, 2013
11. Mfg: Now and Then
â˘Mass Production:
⢠Unit Cost, Scalability
⢠Mass Customization is overhyped
â˘Small-Run, Flexible Production:
⢠Setup Cost, Speed
Manufacturers are stuck in a mass production mindset
Thursday, April 25, 2013
12. Digital Manufacturing is
the Real Movement
⢠3DP is currently overhyped, but it is great
for prototyping and as a Gateway Drug
⢠Prototyping is close to solved
⢠Production is the real problem
Thursday, April 25, 2013
13. Nothing is ever Democratized
âGood, Fast, Cheap - pick twoâ
- Engineering Maxim
Computers?
Are datacenters just a
bunch of MacBooks?
Printers?
Why does Print-on-
Demand exist?
Thursday, April 25, 2013
14. Manufacturing Physics
⢠Feature formation efďŹciency (x = speed)
⢠Molding is x^3, SLS = x^2, FDM = x
⢠Material Compatibility (melting points, etc.)
⢠Donât Fight Entropy: melting vs. forming
Thursday, April 25, 2013
15. Manufacturers donât want
your help
⢠Still focused on big players and mass production
⢠Donât make their own software / electronics.All
of them are mech. engineers / machinists
⢠âWhatâs MAKE Magazine?â
-Youth coordinator for manufacturing magazine
Thursday, April 25, 2013
17. Vertical is Back
⢠Who: SpaceX,Tesla,Apple, Makerbot,
3D Robotics, OpenROV, etc.
⢠HybridVertical & Core Competencies
⢠Hyundai built their own steel mill
Thursday, April 25, 2013
24. What should CAD really give you?
⢠Simulation
⢠DFM - Design for Manufacturability
⢠Data Interchange and Part Libraries
⢠MechE + EE
⢠Collaboration
⢠Problem:We need more bandwidth!
Engineering Superpowers
Thursday, April 25, 2013
25. Open Source?
⢠Open Hardware: Going through a
Stallman moment...
⢠Makerbot, Chris Anderson, OpenROV...
â˘Software:
⢠Open is hard when Users â Developers:
⢠FreeCAD, GIMP, Calibre, etc... suck
Thursday, April 25, 2013
26. Maker Cities
⢠Cities are gaining power relative to Feds
⢠Our current capitalism has issues with
long-term outlooks and +/- externalities
⢠Education is the ultimate competitive adv.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
27. A Brief History of Maker Cities
⢠Robert Owen (Textiles) -> New Harmony, IN
⢠F.C. Lowell (Textiles) -> Lowell, MA
⢠Henry Ford (Cars) -> Fordlandia, Brazil
Trope: Industrialist -> Factory Utopia
Honorable Mention: J.A. Etzler & âNew Edenâ (1833)
âThe paradise within the reach of all men, without labour, by powers of nature and machineryâ
Thursday, April 25, 2013
28. Current Maker Cities
⢠Open Source Ecologyâs Factor-eFarm
⢠Shenzhen
⢠âProâ Hackerspaces
⢠Artisans Asylum (Somerville, MA)
⢠New Lab (coming soon to Brooklyn)
⢠Berkeley Makerspace (coming soon)
Thursday, April 25, 2013
29. A DeďŹcit of Meaning
⢠Contemporary Western Society: sans un
raison dâetre.
⢠Current Post-Modernism & âHipstersâ are
symptoms of the disease.
⢠MakerFaire is the new âBig Tent Revivalâ
and is the only fully-rounded, future-facing
movement.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
30. Education is the Ultimate
Competitive Advantage
⢠Net Productivity must be greater than
surroundings in the long-term.
⢠If you really believe in liberal values, you
already agree with the above statement.
⢠San Francisco has no yuppie families with
school-aged kids because of bad schools.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
31. A New Capitalism
⢠Market Failure: Value Creation without
Value Capture
⢠Financial Models: Kickstarter?
⢠Capitalism Outside; Socialism Inside
⢠Cell Wall Model of Economy
⢠Government OS
Thursday, April 25, 2013