The 3D-Printing-Life

Description of the challenge  I used the tool of visualization to achieve a better understanding of the problem, why there aren’t 3D  printers in every home today. 3D printers are a very good prototyping tool but the so called ‘3D  printing revolution’ hasn’t happened yet. I thought about the time somebody spends when he  creates a three-dimensional object and the time he waits for the finished print. For every hour I gave  one negative point. I gave positive points for the possibilities that you have when you just buy a  product or when you create it on your own. I also gave one point for every product on the largest  online store (Amazon) and one point for every 3d-model on (one of) the largest 3d-model-database  (Turbosquid). Then I multiplied the result with the price of an example product (In my case a  Raspberry Pi Case).

Description of Visualization (Week 1 – Video 1 “Visualization Tool”)  Visualization is a powerful tool to share ideas. When a group of people see a picture, they see it in  the same way. They see the same colours and the same shapes. They also get an instant impression  of the subject. When you have a graph or a diagram, the presented information is better to  understand than when you just use numbers. I used it for the challenge because of the instant  impression someone gets. I used a simple diagram to simplify the problem.

Application  I applied the visualization tool to the challenge by simplifying the problem of the ‘3D printing  revolution’ and creating a formula. Then I visualized the formula with a diagram.     T1:   Time somebody spends creating the product

T2:   Time he waits for the finished products

P:   Possibilities of creating products.

No:  Number of 3D-Objects I find online.

pr:  The price of a reference product, that I can find on Amazon and Turbosquid

Normal Product  3D printed product

T1  0 h  ~ 20 h

T2  48 h  ~ 16 h

P  120 (difficulty points)  20 (difficulty points)

No  229 Million  800 000

pr  6,96 $  30 $

-T1-T2-P+No/1’000’000-pr  ~54,04  ~-85,2

Of coure this is a simplification of the actual problem, but when you look at the numbers and, on the  diagram, you will see the difference between the two methods.

Insight  The insight showed me that there is a lot to do, when it comes to 3d-printing. Creating models has to  become easier, printing has to become faster and the price of 3D-Models has to become lower. The  insight effected my thinking in a way, that don’t believe in a 3D-printing-revolution until somebody  finds a better way of creating 3D-models and a new way of printing. Amazon (for example) is a great  shop when it comes to buying stuff without caring about every aspect of your product.

Next time  Next time I will use the same tool. Visualization is a great tool to get an insight into a problem. The  difference between the two ways of buying products showed me that there are a lot of unsolved  issues. I would create more complex models and go even deeper into the challenge.

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Amazon 3D Print

Points

Points

