talk at institute for the future

SolveHard(ware)Problems

Nick Pinkston

@nickpinkston

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Nick’s Projects

Thursday, April 25, 2013

• Get space creatively

• Behind every hackerspace is a cool landlord

• Get members first, get them to pay up

• Be open to the community, open shop

Thursday, April 25, 2013

• Started as distributed fabbing marketplace

• Don’t do this...

• Then automated 3D printing

• Then injection mold quoting software

Thursday, April 25, 2013

16 Meetups4694 Members

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Thursday, April 25, 2013

DFM Plug-ins Full-auto Factory

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Why Hardware Startups?

• Real Problems: Food, water, shelter, medicine... We can’t solve these by just adding software - new machines and devices need to be made.

• Big Companies aren’t moving fast enough - we need startups to solve these hardware problems faster and more widely.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

First Startup Dec 2011 March 2012 July 2012 -

Location San Francisco

ShenzhenChina

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

Hardware Startup Services

*No one knows why the “Street” trope happened...Thursday, April 25, 2013

Mfg: Now and Then

• Mass Production:

• Unit Cost, Scalability

• Mass Customization is overhyped

• Small-Run, Flexible Production:

• Setup Cost, Speed

Manufacturers are stuck in a mass production mindset

Thursday, April 25, 2013

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

Nothing is ever Democratized“Good, Fast, Cheap - pick two”

- Engineering Maxim

Computers?

Are datacenters just a

bunch of MacBooks?

Printers?

Why does Print-on-Demand exist?

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Manufacturing Physics

• Feature formation efficiency (x = speed)

• Molding is x^3, SLS = x^2, FDM = x

• Material Compatibility (melting points, etc.)

• Don’t Fight Entropy: melting vs. forming

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Manufacturers don’t want your help

• Still focused on big players and mass production

• Don’t make their own software / electronics. All of them are mech. engineers / machinists

• “What’s MAKE Magazine?” - Youth coordinator for manufacturing magazine

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Engineering Conservatism

SoftwareEngineering(minutes)

ElectricalEngineering

(days)

MechanicalEngineering

(weeks)

CivilEngineering(months)

Conservatism is driven by iteration time and risk

Screwing up (debugging) is how you have to work.

Screwing up is very expensive.

Don’t do it!

One iteration, if it breaks:

“You’re Fired!”

It’s going to take a few boards to get it

right.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Vertical is Back

• Who: SpaceX, Tesla, Apple, Makerbot, 3D Robotics, OpenROV, etc.

• Hybrid Vertical & Core Competencies

• Hyundai built their own steel mill

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Distributed Production is a Canard

Distributed / Democratized Prototyping is Real

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Machine cost doesn’t matter

• Machine vs. Unit vs. Setup Cost

• Facebook is capital intensive:

• $1.8B Datacenter + $53M/YR electricity

• $1.5B 2012 Revenue

Thursday, April 25, 2013

The Robot WarsBaxter RobotMaster

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Economies of Scale in the Future

Infrastructure

Community

Thursday, April 25, 2013

MechE Tools

Thursday, April 25, 2013

EE Tools

Thursday, April 25, 2013

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

Open Source?

• Open Hardware: Going through a Stallman moment...

• Makerbot, Chris Anderson, OpenROV...

• Software:

• Open is hard when Users ≠ Developers:

• FreeCAD, GIMP, Calibre, etc... suck

Thursday, April 25, 2013

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

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 & “New Eden” (1833)“The paradise within the reach of all men, without labour, by powers of nature and machinery”

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Current Maker Cities

• Open Source Ecology’s Factor-eFarm

• Shenzhen

• “Pro” Hackerspaces

• Artisans Asylum (Somerville, MA)

• New Lab (coming soon to Brooklyn)

• Berkeley Makerspace (coming soon)

Thursday, April 25, 2013

A Deficit of Meaning

• Contemporary Western Society: sans un raison d’etre.

• Current Post-Modernism & “Hipsters” are symptoms of the disease.

• MakerFaire is the new “Big Tent Revival” and is the only fully-rounded, future-facing movement.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

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

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