talk at institute for the future
DESCRIPTION
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"TRANSCRIPT
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