Has 3D printing met the hype?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2019
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A few years back 3D printing was seen as the ground-breaking technology that promised a new industrial revolution. The revolution has not arrived yet. So, were we sold a lie? Or did the hype just get the better of us? Ed Butler talks to Sarah Boisvert, a co-founder at Potomac Photonics, a micro-fabrication company in the US. She explains why the buzz about 3D printing, invented back in 1980, really started to take off only some five or six years ago. She says that the 3D revolution is not untrue, it's just that the hype around it kicked in a little too soon. Ed also visits a start up called Climate Edge which manufactures meteorological equipment and supplies weather data for farmers in Africa. And without printers like this one, its lead designer Gabriel Bruckner says, it probably wouldn't exist. The US research and advisory firm, Gartner has coined the term "The Hype Cycle", describing a five-stage process around any new technology, which invariably seems to involve disillusionment before ultimate widescale adoption. Pete Basiliere of Gartner believes 3D printing is a classic case in point, with only a few industries taking it up.
PHOTO: 3D printer creating a hand. Copyright: Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.3 | Today, whatever happened to 3D printing, the technology that industry leaders couldn't help, |
| 0:12.1 | but hype up. |
| 0:13.2 | Really, we're talking about a $12 trillion market. |
| 0:16.9 | And to get a lead of vision like this, I couldn't ask for anything more. |
| 0:22.1 | Yep, printed tools, printed clothes, printed body organs. We were promised a lot. Will they |
| 0:27.6 | ever happen? The promise of 3D printing is so extraordinary that people jumped on it, |
| 0:34.6 | but the challenges are huge. |
| 0:42.7 | The new industrial revolution coming sometime soon. Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:50.7 | So one week ago, we discussed some of the excessive hype surrounding the development of smart tech in the home. Arguably, though, that was as nothing compared to the bombast around this new industry. |
| 1:01.2 | Ultimately, we like to make organ transplant a thing of the past |
| 1:04.3 | by creating engineered tissues or whole organs that would be specifically matched to you as an individual. |
| 1:10.8 | 3D printing in general provides really great control and building materials and structures |
| 1:15.2 | in 3D. |
| 1:16.4 | Hi there, I'm Dave Marks. |
| 1:18.2 | I'm the resident composer for the 3D print show. |
| 1:21.0 | And we've done something pretty special for the show by putting together a band |
| 1:24.6 | featuring 3D printed instruments. |
| 1:26.9 | It's a bit of a world first, actually have a 3D printed band. |
| 1:31.3 | We'll be looking now at technologies based on 3D printing and on metallurgy technologies and other things, |
| 1:38.3 | see how can we take the materials we find on the Moon to turn them into products we can use. |
| 1:43.3 | You could print food, you can print stem cells, almost no limit of what you could not print. |
... |
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