Zach Kaplan isn’t waiting for the digital manufacturing revolution to ignite — he’s jump-starting it.
Since President Obama sounded a clarion call three years ago for 3-D printing’s “potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything,” this formerly specialized technology has gone increasingly mainstream.
Three-dimensional printed products — like a woman’s dress — are made from ultrathin layers of plastic, metal or other materials, combined to create a 3-D object. They are turning up everywhere, from the medicine cabinet to the operating room to the runways of New York Fashion Week.
Now Kaplan is putting cutting-edge 3-D carving tech into the hands of children, donating 50 machines from his company Inventables to schools across the country.
The Queens campus of the United Nations International School got the machine in New York state. Students across the K-8 campus, including fifth-graders dreaming up marionettes for a lesson on fairy tales, are clamoring for a turn.
“It opens up careers that will develop technological solutions to global challenges,” said Kate McAdams, the school’s design technology teacher.
These kids join the growing ranks of New York students and employees at companies large and small fueling 3-D printing’s dramatic rise. Consultant Terry Wohlers estimates the industry grew by 34 percent last year, to $5.5 billion worldwide. In 2016, 3-D printing is poised for a breakout year, when a fast new HP machine debuts.
“To produce footwear, eyeglasses, whatever, it’s got to be fast like traditional manufacturing — [but] most of the current printers are much too slow,” said Wohlers. “HP could be a game-changer.”
New York City is home to MakerBot, which produces 3-D printers, and Shapeways, an online marketplace for 3-D-printed products. Since opening a Queens factory in 2012, Shapeways has doubled both its workforce, to 160, and products shipped monthly, to 120,000.
The 3-D printing boom isn’t big enough to single-handedly revive local manufacturing, but it will help.
“If you offshored because of the cost of manual labor, automation reduces that urge and allows you to bring it back,” said Hod Lipson, professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University. “It doesn’t necessarily bring back [specific] jobs, but does bring back manufacturing.”