Under the Bridge

Something different for you today, not directly concerned with programming but probably of interest nevertheless; a case study from the Economist of just how easy it is to create a manufactured product in This Amazing Modern World Of Ours.

An atom-based product, developed in bits

Step 1: The Idea.

In this case, a tripod adapter/kickstand for the iPhone 4.

Step 2: Crowdsource some financing.

Throw your project up on Kickstarter, get 5273 people to pledge $137,417 as we write this.

Step 3: Design the product.

Use Rhinoceros 3D design software — which is really cheap if you use the free OS X beta.

Step 4: Prototype the product.

Ship the files off to Shapeways for pretty cheap 3D printing. And start selling them immediately to the impatient.

Step 5: Produce the product.

And you can do injection molding production in the dozens to thousands production run at a practical unit cost at Protomold — the article quotes $10,000 as breakeven for the mold and the run, which presumably would be a 500 unit run at the $20 pledge price. So although it’s not a trivial investment, it’s certainly vastly quicker and less expensive than conventional manufacturing.

Compared to how hard this would have been a decade ago … no, wait, for all practical purposes this would have been completely impossible for anyone except a very large company a decade ago. Even five years ago it would have probably taken a good order of magnitude more investment to get through to salable product. It’s just so darn empowering to be alive these days, isn’t it now?

h/t: Cocoanetics!