I always smile when I hear people sprouting all kinds of skeptical commentary regarding 3D printing. “It’s slow”, “I want to print lego bricks”, and many more. Each of those comments simply indicates that these people haven’t yet wrapped their head around what 3D printing actually means.

I followed the adventures of Vik Olliver, together with Prof.Adrian Bowyer, from the very beginning: working on the first RepRap which unleashed the whole 3D printing revolution.

I don’t want to print lego bricks. LEGO itself is awesome at producing those, and although we can all agree the pricing might be a tad steep, the quality is extremely high, as well as consistent. A brick from 50 years ago will fit a brick manufactured this year. Good stuff.

The issue is not speed, either. Not everything is suitable for mass production, think customisation – and then think beyond different colours 😉

How about printing a building? Yes prefab works, but it’s not as flexible. When you print in-situ, structures are possible that can otherwise only be created by classic master tradesmen at great expense in terms of time and other factors. Plus such people are exceedingly rare these days. So with all that in mind, view the video below. What do you think?