Maker Pro News: Startups Are The Future of 3D Printing

You’re reading our weekly Maker Pro Newsletter, which focuses on the impact of makers in business and technology. Our coverage includes hardware startups, new products, incubators, and innovators, along with technology and market trends. Subscribe today and never miss a post.

“By collaborating across borders we have an opportunity to create tomorrow’s trillion-dollar pie, rather than squabbling over slices of yesterday’s.” – RealWear Founder Andy Lowery

Startups are the Future of 3D Printing

A terrific new interview with Sculpteo (@sculpteo) CEO Clément Moreau(@c_moreau) looks at the cutting edge of rapid prototyping, the company’s work with Paris startup campus Station F (@joinstationf), and the future of entrepreneurship and 3D printing.

Moreau’s key point is about how Sculpteo sees fabrication technology itself: as a revolution akin to what modern programming languages have brought to computer science in recent decades — by making it possible for people with little formal training to turn their creativity and insight into tangible results.

3D printing “enables non-experienced people to start developing their own mockups, enclosure, and hardware device,” he said. “Of course at some point you still need a good mechanical engineer or designer if you want to be very precise, but a software engineer, a graphic designer or a MBA-graduate CEO is able to start and field test its very own design for his product, before she needs to raise money from business angels.”

La Machine’s New Wonder of the World

The unstoppable design geniuses at La Machine have launched a Kickstarter campaign for what looks like their most ambitious project to date: the Herons’ Tree, a towering structure that Make: senior editor Caleb Kraft (@calebkraft) compared to the classic wonders of the world.

The Herons’ Tree, which will be built in Nantes, France, looks like a combination of a treehouse and a public greenspace. It’s already raised twice its original goal, with more than a month left.

Building Bridges Between the U.S. and China

A deep dive in Crunchbase looks at an unusual joint venture — between a U.S. startup and a Chinese one — that both parties hope will become a “‘blueprint’ for cross-border tech startup collaboration.”

Andy Lowery, the founder of wearable maker RealWear (@realwearinc), is a veteran of both the U.S. Navy (@USNavy) and Raytheon (@Raytheon). Sonny Xin is the co-founder of RealMax Group, a Shanghai augmented reality startup. The duo hope have social ambitions in addition to business goals: they hope that the joint venture will usher in a new era of collaboration between Chinese and American entrepreneurs.

“By collaborating across borders we have an opportunity to create tomorrow’s trillion-dollar pie, rather than squabbling over slices of yesterday’s,” Lowery told Crunchbase. “The more we share globally, the stronger all of our economies become.”

This Smart Motor Could Revolutionize Drones

IQ Motion Control (@iqmotioncontrol) makes smart motors and controllers aimed at drone builders, and their demos will absolutely knock your socks off — first take a look at this clip showing off the unit’s control capabilities, then watch this video of how nimble pilots can use the system to flip a drone over and fly upside-down.

The group is currently running a crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply (@crowd_supply), which has already met its funding goal. Co-founder Jon Broome recently wrote a column about lesson’s he’s learned bringing IQ Motion, which started as an academic research project, into the complex world of overseas manufacturing.

Elsewhere on the Maker Pro Web

Twelve-year-old maker Allie Weber (@RobotMakerGirl) interviewed Limor Fried, and the result is a delightful jaunt through Fried’s life, philosophy, and career with Adafruit (@adafruit) that’s loaded with insights for maker pros. “Originality comes later, after you’ve gained some skill,” Fried said. “It’s totally okay to copy a project to get started.”

Lux Capital (@Lux_Capital) partner Shahin Farshchi (@Farshchi) penned a terrific guide for startups looking at emerging technologies, from augmented reality to spacetech and robotics.

Austin may be best known for its music and tacos, but it’s also home to a booming hardware ecosystem, according to a new roundup of startups working on 3D printing tech, robot baristas and even an underwater camera for locating good fishing spots.

Make: correspondent Liam Grace-Flood profiled the South African design consultancy Thingking (@weareThingking) and its work with the Maker Library Network, which runs open-access workshops and private design studios around the world.

Indian maker pros and international corporations alike gathered in Kochi this past weekend for a summit on the future of hardware entrepreneurship in the subcontinent. The gathering was organized by Maker Village, an Indian hardware incubator.

When life gives you an amputated arm, sometimes you need to hack together a prosthesis that shoots nerf darts. That’s what creative agency Hacker Loop did — complete with with an electromyographic interface that fires when the wearer flexes a muscle in his or her forearm — with delightful results.