My parents had a software company making children's software for the Apple II+, Commodore 64 and Acorn computers. They hired these teenagers to program the software, and these guys were true hackers, trying to get more colors and sound and animation out of those computers.
If you want to be a person who buys stuff at the dollar store, you can be that person. If you want to make really cool stuff on your desktop and be the manufacturer, that is a lifestyle.
I still have the first bottle opener I made on my MakerBot. Things you fabricate are things you care more about. I think there will always be people who go and buy crap at the dollar store. But I think it is cool when people craft things themselves.
My personal mission has always been to empower people to be creative. But the Holy Grail of a tinkerer is to make something that makes something.
What I like on Kickstarter is when I see real innovation and I see people building something new. It makes me sad when I see things that are just the same technology; you aren't passing the technology forward.
We're on the brink of the next industrial revolution. Instead of buying things, you can make them on a printer. When you have a 3D printer, you can iterate more - what used to take months, now takes hours.
Learn how a 3D printer works. Get inspired. Make your own stuff. It is a wonderful time to be innovative. Connect things together. If you're into electronics, get an Arduino.
We wanted people to 3-D-print anything, not just more 3-D printers.
We got involved with the RepRap Project, a community focused on making 3-D printers that could make copies of themselves and help create a world without money. We started making prototypes.
The people who are getting 3-D printers at home are pioneers, kind of like the people who bought Apple IIs in 1981. Adults are usually the last people to get it. The kids are like, 'Get out of my way, I want at this thing.' They immediately start getting creative.
