I finished the first draft of the script for the introduction to the series of videos I'm doing for the Mendel build. Also, by way of update, I ordered the RAMPS electronics assembly which, I believe, was the last remaining component I had to get to finish the project. When it arrives there will be nothing stopping me from building at least one whole machine. I WILL start shooting (and building) very soon.
SCENE 1: INTRODUCTION
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
My name is Kevin Wixson. I'm making a 3D printer.The 3D printer is a transformative technology that turns digital files into three-dimensional objects...
CUTAWAY: Detail of RepRap printed part
KEVIN
...like this. Unlike a 3D movie, which produces only an illusion of dimensionality...
WIDE: Kevin sitting at work table with array of Mendel parts in front of him
KEVIN
...a 3D printer actually creates a real object.
It deposits layers of material on to a surface. Let me try to explain.
It deposits layers of material on to a surface. Let me try to explain.
CUTAWAY: Illustration of 3d printer process
KEVIN (VO)
A printer head for many 3D printers is like a hot glue gun, it squeezes out, or as we like to say it extrudes the printing material. There are a lot of possible printing materials, but usually we're talking about some sort of plastic. The print head moves back and forth in one direction, while the platform moves underneath it like a piece of paper, except that when it's done with one pass of the "paper" or workspace, instead of spitting it out into a tray, it goes back to the beginning, moves the printer head up a little tiny bit, and prints on top of what it printed before.
CUTBACK:
KEVIN
Right now there are no 3D printers available for the consumer market, only expensive commercial units. So the only way to get a 3D printer is pretty much to build one yourself. I'm making a RepRap 3D printer.
CUTAWAY: Reprap web site, photo of Adrian, w/ Ken Burns effect
KEVIN (VO)
RepRap is an open design project developed in 2005 by Dr. Adrian Bowyer, at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.
CUTBACK:
KEVIN
Since it is an open source project, the plans and electronic files you need to build one are free to download and share with others, but more importantly you can make little tweaks to the design. As long as you share those designs freely in turn, you can do what you want with them. Because of this, a lot of people have gotten directly involved with the project and it has improved rapidly.
CUTAWAY: Photos of Darwin, Mendel, Ed Sells, Prusa Mendel
KEVIN (VO)
There have been two official revisions, the original, called Darwin, and Darwin's successor, the Mendel. There are variations of the Mendel, named after their creators. The first Mendel was created by Ed Sells, a research assistant to Dr. Bowyer, and it is sometimes referred to as the Sells Mendel. The Prusa Mendel is a variant of the Mendel created by someone in the RepRap community.
CUTBACK:
KEVIN
I will be making a Prusa Mendel, because it's the most popular variety right now, easier to build, has fewer parts, and fewer things can go wrong with it, or so I'm told.
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
Personally, I think the term 3D Printer is a bit misleading now, given the popularity of the term in movies and TV technologies. As a science fiction fan I might like "Matter Converter" better. If you ever get a chance, read Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age for a story that incorporates on-demand personal manufacturing like this. And of course, there's always the Star Trek replicator technology to think about, even if it can't yet make tea, Earl Grey, hot.
WIDE:
KEVIN
Whatever you call it, the purpose of these machines is to take a universal material, in this case a filament of plastic, like this, and turn it into specific things, either artistic or useful. Usually you would use it to create the first of something new, a prototype. That's why the RepRap machines are in the same class as other rapid prototyping mechines, like computer controlled milling or routing machines.
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
With these machines you can transform something that exists only in a computer into something real that you can hold. It has a real magical quality to it, I think.
WIDE:
KEVIN
I mean, with this machine I can summon an object into existence through mere force of will, almost. Stephen Hawking could, if he didn't have better things to do, design an object and it would appear there on the printer at his desk. That's some powerful stuff.
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
What motivates me are a number of things: it's just cool, it's a technical challenge, I like the idea of being able to use it to build other things. But first and foremost, I have to say, (aside) and this is going to sound a little wierd at first (/aside) I'm taking a cue from Michael Moore.
WIDE:
KEVIN
In the conclusion to his movie Capitalism, A Love Story he says, "Capitalism is an evil, and you can not regulate evil. You have to eliminate it, and replace it with something that is good for all people, and that something is called Democracy," and then he asks the audience to help out with that.
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
When I came across the RepRap project I thought of this scene and asked myself, "What is it, when you can download an electronic file for an object that an average person designed and published on the Internet, who allows you to use the file and asks nothing in return, and you use that design to just print out the object, and then you have it? You own this thing that came from little more than a feed of raw materials." What kind of economy is that? It's not capitalism, barter, or trade of any kind. It's not socialism, or communism. It's something new, isn't it?
WIDE:
KEVIN
The web is said to enable a democrotization of information. It allows the free exchange of ideas. If it also allows the free exchange of material goods, isn't that also a democratizing force?
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
I know how this sounds, believe me. But I'm not alone in this train of thought. In an article about the RepRap project, the Brittish newspaperThe Guardian said it, "has been called the invention that will bring down global capitalism, star a second industrial revolution, and save the environment."
WIDE:
KEVIN
I'll bet not a lot of people know this, but Dr. Adrian Bower himself intended from the outset that the RepRap project would have revolutionary effects with serious implications for politics and economies. In a white paper for the project written in 2004, and kind of buried on the RepRap wiki, Bowyer cites parts of the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. He quotes, "By proletariat is meant the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live."
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
He goes on to say that while the violent revolutionary proscription of such communist ideologies are decidedly and definitively wrong, the "diagnosis is essentially correct; it is a commonplace that people with resources can quite easily use them to acquire more, but people without have to try exceptionally hard to get anywhere, and most of them never do."
WIDE:
KEVIN
Bowyer goes on to describe his remedy to this essential dilema. He writes, "The self-copying rapid-prototyping machine will allow people to manufacture for themselves many of the things they want, including the machine that does the manufacturing. It is the first technology that we can have that will simultaneously make people more wealthy whilst reducing the need for industrial production." The title of the page where this appears, and also the motto of the project, is, "Wealth without money."
CLOSE UP:
KEVIN
I think that we can see in this project a day in the not so distant future where the role of industrial design and production are significantly diminished. The econimic forces that govern our lives will shift. What that means, ultimately, is difficult to say. I choose to believe, however, that it will have a net positive effect on society. I also think that regardless of intent, it's inevitible that this technology will become commonplace, and I want to be part of it early on.
WIDE:
KEVIN
So, I'm going to build a machine, learn how to use it, and I intend to share what I discover along the way. That's it for now. See you again next time.
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