Cline - 3D Printing and CNC Fabrication with SketchUp

Lydia Sloan Cline teaches drafting, digital modeling, and 3D printing classes at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. She works for architecture firms, judges competitive technology events, and became a SketchUp fan after using its Push/Pull tool for the first time. Lydia is also the author of 3D Printing with Autodesk 123D, Tinkercad, and MakerBot (published by McGraw-Hill Education) and other books.

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To Makers all over the world and the companies that support their efforts.

And a big thanks to

Roger, Amber, and Christie, who indulge and contribute to my own Maker efforts.

THE PAST DECADE has seen tremendous interest and possibilities in 3D printing and CNC fabrication. Novices and professionals are using them to make their lives and jobs more rewarding and productive. When these technologies are combined with websites such as Quirky, Kickstarter, Prosper, Etsy, and Shapeways, and social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, people are empowered to turn hobbies into businesses. 3D printing, CNC fabrication, and those who do them are loudly ringing in the New Industrial Revolution.

3D printing in particular is becoming part of our nations education, and to be competitive in school and work most people will eventually require knowledge of it. Electronics, toy, food, automotive, and construction companies are finding innovative ways to use this technology. The military is experimenting with it. 3D printing solutions are currently being utilized in everything from housing to human body parts. But even so, current 3D printers are comparable to the dot-matrix printers of the early 1980s. Eventually theyll enable solutions we can barely imagine right now.

Creating, manufacturing, and advertising are becoming democratized because of affordable tools and low startup costs. No matter what your age or background, you can participate, because the barriers are low. The same way that software and laser printers let anyone publish from their kitchen table, and WordPress and a website let anyone have a nice storefront, free modeling software, cheap printers, and community Maker spaces enable anyone to put out a product. Mass manufacturing isnt going away, but micromanufacturing and justin-time manufacturing that cater to niche and customization markets also will find a bigger place (). So will the Makers who learn these technologies.

Figure 1 A page at shapeways.com, where Makers print and sell their creations.

Websites such as the Trimble 3D Warehouse, where designs are freely shared, let the worlds citizens tinker with, customize, and improve each others work in the spirit of open source. Maker Faires let them show off what theyve done. The nascent Maker movement might counter cheap overseas labor and bring manufacturing back to the United States. Teachers, students, homeschoolers, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and you