Page 72 - Forbes India (December 2015)

CROSS BORDER

TRANSFORMATIONAL TECH

Shape of Things to Come

Carbon3D is the latest hype-beast in 3D printing,
but it has the best chance yet to reinvent manufacturing

By aaron tilley

irk Phelps wants to change available and you design the engine any digital 3D file, freeing engineers
how things get made. He around it. This is backward,” says to build their dream engine. While
holds up a floppy yellow Phelps, a 33-year-old product some of the highest-end machines
K circle of plastic, a sealing designer who helped develop can precisely print small-batch
gasket for a generic automotive the multitouch on the iPhone. items such as hearing aids and
engine, and explains how this gasket That frustration led him to take the artificial joints, the vast majority of
is limiting human creativity. job as head of product development at 3D printers in use today are slow
“If you want to make a new kind Carbon3D, one of the hottest startups and capable of making only trinkets
of engine, you don’t get to design to come along in the emerging 3D and small prototypes. The early
the engine from the ground up. You printing industry. The promise of hype around 3D printing peaked a
actually go to your gasket supplier 3D printing is the ability to produce couple of years ago, and now shares
and ask what standard gaskets are a solid part on the spot based on of the two big publicly traded printer

Carbon3D Ceo
Joseph DeSimone
is breaking speed
records with his 3D
printers, inspired in
part by Terminator
2’s liquid cyborg

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72 | FORBES INDIA DECEMBER 11, 2015