I’ve found my 3D printer

3D printing is really coming to our homes. I reported just two months ago of an affordable 3D printer I saw at the CEBIT Expo in Hannover, and that one was over 1,000€. Now, on Kickstarter there is the M3D – Micro-, the first 3D printer designed for every home, at a cost of 299$ (close to 200€).
You should take a look at the video and you’ll probably get the same eagerness I got to get one.
What hooked me in the Kickstarter video (go to the provided link to see it) is the way you can use a 3D printer at home: to make those little things that can break down ad that are so difficult to find in store, like a replica of a fastener for a curtain.
The M3D team took care in making a product that can really sit on a desk in your home and an application that makes it easy to work with it. 
We already have apps that can create a 3D scan by using your smartphone. I can see me taking a 3D scan of a broken part and uploading it to the app controlling the Micro to see it printed in minutes.
I guess this can really open up the consumer market for 3D printers.
Also, I found it amazing that M3D has been able to get over 3 Million $ through Kickstarter in just one month and I found interesting to see how they rewarded the pledgers by grading the rewards.  You pledge 299$, you’ll get the Micro in Spring 2015, you pledge 899$, you’ll get in August 2014…
Overall they got over 11,000 people pledging. They were targeting 50,000$ and ended up with 3 million! Not bad…
Don’t think that evolution in 3D printing is just focusing on attacking the mass market. In a news published in the middle of April 2014 I have read of very interesting projects to use AM (addictive Manufacturing, which is a different name for professional 3D printing based production) sponsored by ESA: the European Space Agency for manufacturing objects that would be impossibile to manufacture in other ways and to manufacture objects in space or on space bases on Mars and beyond.

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.