Tulsa, Oklahoma, recently inaugurated its first « fabrication laboratory », the Hardesty Center for Fab Lab. Located at the periphery of Tulsa (2nd city in Oklahoma state, with 400K inhabitants), the lab sits on 3,700 sq. ft. (340m2) and boasts several high-end manufacturing and production pieces of machinery which it puts at the disposal of the entrepreneurial and social innovation communities of the city. 

At the heart of the current interest for « makers » are 3D printers, one of which Tusla’s fab lab is proud to present right near the entrance of the Center. The machine, a professional-grade mammoth acquired at the cost of nearly 150,000$, literally « prints » three-dimensional plastic objects. More expensive, industrial-grade machinery can produce metal units from a combination of metal powder and lasers. Our host, executive director Nathan Pritchett, provided a few samples of the latter for us to take home, including spinning tops, adjustable wrenches and various simple sculptures and craft items. 

Fab labs can be useful. They bridge the gap between the dematerialization of our economies and the need to remain in touch with the fundamental abilities of physical production that still constitute the basis on which most human activities are founded. From mobility to health, high art visual symbolism and entertainment production, the push to virtuality hasn’t quite freed us from the shackles of the real world (!). Any initiative that facilitates this return of nuts and bolts should be celebrated. Yet not all fabrication promotion initiatives are made equal, and the current enthusiasm should be welcomed with caution, especially when it involves massive collective investments that yield small returns. 

One such example is 3D printing which, despite all the buzz (and noise), has not delivered on its promise, and in the short term, will not constitute a significant social or economic factor. For all its glorified precision, it is a slow and expensive process that serves little beyond demonstration effects. While it can be used to generate simple prototypes and miniatures, it is useless for mass-production and wide-distribution, or for anything more sophisticated than the most simple and common objects. 

Much in the same way that faxes were once celebrated as signalling the end of the centrally printed and expensively distributed daily news media – a fax in every home would be used to « print the news » every morning – it is unlikely that 3D printers will become anything but a passing oddity, a multipurpose gadget made for a narrow span of entrepreneurs who feel they need an immediate, physical proof-of-concept. 

For all their sexiness, fab labs constitute a tip-of-the-iceberg, temporary solution that replaces the lack in manual labor courses in regular schools and universities. When these institutions invest six-figure amounts in 3D printers, they are in fact investing in marketing, not production. As unfederated, competing, and often publicly-funded entities, they are popular with public officials and local politicians, but the return on investment is dubious at best. Though some of them are developing pedagogy and community involvement, they often remain nothing but fancy, subsidized, tool-rental spaces. At 150$ a piece, they could be used to buy a thousand (literally) manual power tools that would prove much more useful and purposeful in pedagogical initiatives to develop manual abilities. 

This whole trend is exciting, we reckon. But then again, we ask, why would anyone in his right mind spend that kind of money for a gigantic, relatively wasteful machine that takes 4-hours to print a cheap woven plastic bracelet? No one really knows. While companies and universities can hardly get regular paper printer to work without defect for more than a week (speaking from experience), the hype around 3D printers needs to be relativized, and such pseudo-innovation put back in its right place in the realm of investment opportunities, both for communities, social innovation and economic development.