Ponoko helps you build your idea: personal factory online

Matt Jones' latest 'make' caught my eye: a shipping forecast rosary. I think it's more the nostalgia of finishing my dinner as a child listening to the exotic and far-flung-sounding German Bight and Fastnet, than any Catholic connotations, but it's also how he created it.

Ponoko allows you to submit your design idea and then, choosing from a wide range of beautiful materials and laser etching options, you can have it quoted, built, posted back to you doublequick. It's beautiful, allowing mere mortals like me to have our ideas made. It's CafePress for making things, as mum puts it.

For schools, I think there's something interesting in allowing that prototyping stage to be sped up. All too often, in the areas where we get closest to student-driven learning where we learn by making things, there is no time, space or money for prototyping several times before making the final product. In Craft, Design and Technology classes we prototype in isolation, theoretically, but then the learning we get from uncovering the real object is lost.

I don't think Ponoko is necessarily the answer, but I do love the speed element and the community of makers they're building up to help transform ideas into workable product. There's got to be a learning oportunity in there.

 

Related articles

• How One Startup Went From Science Fiction Concept to Real Product (readwriteweb.com)
• Friday Smackdown: Grue Fabue (solidsmack.com)
• Ponoko Teams Up With SparkFun To Help You Make Stuff (crunchgear.com)

Comments

[Jon]

Ponoko does have a great community and there is a lot to be learned by being part of them.

Jon @ WoodMarvels.com

[Krysia]

Thanks for the link, I hadn't come across a laser cutting prototype company before.

We have used Shapeways in school over the last year or so, some examples of our work: http://www.royalhigh.edin.sch.uk/departments/departments/cdt/pro_engineer_resources.html

Pupils have modelled small things such as jewellery, keyfobs and unique 'hands' for the clocks they have made in the workshop.

Now, through Derek Robertson, we have our own Rapman printer, (as do a few other schools). There is a healthy rapman community going on at BitsfromBytes.com and a growing educational community as Rapmans are becomming more popular in CDT departments.

It's truely a great moment when a designer (learner or teacher) gets to see their work getting printed for real.

[Ewan McIntosh]

Thanks for the links to your schools' work, Krysia. It's GREAT! I wish more of this was highlighted through national sites to the greater public. It almost feels like it's "invisible work" that the rest of us won't even know about unless we go looking for it. We need your stories to barter for our own children's learning!