KnowledgeBlocks: Making It Yours

The word "make" instantly conjures up images. Maybe it's a birthday cake or a holiday craft you helped your mom make as a child. Maybe it's the notepad or napkin holder you made in shop class in high school. Maybe it's the family dinner you are making tonight. Regardless of how you define "make" for yourself, we've all had experience in making something of value out of nothing much at all. As anyone who has shopped on Etsy knows, there are lots of very industrious folks out there whose interest in making extends past the realm of arts and crafts, and into bulk production and sales.

Those of us who aren't as handy or inventive are happy to buy the products that result from other people's labor. But what if we really could make much more of what we need or want? What if we stopped turning to the Internet and instead could privately own the 3D machines that could "print" out anything we designed, from food to cars? Sounds like sci-fi, but this exploration's featured book, Makers by Chris Andersen, will explain how what seems like future-impossible is actually quite likely. The entire subject of "making" is so interesting that we've constructed a new KnowledgeBlocks exploration on the evolution of "making." (Listen to our podcast conversation with Chris Anderson here.)

Also in this exploration we'll look at the potential--even the humanity--found in making things via Mark Frauenfelder's Made By Hand, and how innovation starts always with a good idea (that is probably part someone else's good idea) with Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From. Watch videos featuring Chris Anderson, Kirby Ferguson's Everything is a Remix, Karim Rashid, Jason Malinak, Ryan Varga's We Make Things, even Rod Sterling.