Looking for a very basic introduction to 3D printing? Here is a video produced by a video game company in India that walks through the basics of 3D printing. If you can avoid being distracted by the animated narrator, the content in the video is accurate and helpful.

Dummies book photo by Marcus Q used under Creative Commons license.

Will 3D printing be a disruptive change? Sure, but Forbes believes that we may be surprised by the result.

Contributor Tim Worstall poses an interesting counterpoint to some common conclusions about the impact of 3D printing on the global labor market.

First, Mr. Worstall suggests that there will be an experience curve for 3D printing – it will get cheaper over time to produce similar goods.

Which is, as we know, pretty much the way that manufacturing works. Things get designed, dreamt up, and they start out expensive. As we get better at doing whatever it is then prices start to drop: the clearest examples are in the computing and telecoms industries in recent years. Those examples are almost too tedious to recount in fact, they’ve been used so often.

3D printing will go through much the same process and it’s easy enough to see a time in which one has such a printer just as much as one has a paper printer. Need something, call up the part design over the web, pay a buck or two perhaps (and no doubt there will be open sourcers as well) and print out whatever it is that you wanted.

Now the key question is whether this will lead to an elimination in manual labor. As an example, we recently called the impact of 3D printing on the Indian labor market ”mind-boggling” because labor can be reduced dramatically or replaced by additive manufacturing.

But let us go to the extreme and assume that they are cheaper: so much so that manufacturing really does disappear. What does that do to wages? Yup, a fall in the costs of things is equal to, is by definition the equivalent of, a rise in real wages. So if 3D printers do take off it can only be because, by definition, they make us all richer.

Interesting view point, and one that seems to support the belief that 3D printing will be a $5 billion industry by 2020.

Via Forbes.

Factory photo by Just Add Light used under Creative Commons license.

A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from May 7 to May 13.

Monday, May 7

• 3D Printed Legs: Giving Amputees the Power of Personal Expression
• Impact of 3D Printing on Indian Labor Market “Mind-Boggling” [Opinion]

Tuesday, May 8

• Stratasys Announces Mojo: Lowest-Price Professional-Grade 3D Printer
• 3D Systems Acquires FreshFiber for 3D Printed Electronics Accessories

Wednesday, May 9

• MakerBot Looks to Occupy Wall Street’s Office Space
• Hey Red Sox Fans: 3D Print Your Own Fenway Park

Thursday, May 10

• MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis is 3D Printing’s First Celebrity
• 3D Printed Curves: How the N12 Bikini Fits Your Body Perfectly

Friday, May 11

• 3D Systems CEO: 3D Printing Will Be As Big As the iPad
• CNET Reviews the MakerBot Replicator: Most Capable 3D Printer Under $2000 [Video]

Much of the press coverage on 3D printing we feature is from the US and other developed countries. Today, we want to highlight an article from The Economic Times of India.

Arvind Singhal writes an opinion piece for called “The nation must focus on transformational changes around us“, highlighting 3D printing as one of a few changes that will transform the world we know today:

One of the most potentially impactful of these changes is the rapid progress a relatively new technology ’3D printing’ is making. Till a few years ago, 3D printing-based manufacturing was in the realm of a technology that could have applications mostly for defence and industrial prototyping applications.

They have already moved into the realm of mass consumer applications. The possibilities are fascinating and range from printing human organs including complex ones such as kidneys using the recipient’s own body cells, to the elimination of several types of manufacturing with the end consumers directly ‘printing’ at their home things like crockery and cutlery or small home appliances after they have electronically paid for the ‘application’ to the designer and creator of the products.

With dramatic reduction or near elimination of labour from many manufacturing processes the implications are mind-boggling.

The other transformational changes are: the digital age, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering.

Via The Economic Times of India.

Churchill Club photo from jurvetson used under Creative Commons license.

In the eighth annual Extreme Redesign 3D Printing Challenge hosted by Mineapolis-based Stratasys Inc. (NASDAQ: SSYS), students were asked to redesign an existing product or create an original work of art or architecture. Submissions were received from around the globe, including India, Sweden, Romania, and across the US.

Dimension 3D Printing, a division of Stratasys, awarded the winning students cash prizes. Below is a summary of the winners:

1st Place: Pravaah – A Continuous Supply Handpump

Jabalpur, India
Indian Institute of Information Technology Design & Manufacturing

A hand-pump design which not only provides a continuous supply of water and a saving in your utility bills but also provides water during both the phases of pumping.

2nd Place: Diabetic Testing Station

Dearborn, MI
Wayne State University

The main purpose of the DTS is not to replace the users’ current glucometers and lancet pens, rather to provide a product that will house all of their devices. The overall goal is to take the job of the amputees’ caregivers so that the users can be more self-reliant.

3rd Place: Scissors for Right & Left-Handed Users

Lulea, Sweden
Lulea University of Technology

Now, families or schools with both right and left handed people can finally buy universal good working pair of scissors.

It’s exciting to see students driving forward product innovation, and incredible to think that these students truly can dream up any new product they like thanks to 3D printing technology.

Check out all the winners, including Art & Architecture and Middle School submissions at Dimension Printing’s challenge coverage.