3D printing, we’re constantly being told, is all the rage. It’s the next big thing. It’s the new industrial revolution. It’s the cat’s whiskers, the bees’ knees, the dog’s pyjamas. And, if mainstream journalists are to be believed, it’s the devil’s work, the terrorist’s tool, the miscreant’s delight: 3D printing is responsible for home-made guns, for undetectable switchblades, for the erosion of intellectual property.
If you’re wondering how media outlets – newspapers, magazines, TV, websites – can swing so rapidly between viewing 3D printing as being the saviour of mankind and the agent of destruction of civilisation, there’s a simple explanation: editors get bored. Journalists get bored. And so their reading public gets bored. After all, there are only so many ways in which you can tell the same story.
Printing a gun? Seen it. Printing a replacement body part? Been there, done that. Printing an entire concrete house? Yawn. That was last year. But printing a medieval castle, as has recently been accomplished – well, that’s something new! And it comes with a host of terrific photographs, so let’s get stuck in and splash it across our pages.
This is not to say that the castle isn’t a magnificent achievement, for it certainly is: it’s a splendidly off-the-wall, glorious folly, that goes to show just what can be achieved when you combine determination with inspired imagination. The jaded palate of the public needs to be titillated with new tastes and new sensations, and this is one way to achieve that. And if that’s what it takes to get 3D printing back in the headlines, then so be it. It may be just an ingenious publicity stunt, but it’s done the job.