As an Oracle Community Manager, I attend many events where I record and or livestream interviews with speakers and attendees. I do other things that involve setup/tear down of demos which also comes in handy. To do interviews I traditionally carried a large roller with all the professional Audio/Video gear. However, I have discovered that at some events it pays to be more nimble and I can get away with a mobile set up that includes a Monopod, microphones, and an iPhone holder.
On the most recent trip, I left the San Francisco Bay Area to attend Oracle OpenWorld Europe 2020 in London. I worked with my colleagues to setup the demos on the day before the conference. For the mobile setup as it is very simple, I left it to the day of. Fast forward, it’s showtime and I am about to head to the ExCeL Convention center. In my hotel room, I take out the disassembled parts of the Monopod from my roller and put them in my backpack. Then I look for the iPhone holder, and I cannot find it. I frantically search through the roller again and again, but no luck. I know I packed it, so I suspect between security in US and UK, in their search it may have dropped out.
When I get to the Convention Center, I ask some of the A/V people if they have an iPhone holder but I only draw blanks. That is until I meet Mat Sunderland an independent Producer/Director who loans me an A/V Vice which kind of does the trick. I manage to hack it and make it work, for a couple of interviews, but it’s not great, as it’s angled and not vertical.
I mention the problem to my colleague Chris Bensen (who is the techie in our group and designs the demos.) and ask if there is any way we can print off an iPhone holder. Without missing a beat, he goes to his laptop, opens up an application and starts searching for the right iPhone holder. Just for the record my phone it’s an 11 Pro Max, and it’s awesome for my work. Within a few minutes, he has selected the correct model, and gives me the file on a USB stick for the “Ultimaker 3 Extended” 3D Printer. We have a small glitch which Chris fixes and so the Ultimaker kickstarts printing the holder one micro layer at a time. It is going to take about three hours to print, and I wonder if it is going to be ready in time for my next interview.
Just like when you are running late, and hope the traffic lights change and you look incessantly back and forth between the lights and the clock, I kept checking on the progress of the holder. Three hours later there it was and I did the rest of the interviews using this fix. To be upfront about it, it was a make-shift solution as I had to duct tape it (thank you Linda Bronson) to the Monopod. With the help of Taniya Aggarwal and Ettore Volpicelli who filled in as Directors I was able to complete the interviews. When I got back I ordered a replacement iPhone holder which by the way is aluminum. Looking back, yes there were some tense moments, but the 3D Printer and Chris, helped save the day.
Here is a short video showing the highlights.
When we demo the 3D Printer at various events, there are some common questions we get. I want to take this opportunity to help answer these:
Q Can I buy this 3D Printer from Oracle?
A. Sorry Oracle doesn’t make 3D Printers, this one demonstrates how Oracle technology can be used in the background to make things work. Specifically you can do a design, upload it to the Oracle Autonomous Database, get a QR Code. Then use the QR Code at a networked 3D Printer anywhere in the world and print it out.
Q. How long does it take to print an object?
A. It all depends on it’s size and complexity. Small figures like the Java Duke mascot can take 20 minutes. The iPhone holder took 3 Hours. Other larger items may require an overnight job.
Q. How does the 3D Printer work?
A. Think of it as a hot glue gun that works one layer at a time.
Q. What material does the Ultimaker use to build these models?
A. It uses a PLA plastic filament. A roll of PLA can cost $25-50+ and comes in many bright colors.
Q. How much does a 3D Printer cost?
A. Depending on the make and model, anywhere from $200-$10K+.
Q. When will 3D Printers become mainstream?
A. I can’t make any predictions. As with any new technology, there is a hype cycle, and then once you get into a more mature phase, different vertical markets and industries can identify cost-effective uses. 3D Printers have now been around for over ten years so we are entering that phase. In some prototyping circles they are already mainstream however.
Q. What kind of things can you build with a 3D Printer?
A. The sky is literally the limit. There are 3D printed bikes, cars, homes, rocket engines, every field may have or could have some application where they can use it. In the Groundbreakers Lounge you can see Fast Phone chargers (iPhone, Android), for the Mini-Pie some of its components are built using 3D, the IoT Manufacturing demo is built using a 3D Printer.