THE FUTURE OF MAKING - What's the punch line?

The Autodesk book, THE FUTURE OF MAKING, tells remarkable stories of how emerging technologies are changing how we make things, who makes things, and the very nature of the what we make. The book expands on Autodesk's vision of how the building, manufacturing, and digital story-telling industries are converging to have more in common. Filled with beautiful images, infographics, and provocative ideas, it shows how leading designers, architects, manufacturers, and makers are creating better things.

The book has three levels of consumption:

1. Look at the pictures and get the general idea
2. Look at pictures and read the "pull quotes" in large type to understand what the pictures represent
3. Read the actual chapters and become truly informed about the future of making

In addition to the book itself, I took a stab at one sentence highlights to try to give you the main idea, i.e., the "punch line," contained in each chapter.

Capture
Evolution of Sensors	The human biological senses of sight, sound, direction, smell, taste, and touch are being closely approximated by technology like cameras, microphones, LiDAR/Sonar, chemical sensors, spectral analysis devices, and haptics.
Modeling Paradise	Green Village found that a better way to build bamboo homes in Bali is to use design and analysis tools instead of constructing miniature physical models and stepping on them to see if they collapse.
A Bionic Man	Hugh Herr has prosthetic legs that cost millions of dollars but allow him to climb mountains better than he did before.
Re-creating Reality	Scanners and photogrammetry (making 3D models from pictures) allow the real world to be brought into the computer.
Making Shade in Abu Dhabi	"The Al Bahr Towers' adaptive facades reduce energy consumption white invoking architectural tradition."
The Age of Guessing is Over	Capturing reality leads to better design and easier making through better feedback cycles but challenges designers to think in new ways.
Compute
Evolution of Computing	Computing power is increasing while decreasing in physical size.
Making Connections	Computational Building Information Modeling brings order to design complexity and information sharing for massive architectural projects.
The Power to Enable Play	The Bjarke Ingels Group explores design alternatives in playful ways to unleash their untapped creativity.
The Upper Hand	Procter & Gamble test their products by simulating their use with a database of over 1000 hands of varying sizes, ages, and strengths/weaknesses.
The Alien Skeleton	Airbus used generative design for a stronger but lighter partition that separates the pilots from the passengers.
Being There	"Virtual reality is quickly moving from a visualization tool to a full-blown design tool, revealing new details and information to designers in real-time."
When Machines Learn	Artificial intelligence was able to learn what makes a Rembrandt a Rembrandt so that it could generate a new painting in Rembrandt style that rivals the originals.
Thinking Has Been Upgraded	Computation will abstract complexity, surpassing human cognition, and the implications are vast.
Create
Evolution of Fabrication	Hand tools for forming, cutting, casting, molding, joining, and adding are being replaced by mechanized forming, CNC machines, computerized casting, injection molding, robotics, and 3D printers.
Nike's 3D Sprinter	Nike developed a set of running shoes for 400-meter world champion, Allyson Felix, where one shoe was optimized for turning and the other for acceleration.
Architecture Assembled	Facit Homes and BONE Structure are applying manufacturing assembly-line techniques in the construction of new homes.
What Lies Beneath the Sequential Roof	The Institute for Technology in Architecture designed the roof of its headquarters computationally, and it was built by robots.
The Unbearable Freedom of Manufacturing	GE scientists are developing alloys that are as tough as metal and can withstand extreme temperatures but are one-third as heavy.
Robot Be Nimble	The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art added a 10-story, 235,000 sq. ft. addition whose facade was created from 700 robotically-made unique glass fiber reinforced plastic panels, a material typically used for the manufacture of boats, that weighs 1 million pounds less than an equivalent amount of cement.
The Gap Between Idea and Object is Vanishing	Efficient creation will transform business because digital processes are more connected and allow robot creation to complement human creation.
Compose
Visualizing Materials	Things are made from twelve kinds of substances: metals, alloys, glass, metamaterials (not found in nature), ceramics, plastics, semiconductors, composites, viruses, single cells, tissues, and complex life (matter with volition).
Design by Design	"At labs around the globe, researchers are charting the future of advanced materials."
The Self-Assembly Line	Skylar Tibbits is exploring "Active Matter" - a new kind of material that reacts with the environment (e.g., light, water, radiation) to assemble itself.
Gone Viral	Researchers are able to program DNA by encoding functions into programs that can be delivered by viruses.
The Material Genome	"If researchers can accurately model the behavior of all atoms in a material, they should be able to predict its properties."
Stuff Matters	Compositions will be more precise and predictable, producing new solutions as well as new classes of products, as these compositions become more biological.
Communities
A Global Network of Makers	Technology centers catalyze new possibilities for making through fabrication shops, an open-innovation residency program, and engagement within companies and across industries.
Designing Through Full Immersion	To design a remote primary school, MASS Design made is appropriate for the African people who would build it as well as the African people who would use it.
Connections
A Bridge Assembled in Midair	MX3D used 6-axis robots to 3D print metal in mid-air, literally building the bridge as they walk across it, taking additive manufacturing from small to large scale.
Desire in the Digital Age	Georges Kern of IWC Schaffhausen explains why consumers still want elegant, expensive watches in the age of digital phones that tell time.
The Augmented Office	Steelcase is pioneering the use of sensors in office buildings to create systems that let workplaces communicate with their occupants.
Bullitt's New System	Bullitt designs buildings that meet the Living Building Challenge, adhering or exceeding standards related to site, water, energy, health, materials, beauty, and equity.
Tesla Robot Partners	Tesla's factory features brilliant orange robotic arms and their human counterparts that cut, mold, weld, and polish aluminum into brand new cars.
A Robot for Anyone	Modbot is working to bring the power of robotics to huge new audiences — from small manufacturers to schools to hobbyists to filmmakers.
Clothes in Size "Me"	MAS makes bespoke clothes to match the customer's taste, activities, and exact proportions.
Q&A	"There are new materials that talk to the body in a way that synthetics don't You can repair a part of the body so that it's repairing itself." — Catherine Mohr, an expert in the field of robotic surgery "What's tricky about the new world of connected objects and machine learning is that we have in our minds the model of being a human being. And that's getting us into trouble." — Carla Dana, hands-on experiments in product design and tangible interaction "The processor, the storage chip, the sensor, the network, and software experiencing Moore's Law together ... is the greatest release of energy since fire." — Thomas L. Friedman, internationally renowned author "The activity of design thinking unleashes the spirit that everybody can do this. The language of prototyping invites that." — Holly O'Driscoll, champion of human-centered design and innovation "Some writers have suggested that we are moving into an almost ethics-free world because we have handed everything over to algorithms." — Geoff Manaugh, renowned blogger and author "Being a designer, you're fundamentally participating in a political process in a way you weren't as a designer a hundred years ago." — Danny Hillis, inventor, scientist, author, and engineer "Biology will likely become the established manufacturing method in the next few decades. It may make the industrial revolution look very small." — Juan Enriquez, bestselling author, businessman, and academic
The Future of the Future	Thoughts from former or current Autodesk employees: "It's not so much that you have a supercomputer in your pocket. It's that computing is actually going to change the things that you bump into every day." — Jeff Kowalski "The real opportunity is fluency — bridging the gap among humans, machines, information, and the real world. In the future, whoever is more fluent with technology is going to win." — Brian Pene "The future of making things is going to be based on biological systems. If not bio directly, then bringing the dynamics and the mechanisms of biology into the manufactured world." — Andrew Hessel "There's no next big thing. It's the combination of trends already happening. It's the integration. It's federating all these different pieces together." — Brian Mathews "When we talk about sustainability, a lot of the time it means just keeping things in a state of stasis. But we use more than we give back as a species. What we need to be doing is supporting the ecological health of the planet." — Dawn Danby
Choices
Ride the Curve	"Equip yourself with exponential tools to move from guessing, wondering, and approximating to knowing, solving, and expressing precisely."
Connect What's Important	"Identify how isolated parts of something connect with and inform each other to make systems flow better."
Know Limitations	"Seek to move away from extraction to embracing aggregation and regeneration."
Design Systems That Adapt	"Learn from biology to shift from building to growing or farming things."
Seek Empowerment	"Find the people who share a common vision and passion to learn, share, and make things that are important."
Apply Intelligent Tools	"Take advantage of the phenomenal power of learning algorithms to go from demanding obedience in our tools to valuing their autonomy."

Autodesk has always been an automation company. Today, more than ever, that means helping our customers automate their design and make processes. We help them embrace the future of making, where they can do more (e.g., quantity, functionality, performance, quality), with less (e.g., energy, raw materials, timeframes, waste of human potential), and realize the opportunity for better (e.g., innovation, user experience, efficiency, sustainability, return on investment). The future of making as documented in THE FUTURE OF MAKING is that opportunity for better.

I have a few copies of the book left. Contact me at [email protected] if you are interested in a copy.

Book learning is alive in the lab.