End of year report: Exploring the need for education in additive manufacturing

To be built up and then knocked down is par for the course whenever someone or something passes through the limelight. The outcries for the educating of engineers and designers is not only cited as a reason for 3D printing not living up to the hype, it is also a product of it. It turned out the hype was ill-measured. While evangelists of the technology were predicting a printer in every home, 3D printing was about to enter a transitional phase, from a ‘hobbyist environment to a hardcore manufacturing’ one, as Gordon Styles would put it in a second interview with TCT in August 2017. There was an increased interest in 3D printing, and sales briefly shot up. Now, with some manufacturers’ sales coming down by 25-40%, the industry is experiencing a hangover to its celebrity.