{"id":720,"date":"2011-01-17T01:40:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T01:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/720-ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch.html"},"modified":"2022-09-28T14:13:05","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T18:13:05","slug":"ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch","title":{"rendered":"Ted Talk: How to Build a Toaster from Scratch."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Must watch <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toaster_from_scratch.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ted Talk<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thomasthwaites.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Thomas Thwaites<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/262-A-short-interview-with-Thomas-Thwaites-The-handmade-toaster-builder.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">previously interviewed by Shapeways<\/a>)who as a design student at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rca.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Royal College of Art<\/a> in London has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetoasterproject.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">made a toaster, from scratch<\/a>&#8230; Inspired by the quote: &#8220;<i>Left to his own devices he couldn&rsquo;t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.<\/i>&#8220;<br \/>Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992<\/p>\n<p><!--copy and paste--><object width=\"446\" height=\"326\"><param value=\"http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf\" name=\"movie\"><param value=\"true\" name=\"allowFullScreen\"><param value=\"always\" name=\"allowScriptAccess\"><param value=\"transparent\" name=\"wmode\"><param value=\"#ffffff\" name=\"bgColor\"><param value=\"vu=http:\/\/video.ted.com\/talks\/dynamic\/ThomasThwaites_2010S-medium.flv&amp;su=http:\/\/images.ted.com\/images\/ted\/tedindex\/embed-posters\/ThomasThwaites-2010S.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=1051&amp;introDuration=15330&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=830&amp;adKeys=talk=thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toaster_from_scratch;year=2010;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=tales_of_invention;event=TEDSalon+London+2010;&amp;preAdTag=tconf.ted\/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;\" name=\"flashvars\"><embed width=\"446\" height=\"326\" flashvars=\"vu=http:\/\/video.ted.com\/talks\/dynamic\/ThomasThwaites_2010S-medium.flv&amp;su=http:\/\/images.ted.com\/images\/ted\/tedindex\/embed-posters\/ThomasThwaites-2010S.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=1051&amp;introDuration=15330&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=830&amp;adKeys=talk=thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toaster_from_scratch;year=2010;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=tales_of_invention;event=TEDSalon+London+2010;\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" wmode=\"transparent\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" pluginspace=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/go\/getflashplayer\" src=\"http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;&#8230; firstly, <b>yes, I realise toasting bread over a fire would&rsquo;ve been a lot easier<\/b>. But was a piece of toast (or designing a better toaster) really the point of this project?&#8221;<\/i><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Must watch Ted Talk from Thomas Thwaites (previously interviewed by Shapeways)who as a design student at the Royal College of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[481],"tags":[480,559,479,944],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shapeways","tag-4-art","tag-inspiration","tag-3-tutorials","tag-whats-hot"],"thumbnail":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ted Talk: How to Build a Toaster from Scratch. - Shapeways Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Must watch Ted Talk from Thomas Thwaites (previously interviewed by Shapeways)who as a design student at the Royal College of Art in London has made a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Duann\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Duann\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#\/schema\/person\/848d6ff12be3ccf4dc1dcd672000dc28\"},\"headline\":\"Ted Talk: How to Build a Toaster from Scratch.\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-01-17T01:40:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-09-28T18:13:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch\"},\"wordCount\":103,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Art\",\"inspiration\",\"Tutorials\",\"What's Hot\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Shapeways\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/ted-talk-how-to-build-a-toaster-from-scratch\",\"name\":\"Ted Talk: How to Build a Toaster from Scratch. - 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