How to best describe YOLK.farm? Well, it’s a lot like a farm, except, instead of cows, plows, and chickens, it’s filled with 3D designers, 3D printer owners, and customers looking to 3D print their ideas. And, it’s not a place, like a farm is. It’s a website. Actually, it’s not that much like a farm at all, but you get the point. If you want to get that napkin sketch turned into a 3D printed object or if you just like 3D printing stuff with your own printer or if you fancy modeling designs for people, then YOLK.farm is the perfect farm-not-farm for you.
Started this year by students of the European Innovation Academy start-up accelerator in Nice, YOLK.farm is a marketplace that connects those who lack CAD skills and/or a 3D printer with 3D designers and 3D printer owners so that they can bring their ideas into the physical world. This creates a workflow in which a customer can pay a designer to make a CAD model, which is then 3D printed on the closest 3D printer of the customer’s choice. Playing off the distributed manufacturing model, localized 3D printing can cut the economic and ecological costs of shipping items long distances, while giving business to independent 3D printer owners. And on YOLK.farm, 3D designers have the added bonus of uploading their own personal designs in an online marketplace, still in development.
The idea is not unlike maker6, a similar initiative that we reported on in February. In fact, it’s difficult to distinguish the offerings of the two sites. One defining feature of YOLK.farm is that it uses Secured3D, a file streaming service that sends 3D files directly to 3D printers, preventing 3D printer users from keeping the file for personal use. Aside from that, the site isn’t quite fleshed out enough to know how many printers are in their network (possibly 8, judging from the eggs above), what types of 3D printing are being utilized, what the marketplace of design files will look like, or what pricing will entail.
As more of these sites begin to pop-up, the cream may rise to the top in terms of customer service, user-friendly (or aesthetically pleasing) interfaces, and fees. Will that cream be egg cream?
More importantly, what’s egg cream?
