No book is easy to write, but this one had its own unique challenges that made it particularly difficult. Specifically, it was hard to document and explain such a dynamic situation. The maker movement is so alive with excitement and opportunity that topics and tools were changing only weeks after I wrote them down (and then again even weeks after I rewrote them). Over the course of the year it took me to write this, 3D printers and CNC machines have continued to drop in price and have increased their performance manyfold. The online communities I mentioned in this book have doubled, tripled, or increased their size by an order of magnitude. MakerBot—one of the original open source hardware companies—was bought for over $400 million. Maker Faire became an even larger and more wondrous spectacle than the original event I sought to describe. And now, no one blinks an eye when a Kickstarter project breaks the $100,000 mark. The path from idea to prototype to product is shortening every day.

The maker movement has grown up, and as more people like you get involved, the tools will become better and more accessible. In another few years, I suspect the maker environment will be an even more exciting (and more difficult) place to define and describe.

For me, none of it seems more incredible than our own underwater robot project. Of course, I’m very biased, but I’ve had such a thrilling front-row seat in witnessing a dream come to life. I often reflect back on that initial conversation between Eric and me, where we conjured up our wildest ideas for what we wished underwater exploration would become. At the time, they were some really crazy ideas, but we didn’t know enough to know better.

It was exactly that optimistic ignorance that put us in a position to succeed. Falling back on the only resources available to us, we stumbled into the sweet spot of the maker movement—the converging trends that are democratizing creation.

Accessible and Modular Technology

Eric and I didn’t have the resources of a research grant or access to a cutting-edge manufacturing facility; we had a TechShop membership. Given our circumstances, we never even entertained the idea of creating a complex design for the shell of our robot; instead we focused on the easiest tools to use that would be “good enough,” which in our case was laser-cut acrylic. This approach did more than just provide us with a cheap and easy way to build our structure; it gave us an easy way to change our structure. This ability became incredibly useful after we began getting feedback from others who had built the device.

We also didn’t have the technical experience to design and build our own circuit boards, so we based the OpenROV on the popular maker products, such as Arduino, that everyone else was using. When we first started, there wasn’t actually an off-the-shelf product that could process the digital video we were capturing. It wasn’t until the original BeagleBone came out that we could finally afford to include a miniature Linux computer (in terms of both cost and space inside the robot). As would happen numerous times with OpenROV, many of our problems were solved with technology that didn’t exist when we started. As with the acrylic plastic, the modular design of the original OpenROV made it possible for us to upgrade the hardware whenever a better component came along.

The initial design constraints were our biggest advantage in a fast-changing, community-oriented manufacturing environment. You have access to the same flexible prototyping tools that we did. Eventually, as the market for underwater robots grew and changed, our company grew along with it. We had to evolve to mass manufacturing techniques and custom-designed hardware. That was its own, separate learning experience, and it’s another area where maker companies are helping each other learn and grow through the process.

The Power of DIT

It went beyond resource constraints, though. There were also large knowledge gaps. Eric and I, like many makers at the beginning of their projects, couldn’t quite grasp the entirety of what needed to be done. Instead of hiding behind what we didn’t know, we flaunted our ignorance. We sought out other people and ideas that could help us achieve our goals. In doing so, we accidentally stumbled into the magic formula of DIT development and the tremendous power of collaborative creation. (Eventually, many of the early OpenROV contributors became employees of the company.)

From a long-term perspective, the Internet is still in its infancy. The power of being hyper-connected to one another is still brand-new. In fact, we only know a little bit about it. Projects like Wikipedia and Linux have broken down the mental barriers to understanding the benefits of large-scale, collaborative, and distributed initiatives. As ideas become commonplace in the digital universe, the effects are starting to spill off the screen and into the real world. The maker movement is on the front lines of the spillover.

Dreaming Big

The topics and ideas that I never imagined possible—space travel, new species, hovercrafts—began popping up on Kickstarter and then turning into tangible realities. I saw communities of collaborators create and launch DIY satellites (and groups form with the intention of creating DIY rockets). I saw makers come together to create their own Geiger counters to measure radiation after an environmental disaster. I saw a replica of the Back to the Future DeLorean turned into a hovercraft and take a joy ride on the San Francisco Bay.

I saw wild dreams become a reality. Groups of passionate, excited makers are bringing ideas to life I had written off as impossible. I’ve since learned better.

Whether all of these groups achieve their goals remains to be seen, but at least they’ve recentered the aim and given themselves hope for a better future. Maybe we’ll have plants that replace light bulbs, or maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll all be exploring the Mariana Trench from our laptops, or maybe it’ll take 10 more years. But we will get somewhere—we will learn something. Either way, we’ll have an interesting story to tell, and at the end of the day, I think that’s what we’re all looking for: a better story to tell. A narrative with more meaning, more excitement, and more agency.

That’s the magic of the maker movement. It’s an opportunity to take back the story, to redefine our relationship with technology, and to shape the future in which we want to live. It’s an open invitation for everyone to participate—to contribute to the world we’re all making together.