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Bettesworth Construction
3D Printing

How a Myanmar Design Team 3D-Printed Farm-Tool Prototypes

In 2016, Proximity Designs used a donated MakerBot printer to prototype agricultural products for rural Myanmar. The documented work was by its design team, not evidence of widespread farmer-owned printers.

By Bettesworth Construction Team 3 min read
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In 2016, a Yangon-based social enterprise used a donated MakerBot 3D printer to develop agricultural products for rural Myanmar. The documented operators were Proximity Designs’ engineers and designers—not farmers generally printing tools on their own. The printer helped the team make, assemble, field-test, and revise prototypes before moving toward manufacture.

What the Myanmar project actually did

Proximity Designs had been exploring 3D printing after learning about MakerBot in late 2015. Former design fellow Zachary Gould introduced the team to the technology, and MakerBot donated a printer, according to reports by 3DPrint.com and Make: Japan in 2016.

The printer addressed a product-development bottleneck: the team had relied on metalworking that was costly and slow for prototyping. Instead of waiting for precision parts to be manually machined or produced overseas, designers could make physical components from their CAD designs, assemble them into prototypes, and take them into the field for testing and feedback.

How the prototype-to-production workflow worked

  1. Design: Engineers and designers created or revised parts in CAD.
  2. Print: The team printed prototype parts to check their shape and fit.
  3. Assemble and test: Printed components were assembled into a product and tested in the field.
  4. Gather feedback and revise: The team used observations and feedback to adapt the design and make further prototypes.
  5. Move toward manufacture: Once a design was further developed, the team could proceed toward production, including aluminum parts. The reports describe printing as a prototyping step, not proof that final products were routinely printed for farm use.

A tangible prototype also helped the team communicate with local manufacturers. A physical part could be examined and discussed in a way that a two-dimensional drawing alone could not provide.

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The Lotus irrigation pump: a documented example

The Lotus irrigation pump is the clearest named example in the reporting. Make: Japan’s November 2016 account describes complex plastic parts designed in CAD for a pump project involving more than 100 components. That is the account’s description of the project; it is not a general specification for irrigation pumps.

Before local 3D-printed prototypes, Proximity Designs said a cycle involving overseas manufacture, shipping, testing, and iteration could take about one month. This is a historical description of the organization’s former process, not a controlled measurement of time saved by the printer. The reporting explains the intended advantage—more opportunities to make and test revisions—but supplies no quantified productivity result.

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What “farmers are 3D printing” does—and does not—mean

The headline shorthand can suggest that farmers owned printers and made their own replacement tools. The September and November 2016 reports instead describe a product-development team using 3D printing to develop agricultural products for farmers. They do not establish broad farmer ownership or operation of printers in Myanmar.

Nor do those accounts establish that the effort continued after 2016, that 3D printing became widespread among Myanmar farmers, or that it produced measured gains in crop yields, farm income, or labor time. The evidence supports a specific prototyping case, not a current nationwide trend or a quantified farm-impact claim.

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What the reports leave unspecified

The reports identify the printer brand but do not establish a dependable model number, printer specifications, print settings, or filament type. They also do not provide a technical evaluation of prototype durability or establish which particular parts were ultimately manufactured for farm use. Claims about specific items such as seed-metering wheels, sprayer triggers, or irrigation connectors are not supported by these accounts.

For the documented case, the useful distinction is between a printed prototype used to test and refine a design and a finished production part intended for repeated use. The sources describe the former workflow; they do not provide enough detail to judge the latter’s materials, service life, or performance.

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  • DRIP-FREE LUBRICATION: Made for routine 3D printer maintenance without the mess of traditional oil bottles. Applies a thin, controlled layer of lubricant exactly where it is needed.
  • LONG-LASTING SUPPLY: Each OilStick contains roughly 1 year worth of oil for regular 3D printer maintenance. This pack includes 3 individual OilSticks.
  • COMPACT FORM FACTOR: Small enough to fit into tight spaces, tool drawers, and maintenance kits, OilStick makes it faster and less awkward to lubricate your printer without wrestling a bottle of oil around your machine.
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Sources and dates

  • 3DPrint.com, September 19, 2016: “Myanmar Farmers Utilize MakerBot 3D Printers to Create Their Own Tools.” It reports the introduction through former design fellow Zachary Gould, the donated printer, and the prototyping workflow.
  • Make: Japan, November 8, 2016: “農具を3Dプリントで自作するミャンマーの農家.” Its account discusses Proximity Designs’ product work, the Lotus irrigation pump project, and the former overseas prototyping cycle.

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