You Got it
Yours is the only response that shows that someone understands the article and the implications. I am also involved in DIY and it combines personal creativity with enteprenual thinking.
There is one thing that Chinese manufacturing can do and that is to put a small army of workers together almost overnight to scale up production of almost anything. This everything from the production line workers to the equipment on the production line. They have highly skilled engineers who can take an idea and turn it into a product at a low cost. The down side to this is that quality is not a prime consideration unless it is specified.
The US used to be known for "Yankee ingenuity" and it is sad that the statement is past tense. The DIY movement is a way to free up that old yankee ingenuity and build new things from the ground up. If you want a robot, you can build one for yourself. You want a 3 D printer, you can also build one for yourself.
The great thing about the DIY movement is that it is more cooperative and shares ideas that benefit a wider group than thetypical corporate way. If there was a way for a group of DIY types to get together and do rapid prototyping into rapid production with good quality then it will bring inexpensive products with good quality back.
