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Thomas Thwaites: How I built a toaster -- from scratch

TED · 282.4K views · 2011-01-14 · 11:22

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Overview

Designer Thomas Thwaites describes his attempt to build a toaster from scratch, from mining ore and deriving plastic from oil. It is a short TED talk on how much civilization a simple object depends on.

On Hacker News

HN uses it as the standard illustration of hidden complexity and supply-chain dependencies behind everyday objects.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2019–2025

Topics

Manufacturing & industrial processesProduct & industrial design
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toaster projectmanufacturingsupply chainsdesignted talk

What people said

pentaphobe · 2023-07 · Recommendation

Great book! In the introduction(IIRC) the author mentions Thomas Thwaites' TED talk "How I built a toaster from scratch" - which is a great example of the hidden complexities of "from scratch" (and also just a fun talk) [VIDEO] Kind of reminds me of the Carl Sagan quote "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

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scrooched_moose · 2019-07 · Recommendation

The Toaster Project is a good example of this: [VIDEO] [LINK] He attempted to build the basic components of a toaster from scratch. Smelting metal, molding plastic, etc. The book is a tough recommendation because he sortof gives up on the later parts and limps to a finish, but overall its a fascinating look at how difficult these processes are if you build them up from scratch.

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BiteCode_dev · 2025-07 · Reference

Everything in the physical world is the same. There are hundreds of pieces even in the smallest toaster, and no one in the world knows how to make half of one without all those external dependencies: [VIDEO] It's not a software thing, it's just how humanity works.

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Sources

Video by TED, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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