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.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN uses it as the standard illustration of hidden complexity and supply-chain dependencies behind everyday objects.
“overall its a fascinating look at how difficult these processes are if you build them up from scratch.”
Building a toaster from scratch shows how hard basic processes are
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The Toaster Project is a good example of this: this videolink 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.
RecommendspentaphobeJul 2023
“a great example of the hidden complexities of”
Fun talk on hidden complexities of building from scratch
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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) this 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."
Cites itbullenSep 2019
“On the subject”
Related to building things from scratch
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Haha, way ahead of you on that one, bought a C64 and learning assembly/soldering and looking at how to make my own computer on FPGA (async. CPU) with my own OS/programming language and in parallel to that my own P2P radio internet: link Even looked at making my own gerber editor and print my own PCBs with my AxiDraw plotter. On the subject: this video I looked at your github but nothing is playable out-of-the-box, you could make something presentable?
Cites itdustedJan 2022
“something about sand, and how it's hard to make even a toaster from scratch*”
Used to illustrate how deep from-scratch goes
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Full stack? Must mean you're able to design an instruction set, design chips, circuit diagrams, pcbs and finally write the firmware for it so it can boot the operating system you'll write, along with the drivers you write, so you can finally write some applications that runs on this new machine ;) dunno, maybe it goes deeper.. something about sand, and how it's hard to make even a toaster from scratch* * this video
Cites itwhilenot-devJan 2024
“Just here to give a ref to The Toaster Project”
TED talk accompanying The Toaster Project
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Just here to give a ref to The Toaster Project [0] and its accompanied TED talk[1] from Designer Thomas Thwaites[2]. [0]: link [1]: this video [2]: link
Cites itCockbrandMar 2024
“designer Thomas Thwaites had the same thought and created a toaster from scratch, starting with iron ore”
Designer built a toaster from iron ore
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Related: designer Thomas Thwaites had the same thought and created a toaster from scratch, starting with iron ore: link Ted Talk: this video
Cites itAachenDec 2024
“For those who prefer the YouTube player”
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For those who prefer the YouTube player: this video (I'm positively surprised TED also self-hosts this content actually)
Cites itlelandfeMar 2025
“They also did a TED talk on it”
TED talk on the toaster project
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So cool. From 2009 so there's been some link rot; they had a Tumblr that seems fully disappeared from the web. Most current site: link Older site: link Some videos: linklinklink They also did a TED talk on it: this video
Cites itBiteCode_devJul 2025
“no one in the world knows how to make half of one without all those external dependencies”
Illustrates dependency complexity of physical goods
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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: this video It's not a software thing, it's just how humanity works.
