TED Talks Video: Thomas Thwaites Toaster Project – How He Built a Toaster — from Scratch

In this fascinating and humorous TED Talks video designer Thomas Thwaites finds out the hard way that it takes an entire civilization to build a toaster, by attempting to build one from scratch: mining ore for steel, deriving plastic from oil and so on.

Thomas Thwaites thoughtful projects look deeply at the science behind technology, as in the Toaster Project, which sent spiralling him into the history and techniques of metallurgy and plastics production, and Policing Genes, a thought experiment around amateur genetics.