Speed Reading — Miniaturization - Level 6 — 500 wpm

Now do this put-the-text-back-together activity.


This is the text (if you need help).

Miniaturization has been a pursuit of engineers and designers for decades. The trend to manufacture ever smaller products and devices has seen pocket-sized computers, mobile phones and motorbikes the size of a backpack. The latest thing to be downsized is a miniature handbag that is so small it can only be seen with the aid of a microscope. The New York-based art collective MSCHF has created a microscopic Louis Vuitton-inspired handbag. The makers say their creation is "smaller than a grain of sea salt and narrow enough to pass through the eye of a needle". It measures 657 by 222 by 700 micrometres. It has also just been sold for $63,750 at an online auction.

The neon-green miniature was made using a high-tech manufacturing technique called two-photon polymerization. This technology uses 3D printers to make mechanical biotech components and devices like microfilters and micropumps. MSCHF utilized the technology to see how small they could make a handbag. Chief creative officer Kevin Wiesner told the New York Times that he had not asked Louis Vuitton for permission to use its logo on the handbag. He said: "We are big in the 'ask for forgiveness, not permission' school of thought." He added: "I think the bag is a funny object because it derives from something rigorously functional, but it has basically become jewellery."

Comprehension questions
  1. For how long have engineers been trying to miniaturize things?
  2. What have designers made that is the size of a backpack?
  3. What do people need to be able to see the handbag?
  4. What do the handbag's makers say the handbag is smaller than?
  5. What is the handbag small enough to pass through?
  6. What colour is the handbag?
  7. What components do 3D printers make with two-photon polymerization?
  8. What is the job title of Kevin Wiesner?
  9. What did the design company not ask Louis Vuitton for?
  10. What did Kevin Wiesner say the handbag has become?

Back to the microscopic handbag lesson.

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