I love when 3D printing can accomplish something to help someone solve a real problem and save money. Here’s a great case where a school student or lab could use a 3D printer and a common hand tool to replace a piece of lab equipment that can often cost thousands.

The James Webb telescope has unfolded and arrived at its destination about 1,000,000 miles from Earth. There are tremendous 3D printing aspects here as many of the parts were designed with the assistance of 3D printing, helping validate many of the new technologies found in the telescope.

I had a chance to ride in the tunnel system at the Las Vegas Convention Center built by Elon Musk’s Boring Company. If was a fun experience, although the tunnels were significantly tighter than I expected. The driver told us that a “test” they need to do as a part of training is drive through one backwards which did not sound fun to me.

The company recently held a tunneling competition with 400 applicants reduced to 12 finalists to compete in building an actual tunnel in the Nevada desert with their machines. The winners were a team called Swissloop Tunneling who used in situ 3D printing to reinforce their tunnel as it was being built. Pretty cool to see another construction use of 3D printing!

If you want a fun summer vacation and love 3D printing this is for you. A fully 3D printed house located in Western Canada is now on Airbnb. It’s actually pretty affordable too at around $130/night. It’s described on the site as:

The World’s first fully 3D Printed concrete tiny home on Airbnb.

This unique architectural home was designed based on the famous Fibonacci Sequence.

This is a fund raiser to help World Housing (.org) continue their important mission, solving the housing crisis.

Located in tranquil Procter, 40 km-s from Nelson, British Columbia. You can enjoy the grandiose view of the Purcell Mountains. Go hiking, mountain biking or take a walk to the community beach for a dip in the pristine Kootenay Lake.

http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/50461670

Lots of dates available in August/September and it’s just over the border from Idaho, so go ahead and plan away!

Who says you can’t get anything decent for free? Jiga has this awesome free CAD viewer for Gmail where you can look at a file right in Gmail rather than using another program. Pretty handy little tool!

This video from @3DPrintGeeks has me in a Star Wars mood. May the 4th be with you!

This video from 3DJAKE is a work of art!

If you’ve watched a moment of the financial news channel CNBC in the last year you know what a SPAC is. SPAC stands for (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) and are often referred to as a “blank check company”. In Q2 of this year Rocket Labs, a rocket company known for its use of 3D printing, will go public through a SPAC.

Were you like me and glued to your computer for the “7 minutes of terror” landing of the Mars rover Perseverance on February 18th? Engineering things like a supersonic parachute, sky crane and an onboard helicopter to work remotely after a journey of millions of miles is mind boggling. However, 3D printing is on Mars too! You can read in a NASA article about how there are 11 3D printed parts on the rover.

This past weekend I visited TVFCU’s new Southside Branch, located at 125 West 20^th Street in Chattanooga which is about an hour from my home. This financial building represents the the first-ever 3D-printed building façade and uses a a patented 3D printing process called Cellular Fabrication (C-Fab®) by Branch Technology also of Chattanooga.