NASA’s 2012 Z-1 Spacesuit
NASA is developing a new Z-2 spacesuit and needs your help. Already using 3D human laser scanning and 3D printing to speed development, they have narrowed it down to 3 options for the public to vote on
I hope you won’t be allergic to your 3D print! Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have developed a way to make a bioplastic from shrimp shells. The shells contain chitin, which is the 2nd most abundant organic material on earth, Continue reading
I was reading one of my favorite magazines, MIT Technology Review, and ran across a great article about 3D printed batteries. You can read more about the technical details there, but what it could allow is for the printing of complete sealed electronics Continue reading
Being from Georgia, the Peach state, we’re extremely excited about the Peachy Printer. Priced at $100, the Peachy is the cheapest 3D printer going. Continue reading
Big area additive manufacturing (BAAM) is beginning to become a reality. Look for 3D printing to expand from little plastic trinkets to large lightweight, but strong structural components. One of the places this is most evident is in aerospace. The news has been littered with article about 3D printing a 19 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft “wing box” for an F-14 fighter jet to Airbus creating a BAAM titanium partnership with Airbus predicting it will 3D print an entire jet by 2050! BAAM has even been covered by outlets like Popular Science Continue reading
There’s a great group on Flickr called, “The Art of 3D Print Failure“, that showcases the results of a 3D print gone wrong. The goal of the group is to encourage discussion and “analysis of the failure and ways of preventing such failures in the future”. The site can be quite entertaining in the way a blooper reel is and maybe you can help someone too. Of course you can try to avoid errors all together by following good 3D printing practices like those found here.
Above is a great TED talk by Mike Biddle of MBA Polymers. You’ve probably only briefly glanced at those little numbered recycling symbols on plastics, but those are a huge deal for recyclers. How do they work? Does an army of little gnomes sort items by number? What about the items that aren’t numbered? Continue reading
Is Epson the only traditional printing company with grand 3D visions? (Courtesy of Epson.com)
I was reading a great article about how traditional printer maker Epson is entering the 3D space. It makes me wonder if history is repeating itself like the dawn of the internet commerce revolution. During that time the market was flooded with new stores selling everything from vitamins to pet products. In a lot of ways the traditional brick and mortar companies were late to the party, but if you look at the internet today they essentially dominate. There was one major new player in Amazon.com, but most of the new guys either went away, were acquired or were relegated to a niche. Today we see a flood of new printers hitting the market and it makes me wonder how many will have staying power and which large company currently sitting on the sideline might come in and dominate. Continue reading
Rubber ducky you’re the one…
3D printing has been used to help a duck recover from injury by printing a new foot and it even got coverage in USA Today. People love animals, I’ve even seen billboards in Atlanta offering stem cell treatment for dogs, vets sometimes get the best toys as approvals are easier. It’s a sign of things to come for human prosthesis. Speaking of ducks, at Cubify you can even get a 3D printed rubber duck!
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
There’s a great new user interface technology that literally lets you dance to make a 3D design. The technology is called Shape-It-Up and uses a Kinect camera to allow the user to interact with 3D objects. It was created by the Purdue C Design Lab. They’re now collaborating with the company ZeroUI to look at commercial applications. ZeroUI specializes in gesture-based interfaces. Here’s a great video of Shape-It-Up in action.
Printing DDD 