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.

Watching the Inauguration Day events I was blown away by the fireworks.  The ABC news video has some cool stats about it, but essentially the sky over DC was on fire for 5 minutes.  I’m a fireworks junkie and am known for my annual display attended by family and friends, so the fact that the folks at Wetzel Pyrotechnics are using 3D printing with fireworks has me thrilled.

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Influencers are important and Amy Elliott is tons of fun to follow if you love 3D printing and science in general.  I first saw Amy on the show Outrageous Acts of Science and then was thrilled to see she was a scientist working on 3D printing just up the road at ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) up in TN.

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Any new technology always seems to find its way into military uses.  There are tons of uses of 3D printing for military machinery parts, but there are also potential applications in the munitions themselves.  You may be familiar with shape charges,

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We’ve chatted about 3D printed clothing in the past from dresses to a bikini, but could it soon extend to lingerie? There have been one-offs by places like Victoria’s Secret, but it appears it could now go mainstream. Could this be the next evolution of the bra?

Have you ever wanted to have your own action figure? Maybe you have an ego big enough to give a mini version of yourself to your significant other? With Doob you simply get scanned in a “doob-licator” and a couple weeks later your your doob is delivered! They appear closed for Covid, but hopefully will reopen soon.

Have you ever had a failed print? OK, it’s more like how often. Imagine if you could simulate a print in advance to see issues instead of wasting hours and material. Well with CNC Simulator Pro software this is now possible. When designing something new, complex and perhaps out of rare materials this could be a huge saver.

Drone racing is a fun, new and FAST sport.  Drones whip through urban environments like football stadiums at lightning speeds.  I’d imagine in practice and competition, just like car racing, some wrecks are inevitable.  Well, if you want to take the sport up maybe 3D printing can help.  Continue reading →