Want To Attend A 3D Printing Conference?

Having unfortunately missed this year's Consumer Electronics Show, we've been wondering what other conferences and trade shows exist that might include 3D printing content. Searches reveal what we think might be a fairly comprehensive list of major events involving 3D printing. We've not included numerous local events such as local Maker Faires. 

 

CES, January 10-13 in Las Vegas

RapidPro January 25-26 in Veldhoven, Netherlands

SolidWorks World February 12-15 in San Diego

AMUG (Additive Manufacturing User Group) April 22-26 in Costa Mesa California

Maker Faire Bay Area May 19-20 (Tentative) in San Mateo (Other Maker Faires will likely be held in Detroit and New York City later in the year)

Rapid May 22-25 in Atlanta

Plastics Design & Moulding Exhibition & Conference May 29-30 in London

SigGraph 2012 August 5-9 in Los Angeles

TCTLive September 25-28 in Birmingham UK

EuroMold November 27-30 in Frankfurt

 

These events tend to occur annually, thus this list is probably the set of 3D printing conferences you should always watch for product announcements. 

3D Printing Event Ends, But Not Really

Unfortunately we were not able to attend the first 3D Printing Event that took place in Eindhoven on 25 October. If you couldn't attend either don't give up hope! The generous folks running the event have managed to post videos of all the sessions from the conference. If you have an interest - and a bunch of free hours - you might consider viewing the talks, which include varied topics such as home 3D printing, implications to society, mass customization, design tools, printed clothing and much more. Enjoy!

 

Via Open Webcast and 3D Printing Event

3D Printing Event Soon

If you happen to be in Eindhoven on the 25th, you might head down to 3D Printing Event 2011. The theme of the event is something we focus on: 3D printing at home. 

 

You'll be able to attend seminars that discuss the theme in depth, and you can also peruse the offerings of many industry vendors at the exhibition. Among the long list of notable speakers are some familiar to Fabbaloo, including Fab@Home's Jeffrey Lipton, Origo's Joris Peels and Ultimaker's Erik de Bruijn. Entry to the seminars costs a mere €95+VAT or a discounted fee of €25+VAT for students. 

 

The exhibition includes:

• A1 Technologies Ltd.
• Antonius Koester GmbH & Co. KG
• Le BigRep
• CAD2M
• CNC-Consult
• David Vision Systems
• DeskProto by Delft Spline Systems
• Duoteq
• netfabb
• RhinoCentre
• SolidWorks
• TNO
• Ultimaker
• VDM kunststoftechniek
• Z Corporation

 

Via 3D Printing Event

thingmakers Postponed!

Don't worry - it's all good. The thingmakers conference, originally scheduled for May 4th, has been postponed until October of this year. Organizer Ivan Pope says: 

 

With huge apologies at such a late date - for various reasons, mostly good ones, we've postponed the conference until October this year. It will be bigger and better when it arrives, but we just realised we could not do it justice in the venue we had booked in the time available.

 

But will our free ticket entry contest still run? Pope says:

 

Yes, the tickets still stand so you can keep the competition running.

 

That's right - you can still enter the contest to gain one of two free entry tickets for this conference by adding a comment (with email) to this post. We'll just be pulling the winning names a bit later than originally imagined. 

 

Via thingmakers

No Screw Ups After 3D/DC!

For several years now we've written about the legal and ethical complications that might occur when 3D printing tech enters the consumer realm. There is no shortage of pathological situations that might arise, be they related to copyright, patents or other regulatory regimes - all of which were designed for prior eras that didn't include a technology enabling anyone to potentially make anything. 

 

There is a growing fear among leading 3D printing thinkers, companies and services that misguided regulations or misapplication of existing inadequate rules could severely hamper the deployment of 3D printing tech to the consumer space. Michael Weinberg of Public Knowledge wrote a paper dedicated to this thought, and its title sums up the scenario we find ourselves in quite correctly: "It Will Be Awesome If They Don't Screw It Up". 

 

But how can we avoid a screw up? One major step to avoid it is taking place in Washington DC on April 28th: 3D/DC. Major players in the 3D Printing space will assemble and attempt to inform DC policymakers on our new technology and what it means. Hopefully this event will influence policy direction towards a world enabled for replication by providing proper information on 3D printing tech in an appropriate context. 

 

Attending, demonstrating and presenting at the event: 3D Systems, ExOne, Fab@Home, MakerBot, Makergear, Shapeways, The Association for Manufacturing Technology, CloudFab, Interactive Fabrication/Computational Design Lab, Metrix Create:Space, Rael San Fratello Architects, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and ZCorp. 

 

We're hoping this event proves to be *the* turning point for technology enablement. We've seen screw ups in the music and motion picture industries; please, let's not do it again. 

 

Via PublicKnowledge

KIOSK By Unfold

There are many designers doing interesting things with 3D printing, but one of the more interesting groups is Antwerp-based Unfold Design Studio. For some years they've been designing interesting creations, some of which are for sale at their online store. 

 

Recently they've been working with 3D printer manufacturer Bits From Bytes on ceramic 3D printing, but soon they'll be doing something even more interesting. Inspired by author Bruce Sterling's forward looking tale, KIOSK, they're going to attempt something similar in real life: 

 

KIOSK is a project that explores a near future scenario in which digital fabricators are so ubiquitous, that we see them appear on street corners, just like fast food today is sold in NY style mobile food stalls. A place where you can quickly get a custom made fix for your broken shoe, materialise an illegal download of Starck’s Juicy Salif orange squeezer that you modified for better performance or quickly print out a present for your sisters birthday.

 

How does this scenario challenge our perception of authorship, originality, design and what is the role of the designer when goods are moved around in the form of digital blueprints and appropriated in ways beyond our control?

 

Unfold gathered information from various designers and labels about how they position themselves towards this scenario. During the Salone del Mobile Unfold will three-dimensionally scan new objects presented by these various designers and based on the acquired data, appropriate, sample, remix, improve, up/downscale or copy new objects 3d-printed on the spot.

 

KIOSK will take place during Salone Internazionale del Mobile on April 12-17 in Milan at Privata Oslavia 8, Ventura Lambrate. According to Wikipedia, this is the "largest decoration trade fair in the world." Just the place to attempt bringing science fiction to life.  

 

Hat tip to Dries

FABRICATE Conference

There seems to be no shortage of conferences related to 3D printing and digital design and manufacturing these days. One that's coming up soon is the FABRICATE International Peer Reviewed Conference and Publication, taking place in London, UK on April 15th and 16th. According to FABRICATE: 

 

Discussing the progressive integration of digital design with manufacturing processes, FABRICATE will bring together pioneers in design and making within architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, materials technology and computation. Discussion on key themes will include: how digital fabrication technologies are enabling new creative and construction opportunities, the difficult gap that exists between digital modeling and its realization, material performance and manipulation, off-site and on-site construction, interdisciplinary education, economic and sustainable contexts.

 

One of the keynote speakers, Neri Oxman, has appeared in Fabbaloo previously. 

 

There will be an interesting display during the event: 

 

During Fabricate 2011 the Professorship Gramazio & Kohler Architecture and Digital Fabrication will investigate the integration of architectural design and feedback processes in robotic fabrication. The exhibition project will be robotically manufactured from a large number of geometrically differentiated elements where the visitors can perceive and experience an unsteady yet precise assembly in real scale, layer by layer. Using novel peripheral equipment for this, the project reaches a highly integrated digital design and fabrication method that would not have been possible by a manual assembly technique. 

 

Evidently tickets (£290) are almost sold out so get them now if you're interested.

 

Via FABRICATE

Attend The thingmakers Conference - For Free!

London, May 4, 2011 is the date for the new thingmakers conference, where many of the creators of 3D printing technology will join with users in an "intense one day conference on the best of 3D printing and customized manufacturing". 

 

According to organizer Ivan Pope:

  

We're trying to evangelize 3D printing and associated industries to a public that is largely uninformed but who will be hugely receptive. We've got a great range of speakers from across the industry lined up to take a view of where we are and where we are going.

 

Pope and his team are making certain this will happen: so far the speaker list includes such 3D printing notables as Adrian Bowyer (RepRap), Bre Pettis (MakerBot), Stephen Hoskins (University of the West of England), Bart Veldhuizen (Shapeways) and Soner Ozenc (RazorLAB). We understand there may be someone from Bits From Bytes as well. 

 

The event will be held on Wednesday, May 4th at Shoreditch Studios in east London, UK, a short stroll from Old Street Station. Tickets are £150 each, unless you're an actual card-holding student, in which case you can get in for only £85. But there's one more way you can get in at no charge whatsoever!

 

Fabbaloo has made arrangements with thingmakers to provide a free admission ticket to not one, but TWO lucky readers. If you're able to attend this conference and want a chance at this free ticket, merely add a comment saying so to this post. Two weeks before the event on April 20th, we'll fire up a very sophisticated selector algorithm and randomly choose two lucky recipients from the list of valid commenters. Be sure to include your email address when you enter your comment or we won't be able to contact you in the event you're selected (the email addresses won't be shown on our website, no worries.) 

 

If you're not able to attend the conference, please forward or retweet this post to others you think would like a chance to enter the contest. 

 

Via thingmakers