Gadgetoff 2009

We noticed MakerBot made an appearance at this year's Gadgetoff in September in New York City. They showed off their amazing Cupcake 3D printer kit, as we've covered before. However, that's not the reason for this post. Instead, we were astonished by all the truly amazing gadgets makers demonstrated at this event. Be sure to watch the videos at the link below. Will that spider-car fit in our garage?

Via DesignVerb and Gadgetoff

Next-Make at CPW

CPW is MIT's "Campus Preview Weekend", which occurs 16-19 April this week. According to MIT's tagline:

So here's the experiment:

Pour into one MIT campus 1,000 highly charged members of the Class of 2013.

Immerse in a saturated solution of classes, special lectures, hands-on activities, campus explorations and faculty encounters. Add several days and nights living with current students and other prospective '13s.

For three days, mix vigorously.

Predicted result: Lasting warmth, ongoing effervescence -- and maybe even a little enlightenment.

Testing a hypothesis was never so much fun. And it wouldn't be the same without YOU.

We hope you'll join us.

One of the activities is a "3D Printer Party!" They're cooking up a RepRap-style device to show new students how it works. We're quite interested in this because:

Tired of printing in a mere two dimensions? Come to Next House and play with our new, custom-built 3D printer! Just submit your design and within minutes, you'll be holding a real 3D model! While you're at it, learn about Next Make, MIT's newest student design group.

Well, perhaps it won't be quite that fast, but we're certainly pleased 3D tech is getting big exposure to the engineers of tomorrow. Good Luck with the Party!

Via Next Make and CPW MIT

Oh, Really? RepRap Meets O'Reilly

 

Zach Smith of the RepRap Research Foundation is set to conduct a workshop at the O'Reilly ETech Emerging Technology Conference being held March 9-12 in San Jose, California. Zach's session is scheduled for Monday the 9th in the afternoon, and his session abstract says:

An exciting 3 hour workshop led by Zach Smith featuring RepRap, the open source self-replicating 3D printer. We’ll have the extruders fired up and the thermoplastic pumping for the duration of the event. Stop by and see the future being made right in front of your eyes, literally. In addition to non-stop demonstration of the 3D printing technology, the workshop will consist of discussions of the RepRap technology, 3D printing and digital fabrication techniques, and 3D modeling. There will even be opportunities to design and fabricate objects on the spot.

This will certainly be interesting. But there's a bit more to this, we suspect. As some readers may know, O'Reilly is perhaps the major tech publisher for things IT. They are trendsetters, carefully tracking the topics of their book sales to understand what's happening in the IT industry. When they see a trend, the make more books on the topic.

Now we see 3D Printing appearing at an O'Reilly conference. Might this be the initial feelers into the development of an O'Reilly book on 3D printing? And what would that mean for 3D Printing?

Via O'Reilly ETech

C.STEM 2008

We missed this one until just now, so it's already in progress: C.STEM 2008, a conference held this week in Torino, Italy. The conference's theme is "Breeding Objects", and offered an interesting selection of presentations and demonstrations. From their website:

C.STEM 2008 - BREEDING OBJECTS presents a selection of visionary projects anticipating future developments in design process and technologies.
What happens when domains such as design, creative coding and digital fabrication meet the new scenarios of mass-customization?

The exhibition presents works designed and produced through creative and innovative processes: global news feeds woven into sweatshirts, chairs 3D printed out of frames from a computer-animated form, experimental custom ceramics and jewels shaped by online users, Google maps carved into wood, lamps shaped by the fight with a punchbag, 3D printing machines that print themselves.

The event celebrates new forms, technologies and design processes to urge companies and designers towards new insights.

Conference photos may be found here.

Via C.STEM

3D PreFab Home

 

It's not a home, exactly, but at least some components of a prototype home of the future were manufactured on a Z-Corp 3D printer for the "Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. According to DesignNews on wall:

has been fabricated from a collection of bulbous building blocks fabricated on a 3-D printer from Z Corp. According to Hina Jamelle, one of Contemporary's directors, the blocks are epoxy-bonded to form the self-standing wall.

They expect that in the future the printed components may become sufficiently rigid to perform as structural, rather than decorative functions.

Via DesignNews

3D World Systems Conference

We've just reviewed the agenda for the upcoming October 20-23 3D World Systems Conference in Charlotte NC, USA.

The conference is intended for professional users of 3D Systems printers, such as the SLA and SLS Pro printers, and is probably not appropriate for hobbyists to attend. However, it's interesting to note the presentation topics include several sessions on 3D Dentistry, Manufacturing techniques and Jewelry making. There is even an intriguing session from NASA called, "How Do You Move a Spaceship? - The NASA Crawler 3D Printing Project". We did not realize the extent of interest in 3D technology from the Dentistry industry.

You can examine the entire agenda here. Note, this is a vendor-sponsored conference, so don't expect much information regarding other devices or manufacturers.

Via 3DWorldConference

Chaos for 3D Printing at 25c3

The annual Chaos Communication Conference takes place in Berlin this December, and the call for papers has been issued. Categories include: Hacking, Socieiy, Culture, Community, Science and Making:

The ‘Making’ category is all about making and breaking things and the wonderful stuff you can build in your basement or garage. Most welcome are submissions dealing with the latest in electronics, 3D-fabbing, climate-change survival technology, robots and drones, steam machines, alternative transportation tools and guerilla-style knitting.

We're looking forward to the results of this conference as it always produces something interesting.

Via CCC.de

Fabbing Fabrics

Technothreads is an exhibition taking place in Dublin, Ireland from 26 April to 25 July 2008. The purpose of the exhibition is to offer a glimpse into the future of fabric, both from a design and technical point of view. From their website:

• Conceptual Couture concentrates on the use of science by fashion designers at a conceptual level. This will range from garments using the simplest of mathematical forms to the use of fabrics with a raised surface based on Braile and semi-living garments using biotechnology.
• The Aesthetics of Science will look at fashion that demonstrates the impact of science as aesthetic. This will include Space, Cyborgs and Camouflage.
• Fabric Laboratory looks at the very latest in advanced textiles. Though predominately garments, some fabric lengths will also be shown in this area. Exhibits will include a spray on dress, garments made using three dimensional fabrics and one made using a three dimensional printing process

Another report from Georgia Tech describes the 3D fabric printing attempted at Technothreads:

... focused on the budding technologies of textiles and how they are being applied in the fashion industry. There were some very interesting techniques for designing fabric and clothing, such as using 3D printing technology (pretty strange). One of the coolest sections was the 'biological clothing.' Among this display were two garments created from red wine and Guinness beer. They were made by slowly layering films of alcohol on top of each other (like when a film forms in an old bottle of wine). They smelled a little and seemed prone to deteriorate, but our guide assured us the technologies were in the development stage.

Via GateChadMissions and Science Gallery