3D Printing Experimentation with Replibot

There are many inventive hobbyists who are making very good use of the 3D printing knowledgesphere. That knowledge includes hardware, software, electronics, design, tools, models, examples, help, tutorials and services. For those who are not satisfied with the current offerings, they often dig in deep in attempts to find better solutions by leveraging all available resources. 

 

One such example is Replibot, where we find numerous posts on various experiments including detailed descriptions and images, all intended to improve the techniques. Their discoveries and improvements make their way back into the knowledgesphere where they are then used by others in a continual process of improvement. 

 

Where will we be in five years?

 

Via Replibot

MakerBot Hall of Fame

The MakerBot guys are not just hardware and software geniuses. They are marketing genuises, too. They've set up a "Hall of Fame" for MakerBot users, in the best use of Game Theory we've yet seen in the 3D printing space. This is a terrific approach that we think will definitely make more things happen in the MakerBot world. We thought the Fame Categories were pretty interesting:

• Tallest Print
• Biggest Volume
• Longest Print
• Most Complex
• Best Replication
• Biggest Overhang
• Highest Resolution
• Most Awesome Print Ever

With the exception of the last category, all of them are specifically challenging MakerBot users to Make the Machine Better. Building on their previous approach of convincing their customers to build MakerBot for them, they've now set up a framework for customers to improve the product. Well Done, MakerBot!

We can't wait to see the Most Awesome Print Ever, too.

Another thought: Should there be a Hall of Shame? Maybe not, because it'd probably end up being an array of badly colored lumps. Ugh.

Via MakerBot

Let's Download Some Hardware!

Bryan Bishop and Ben Lipkowitz talk about their new open source venture: SKDB. What is it? It's a open source hardware distribution framework that takes cues from the highly successful software world.

The software world was held back for decades by centrally controlled proprietary paradigms, but blossomed when open source principles took hold. Today we see open source software dominating almost all aspects of software, and software designers often spend their time designing higher-level systems by using open source software as building blocks.

That success was most visibly demonstrated by Debian, a project to produce a specific distribution of the Linux operating system. One of Debian's key features was a means to quickly obtain software or software upgrades very easily by using the APT-GET command. The command pulls down not only the software you requested, but all related items it depends on. This approach was used by Ubuntu, who produce one of the most popular operating systems on the planet.

Bishop and Lipkowitz believe the same approach could break open the 3D fabbing market by making it terrifically easy for makers to access high quality conglomerations of models. The software makers went farther than just using software, however, as they built more complex software on top of simpler components distributed via APT-GET. The same forms of assembly are used to produce 3D objects, and thus the theory is that similar product complexity can be achieved.

Via Youtube (part 1), YouTube (part 2), YouTube (Part 3), Slides here and the SKDB site (Hat tip to Bryan)

3D Printers Should Not Be Banned

Last week we posted our thoughts on Gartner's Nick Jones' article suggesting that 3D printers might be banned in the future as they might overflow our streets with discarded plastic items. We don't think the world will look like a McDonalds Happy Meal Toy graveyard anytime soon, and apparently neither does anyone else, either.

Followup articles quickly appeared at Ponoko and Erik de Bruijn's blog, where the comments flew in definite disagreement. Many commenters cited exploratory work on biodegradable materials, but also the notion that residential or even distributed 3D printing would save significant amounts of carbon due to avoidance of object shipment. It's even possible to run our home fabber using wind/solar/geothermal power. One commenter asked:

The question is should I be getting carbon credits for using a reprap in my direct recycling efforts?

We think 3D printing can be an environmentally friendly method of manufacturing, if done right. The commenters and thousands of others working on the problem are going to make certain it is.

Via Ponoko and Erik de Bruijn

Robots!

Timothy Mayer tips us to an example of a robot built by the Cornell Computational Synthesis Laboratory. The robot's structure was fabbed with a Fab@Home 3D printer using KraftCreation's FabEpoxy media. Of course, the electronics weren't printed out, but that will come some time in the future.

Readers might want to peruse some of the Cornell University's Computation Synthesis Lab's other projects, which include some rather spectacular items:

3D Printing

• Fabbers:   Multi-material 3D printing for automated fabrication of integrated, functional parts
• Digital Fabrication: 3D printing physical bits—each with specific materials and function—to enable a physical digital revolution
• Fab @ Home: Democratizing 3D printing at the home
• Applications
• Tissue Engineering: A technology for directly fabricating 3D living tissue

Evolutionary Robotics and Computation

• Evolutionary Ornithopters: Flapping, flying robots
• Nonaped: Dynamic pneumatic robot
• The Golem Project: Physical artificial life
• Distilling Free-Form Natural Laws from Experimental Data

Programmable Matter

• Dynamically Programmable Fluidic Assembly: Programmable assembly of microscale components on a microfluidic chip
• Digital Fabrication: Top-down approach to assembling reconfigurable discrete matter
• Jamming Granular Materials: Exploiting the jamming phenomenon for programmable matter
• Modular Robotics
• Molecubes: An open-source modular robotic system
• Self replication: Investigation of physical self-replication phenomena
• Stochastic modular robotics: Self-organizing stochastic robotics
• Soft Modular Robot: investigating an amorphous modular robot

Design Automation and Human-Computer Interaction

• Freeform Mechanical Design:   Autonomous design of freeform multi-material functional objects to meet high level goals
• Robust Circuits
• Kinematic Mechanisms
• Machine Metabolism: Implementing properties of biological metabolism in a robotic ecology.
• 3D sketching: Reconstruction of a 3D object form a single freehand sketch

Dynamical Systems and Artificial Life

• Reverse Engineering Dynamical Systems: Symbolic regression of complex systems
• Emergent Self-models: Adaptation in embedded robotics

Amorphous Machines

• Tensegrity Robots:  Lightweight, deployable machines
• IcoTens: 20-sided tensegrity robot

Via KraftCreation (Hat tip to Timothy)

Moléculaire: The 3D Molecular Food Printer

Electrolux Design Lab is an annual competition where some truly amazing designs emerge. This year a 3D printer showed up among the various science fiction appliances. The idea is to pop open the top and insert a cartridge containing the print material, erm, the "food". At the lower end a print head moves about the chamber and assembles the food molecules into the appropriate arrangement.

Very cool idea, and if it was real we're pretty sure a humongous market for third party cartridges would instantly emerge. "My pie is better than yours!"

Via Electrolux Design Lab, YouTube and TreeHugger

Printing the NanoSeeker

Once in a while we read another piece about 3D printing and it causes us to step back and take stock of what's really going on. This time it was an entry from Jon Hyland's blog, where he's been using a newly acquired 3D printer. Jon appears to be one who's pushing the edge of hobby tech by leveraging all the latest gear.

In his post (and subsequent posts on his blog) he explains how he's obtained his own Dimension uPrint 3D printer (it's one of the least expensive commercial models available today.) He's using it to print out various designs for his NanoSeeker prototype - that's a Micro AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). Great idea, and we wish Jon all success. But then it struck us:

There's a guy using a home replicator to build robot submarines!

If it isn't the 21st century already, it must be close.

Via Jon's Place

The Weather Bracelet ... and More

In another unique way of transforming an aspect of reality into 3D objects, fabricator, Flickr user mtchl has prepared an unusual bracelet, formed from the weather in Canberra, Australia.

The circumference of the bracelet represents the 365 days of the year in question (July of 2008 through end of June 2009), and the outer edge is proportional to the daily minimum and maximum temperatures. Holes in the bracelet represent the amount of weekly rainfall.

The object was printed at the Shapeways 3D print service, but it doesn't seem to be available for purchase. However, you'd probably want the temperature profile for your home town instead.

But this leads to an interesting idea: how could you get that done? Would you create your own model using the raw data? Unlikely, as it's probably beyond most people's capabilities. We think this approach of mapping data into object shapes is increasing in frequency, and there should be a way to bring that capability to general consumers.

Could there be room in the market for a service that dynamically computes such models based on various data? Could Shapeways or Ponoko develop a "dynamic" 3D model service that changes shape based user selected data? Imagine if you could select the "Weather Bracelet" and then specify you want the "Bogota, Colombia 1963" version. The possibilities are, like data, endless.

Via Flickr