Time to Enter The Extreme Redesign Contest

Stratasys' annual Extreme Redesign Contest for students is open - but only until the deadline of February 2. If you've been thinking about entering, think no longer because you'd better fill out the forms straight away. 

 

The contest enables students in grade school as well as university to enter a design (product, enhancement, art or architecture) for evaluation. Winners will receive scholarships and have their design actually printed. 

 

Via Stratasys

Unboxing A Stratasys

Brad Rigdon, the owner of PrintTo3D, a small 3D print service just received a brand new Stratasys Fortus 250mc commercial 3D printer. While we often see unboxing scenes of much smaller personal 3D printers, here's an opportunity to see the unboxing of a much larger - and much more expensive - commercial 3D printer. Check out his photo sequence at PrintTo3D's Facebook page at the link below. 

 

Via Facebook

Stratasys Drifting Away from HP?

In early 2010 big-time 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys signed an agreement with even-bigger-time 2D printer manufacturer HP to market 3D printers. The deal involved Stratasys producing HP-labeled printers that would be marketed through HP's massive reseller networks. They started sales in Europe later that year.  

 

Now we see this arrangement may not be proceeding as originally intended, at least according to a report on investment blog Seeking Alpha. Here's what they say:

 

The company originally had high hopes for its H-P relationship (which was aimed at the engineering segment) but the larger company dragged its feet, holding back performance. Last summer Stratasys essentially threw in the towel and reinstituted its own marketing efforts in lieu of H-P. 

 

Ouch! This move was at first thought to be a potential major breakthrough, taking 3D printing from its current niches into a much wider and possibly more mainstream market. But apparently it has not come to pass, in spite of relatively recent statements from HP to the contrary, at least according to the report. 

 

Does this imply a setback for the progress of 3D printing? We think not. Stratasys and its competitors, as well as the multitude of smaller manufacturers are all growing at steady or even record rates. Progress will happen, HP or not. 

 

Via Seeking Alpha

Stratasys 3D Printers For Less?

There's those low-cost personal 3D printers we often write about and there's those really expensive commercial 3D printers that you'd never be able to afford. Or at least that's how it used to be. 

Stratasys announced something they call a "3D Print Pack", composed of their small uPrint 3D printer, a cleaning system and startup materials & supplies. What's the difference you ask? They now offer this as under a leasing package for only US$290 per month.  

 

Theoretically you could always get a lease on equipment yourself, but this just makes it much easier. Imagine having a real commercial 3D printer on premises for less than USD$300 per month - this is less expensive than using a 3D print service for a single part in some situations. 

 

Could this be Stratasys's way of competing against increasingly low-priced competing 3D printers?

 

Via Stratasys

Stratasys Expands

3D printing industry giant Stratasys has been spending some money lately - on a new 90,000 sq. ft production facility in Minnesota. The new facility, which is actually a refit of an existing building in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, actually doubles their capacity for building their line of 3D printers. 

 

Evidently Stratasys believes there's a big future in 3D printing. 

 

So do we.  

 

Via Tech.MN

Exclusive Video: 3D Printed Car Unveiled

Last night Fabbaloo attended the official unveiling of the Urbee 3D printed car, which we've covered previously. The Urbee is an ultra-efficient urban vehicle prototype that changes travel paradigm - and also engineering paradigms as its entire body was 3D printed using Stratasys 3D print services. Click the video above to see the unveiling, and be sure to watch in HD.

 

The Urbee's design is significantly different from typical vehicles of today as it uses eight times less power to drive the vehicle by leveraging aerodynamics, material science, electric power and social factors. 

 

In the video you'll see Lead Designer David Bernhardt pull off the cover to unveil the sleek prototype vehicle in front of project leader Jim Kor, who apparently had not seen the vehicle since it had been painted and buffed to a gleaming shine. Also visible in the crowd is Stratasys CEO Scott Crump. 

 

The Urbee project hopes to develop the vehicle further by fine tuning the interior and eventually moving to production mode. 

 

Via YouTube, Winnipeg Free Press and Urbee

Urbee, The 3D Printed Car

Can you 3D print a working car? The folks making the Urbee car believe so. They've prototyping an ultra-efficient (300 miles per gallon, 0.8L/100Km) urban vehicle whose body is entirely 3D printed. 

 

We recently visited the Urbee shop and found it to be a very unusual vehicle: 

 

• Two seater with some room for cargo
• Extremely low air drag coefficient
• Three wheels; two fixed in the front and one for steering in the rear
• Dual electric motors, one on each front wheel (apparently one engine can be swapped in as little as five minutes; try that on a gasoline powered vehicle!)
• 1200 pound (550Kg) vehicle 
• Designed for moderate urban use

 

We were a little skeptical of the three wheeled concept, after having watched Top Gear's experiments with the three-wheeled Reliant Robin. However, the Urbee's single wheel is in the rear, not the front, leading to a lot more stability. The Urbee is a very low-to-the-ground car, and that helps, too. Lead designer David Bernhardt told us: 

 

It drives just like a normal car... except in parking lots. 

 

Through a partnership with Stratasys, the Urbee team has designed and 3D printed 20 parts that make up the exterior body of the car. While these parts are accurately printed, the Urbee team has found some challenges using them. Apparently the parts could be said to be "too accurate", as they must be fitted onto a conventional frame that isn't as accurate. Thus the frame's inaccuracies are exposed, whereas they might not have been using traditional approaches. 

 

Nevertheless, the 3D printed body parts are as large as regular car panels and fit precisely into each other (click image for more detailed view.) The new process is also less labor intensive, symmetrically accurate and more environmentally friendly than typical custom fiberglass panels.  

 

More information at Urbee

Final Fantasy IV Character Lives!

We thought this was perhaps the coolest 3D printed thing we've seen this year. As you can see, it's a version of the Cecil Harvey - Dark Knight character from Final Fantasy IV. It was prepared by Neal Bockhaut on a Dimension 768 3D printer. 

 

So what, you might say. Everyone has printed figurines like this. But that's not it. There's something different about this figurine.

 

It's Life Size.

 

And Neal is *wearing it*

 

This is not a 3D rendering, it's an actual photograph of Neal wearing the 3D printed costume! 

 

For more blow-you-away images, check out the links below. 

 

Via Stratasys and DeviantArt