experiment

Overhangs? What Overhangs?

Australian engineer Daniel Brown has been experimenting with overhangs, the bane of 3D printer operators worldwide. It looks like heā€™s managed to overcome them. 

Long Range 3D Scanning Demonstrated

3D scanning is a tricky business. Whether you’re using a USD$50,000 unit or a USD$100 Microsoft Kinect, none will meet all possible scanning requirements. You might require super-fine detail of a small object, or perhaps you’re scanning a building, or simply just grabbing a scan of your girlfriend’s face for a quick 3D print.   … Continue reading Long Range 3D Scanning Demonstrated

4D Printing?

Researchers at MIT’s Self Assembly Lab have developed a new technique for 3D Printing which they call “4D Printing”. It’s 3D printing of objects designed to change their shape after printing.    By exposing the printed object to a different external environment – think light, water, pressure, etc., specially designed joints in the object react… Continue reading 4D Printing?

Edinburg Scientist Print Stem Cells

Although controversial in the US, stem cell research offers some of the best opportunities to produce breakthrough medical discoveries, including growing tailor made replacement organs.   In a new development for bioprinting, Dr, Will Shu of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh said,   “We found that the valve-based printing is gentle enough to maintain high stem… Continue reading Edinburg Scientist Print Stem Cells

Open3DP Gets Gummi

Those researchers at the University of Washington took a break from casting ceramics, glass and other inedible substances to experiment instead with more tasty material using “food friendly molds”.    Unfortunately their choice for shape was, um, themselves! They carefully captured full-body scans using a Microsoft Kinect and designed a negative mold and 3D printed… Continue reading Open3DP Gets Gummi

Do You Carbomorph?

Carbomorph is a new, experimental material for 3D printing that promises to add a whole new range of capabilities with its ability to embed sensors within 3D printed items.    Carbomorph was invented by researchers at the University of Warwick in the UK in their quest to develop a method of 3D printing electronic circuits.… Continue reading Do You Carbomorph?

Lunar 3D Printing? Check!

Researchers from several US institutions including NASA recently published a paper describing their experiment in “Lunar 3D Printing”. No, they weren’t actually ON the Moon. Instead they produced synthetic lunar soil (called “Regolith” by scientists) and attempted to use it as material in a 3D printing process.    The process used was “LENS”, or Laser… Continue reading Lunar 3D Printing? Check!

MIT Creates Lens for Radio Waves

Metamaterials are, by their very definition, awesome. The first sentence of the Metamaterials entry on Wikipedia reads: Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties that may not be found in nature. And as should be expected of materials that are supernatural, they can endow objects with properties that seem uncanny.  In recent years, researchers have used… Continue reading MIT Creates Lens for Radio Waves

3D Printed Electronics Demonstration

Optomec and Stratasys are set to demonstrate their hybrid technology that permits a type of 3D printed electronics. We’ve written about this before, but now they intend on demonstrating the process to the public.     The process does not involve a mutant plastic-and-metal 3D printer. Instead it simply is a way for the two companies… Continue reading 3D Printed Electronics Demonstration

Another Extreme Personalization Experiment

We’ve just been pointed at the JB Figurines Kickstarter project. This is an artistic experiment involving 3D printing and extreme personalization.    The project intends to create a totally unique 3D “superhero” printed figurine for each backer. Each figurine customer will have a designer create a 3D model that will be printed only once on… Continue reading Another Extreme Personalization Experiment

3D Printing Makes a Soldier Walk Again

One of the several tragedies of global conflict is those permanently maimed by explosions and weapons fire. One UK soldier, shot “above and through the knee”, has been unable to recover despite several reconstructive surgeries.    But now there’s new hope through the use of advanced 3D scanning, 3D printing and new surgical techniques.   … Continue reading 3D Printing Makes a Soldier Walk Again

Formlabs’ Secret Project To Be Revealed

Readers may recall a post from last year in which we introduced the mysterious Formlabs, a startup by three folks from the famous MIT Media Lab, who evidently were working on “something”. Something interesting to the 3D printing space, apparently.    Now we see their website has suddenly livened up a bit with the words: … Continue reading Formlabs’ Secret Project To Be Revealed

3D Photografting Introduced

Scientists at the Vienna Institute of Technology have developed a new technique they call “Photografting”, which promises to enable significant advances in bioprinting.    The new technique involves starting with a hydrogel, a porous material in which other molecules can be placed. Lasers then focus on specific spots within the 3D hydrogel and break apart… Continue reading 3D Photografting Introduced

The Stone Spray 3D Printer

This is interesting: a sand-powered 3D printer called The Stone Spray Project. Created by Anna Kulik, Inder Shergill and Petr Novikov of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, this robotic-arm device mixes plain old sand with a liquid binder to gradually create arbitrary shapes out of sand, like the sand stool pictured above.   … Continue reading The Stone Spray 3D Printer

A Pair of 3D Print Fashion Designers

Mashable interviews a pair of fashion designers with a twist: they use 21st century techniques to create their items, including web-based fitting, embedded electronics, computational design generation and of course 3D printing.    Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel own Continuum Fashion where they explore the possibilities of applying new technology and techniques to the fashion… Continue reading A Pair of 3D Print Fashion Designers

Controlling Microorganisms to Fabricate Products

Designers and scientists in California are exploring the idea of using microorganisms to create consumer products. This can be thought of as a natural way of 3D printing. E. coli bacteria are being studied to ‘re-program’ them and build the product. This idea has tons of potential and in my opinion should have been looked into much… Continue reading Controlling Microorganisms to Fabricate Products

An Interview With The DreamVendor

Actually we’re not interviewing the DreamVendor itself; instead we’re interviewing Dr. Chris Williams, the Director of the DREAMS Lab at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, the organization that produced the DreamVendor. (Wait, what’s a “DreamVendor”??? Read on and you’ll find out.)    Fabbaloo: We’re wondering what the DREAMS lab is all about? Can… Continue reading An Interview With The DreamVendor

Ice That 3D Cake

The folks at CNCDudez have been experimenting with cakes. Frosting cakes, actually. With a 3D printer. Spokesman Sean says:    We have seen videos showing chocolate being extruded out of a syringe and also cake dough being extruded to make cookies. But we wanted to see if we could Ice a cakes, buns etc etc.… Continue reading Ice That 3D Cake

A Real Robot 3D Printer

The folks at Hackaday found a 190 pound experimental 3D printer made from a scrap industrial robot arm – and it actually works. Made by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute undergrad and maker extraordinary Dane Kouttron, this project required an enormous amount of effort to convert the surplus robot arm into a working 3D printer.    The… Continue reading A Real Robot 3D Printer

Flat-Rate 3D Print Pricing From i.Materialise

3D print service i.Materialise is experimenting with a form of flat-rate pricing. Normally they employ the standard “how much material and what kind of material are you printing” approach, but perhaps this was seen as a barrier to expanding their business. They’ve been testing this approach throughout May, when the program ends.     How… Continue reading Flat-Rate 3D Print Pricing From i.Materialise

Multicolor RepRap Printing Progresses

After the initial thrill of 3D printing wears off, one begins to look for possible improvements. One of the most sought-after improvements is the ability to print color objects. We don’t mean “a” color, we mean “many” colors. Since plastic filament comes in only one color (except for that elusive Tartan filament we were looking… Continue reading Multicolor RepRap Printing Progresses

On Demand 3D Printed Robots?

MIT has organized a US$10M grant to fund a new project that will attempt to “reinvent how robots are designed and produced“.    They feel this could have a “profound impact on society”, when one could “order” a special purpose robot on demand and very quickly receive it. They’re trying to bypass the current methods… Continue reading On Demand 3D Printed Robots?

MIT Plans To Replace 3D Printers

There are quite a few different approaches to producing 3D objects using additive manufacturing (as opposed to subtractive manufacturing; you know, carving and chopping), but MIT’s latest idea is perhaps the most advanced we’ve yet seen.    While most 3D printers either deposit or fuse in-place material into solid objects, MIT’s experiment involves a massive… Continue reading MIT Plans To Replace 3D Printers

Insects Au Gratin

What might you expect to find at an exhibition entitled, “Insects Au Gratin”.   Why yes, you guess correctly.   This exhibition details 3D food printing, but with a twist: the print material is a flour made from “dried insects combined with soft cheese.” Why would anyone do this? Because:   “Insects Au Gratin looks… Continue reading Insects Au Gratin

Big Robot Comes to Life

Those guys at Metrix Create:Space think big. Really big. This time their experiment is to create the “Big Robot”, a rather large HDPE-extruding 3D printer.    They’re not building it from scratch, but rather they’ve adapted an ancient DynaCNC 1000 router table by replacing the cutter with an enormous RepRap-style extruder. This massive extruder is… Continue reading Big Robot Comes to Life

3D Printed Chocolate That Tastes Good

BBC news reports today on scientists at the University of Exeter in the UK who have developed a new chocolate 3D printer. Instead of extruding tasteless plastic, this printer is capable of extruding liquified chocolate into solid – and edible – objects. The process is similar to other extrusion-based 3D printers: squirt and solidify each… Continue reading 3D Printed Chocolate That Tastes Good

Scott Elliot Invents an Insert

Scott Elliot, owner of a very busy Solido SD300 plastic-sheet 3D printer has come up with yet another amazing design: shipping inserts to ensure safe travels for package contents.    Since Scott uses the SD300, he is able to print items not possible with other extrusion-based devices. The plastic sheet approach can print objects with… Continue reading Scott Elliot Invents an Insert

Modular Desktop CNC Machine Needs Your Help

AJ Quick’s new Kickstarter project is an inexpensive but highly capable desktop CNC machine. The device was designed by University of Minnesota Mechanical Engineering students specifically for use by home operators or perhaps even light business use. While the original prototype was quite successful, they want to take the concept to the next level. To… Continue reading Modular Desktop CNC Machine Needs Your Help

3D Printing Featured On Science Friday

Science Friday’s Flora Lichtman visits 3D Printer designer Jim Smith and his extraordinary new device at his workshop. Erm, his living room. Now we finally understand why Jim decided to include a fume extractor on his printer!    Jim explains in basic terms what a 3D printer does and how it works, pointing out the… Continue reading 3D Printing Featured On Science Friday

Make-A-Bot

Charles Guan is the mastermind behind the experimental Make-A-Bot, a new 3D printer of (mostly) his own design. Based on a combination of MakerBot and RepRap tech, this interesting printer makes extensive use of water-jet cut aluminum, with acrylic and wooden components as well.     The printer uses a MakerBot Mk5 plastruder, but has a… Continue reading Make-A-Bot

The T-Rep3

We keep seeing incredible 3D printer design experiments, and this is another we haven’t written about yet: the T-Rep3. It’s a RepRap-based device made from the highly versatile T-slot aluminum extrusions. The T-slots make this 3D Printer very rigid (and inspires its name, too, we suppose). Like the GrassRoots Engineering design we posted the other… Continue reading The T-Rep3

Gigantic Home-Designed 3D Printer

Troubled by a tiny build chamber size? Anxious to print those 13 inch custom-designed sandals in one operation? You might want to get your hands on Jim Smith’s new project at Grass Roots Engineering, where he’s designing a low-cost 3D printer with an incredible build volume of 403x403x322mm (15.86×15.86×12.70″). In addition to the build volume,… Continue reading Gigantic Home-Designed 3D Printer

The Dome is Complete!

Some months ago we posted a request from maker Vernon Effalo who had commenced a project to crowdsource parts for his exterior dome project. Basically, he was paying USD$2 per icosahedron vertex connector, and he required 26 of them.   We’re happy to announce that the project has now completed, and you can see Vernon… Continue reading The Dome is Complete!

A Non-Obvious 3D Print: Sound

Andy Berlin, Z Corp engineer extraordinary decided to push the limits of 3D printing by printing something unusual, in an attempt to inspire others to bend their imagination. He managed to convert a sound wave into a spiral ridge, with the sound wave corresponding to peaks and valleys in the shape. That’s right – he… Continue reading A Non-Obvious 3D Print: Sound

A Distributed Manufacturing Experiment – Get Involved Now!

We received a note from Vernon Effalo of Effalo.com, who’s performing a very interesting experiment. He’s designed a unique geodesic dome connector (you know, the five-way joint for the arms of the dome) and wants you to build them for him. And it’s not begging – he’s willing to pay USD$2 per connector!    So… Continue reading A Distributed Manufacturing Experiment – Get Involved Now!

There’s Cuteness in RFIDs

Actually, it’s the other way around. Lisa Smith, Masters of Design student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago / Designed objects, has put RFIDs into something she calls the “Cuteness Generator”. She’s created unique 3D objects and embedded an RFID transmitter into each: They’re designed to be artifacts for schoolkids (K-12) that… Continue reading There’s Cuteness in RFIDs