Rapid Manufacturing of bio-compatible materials is taking off in a big way. If researchers aren’t developing new ways to use a Reprap to create veins or printing prothetics beaks for Bald Eagles, they’re exploring avenues to perfect the art of making organs. Is this a harbinger for things to come? We hope so. Hey Solidworks,…
When new technology reaches its ascendancy, a question is posed. Can it be used to improved the lives of less fortunate? Specifically, those people that live in lesser developed countries? Sure, the latest Shamwow doesn’t apply – but what about more expansive and innovative technologies? Like 3D printing? Well certainly. But you have to find…
M.C. Escher, one of the great rappers of art and mathematics, whose work has been plastered across college dorm rooms and famous galleries alike for decades. His work has been given a new twist – literally. All those impossible shapes you saw on the cover of your grade 11 algebra textbook (just to give you…
And while Australia is going big with 3D Printing, Austria is going the opposite direction. The Vienna University of Technology has developed a method for 3D Printing on a microscopic scale using lasers. If you recall they printed a tiny F1 car, complete with details right down to the steering wheels and hubs. Now they’re…
As the bottom end of 3D Printing is being filled with hundreds of different companies competing for market share, new machines are appearing. Only a month after Airbus announced its intentions of developing massive 3D Printers that can manufacture whole wings and fuselages, researchers at Swinburne University in Melbourne Australia managed to develop one of the…
RichRap out of Gloucester, UK has been colouring his work with a new type of multicolour and multi-material extruder. 3 filaments enter – only one can leave. That sounds like an epic extruder in my book. RichRap’s extruder produce vibrant yet oversaturated coloured prints – not really the fidelity you need to make exact replicas…
If you happen to have a set of vinyl records sitting around, take a look at them. Check out all those grooves that ring around and around, jostling the needle that has made all those tunes that have enriched your life. Now imagine you had that record as a CAD file and you extruded the…
After warnings from retired Engineers and seasoned VCs, the World has reached peak hype in 3D Printing. All those Kickstarter campaigns for 3D printers, all those busy CAD artists, all those blog writers who talk endlessly about it (noooo), are going to hit a brick wall. No more cool materials, no more cool designs, no…
So – you decided to attend Burning Man. And above the Mutant Cars and the becostumed attendees, you notice a quadcopter flying about, with what appears to be a figurine hanging underneath it. Just then, you hear an alarming sound coming from one of a becostumed woman – its coming from a device in her…
Getting your CAD file to the physical world is often the longest mile in 3D Printed Design. Printing resolution is getting higher and the materials are getting stronger, but most models have to be manually checked to see if they’re printable. Even after careful fine-toothed inspection, things get missed and valuable time is wasted. As…
Rust never sleeps, especially in Ohio. The heart of the steel manufacturing has suffered more from the decline of the industry and the recession more than anywhere else in America, and 3D Printing has been hyped for how it could bring jobs back. It might, but the story is more complicated than what it seems.
Home-cooked meals are supposed to be special. They’re also supposed to be organic, free-range, cruelty-free, gourmet meals custom-made to suit your desires – because everyone’s picky. And why not? 3D Printing both the food and the preparation tools might just make that easier. Or sillier. We think we can have both. Remember the Burritobot? Printing…
Ever so recently, a number of awesome infographics on 3D printing, and fabrication in general, have appeared on the Interwebs. You probably haven’t seen or heard enough about 3D Printing, so we’d like to share them with you so it’s firmly ingrained into your brain tissues. What’s 3D printing? – Still have no clue about…
The Ditto 3D Printer is one of the best 3D Printers I’ve had the pleasure of seeing up close. Smooth lines, high-quality parts and superb prints. Like Brad Sublime’s Tantillus, it’s produced in Vancouver, Canada. During the unveiling of the Rygo at VanDusen Botanical Gardens, I invited Eugene and the Tinkerine team to bring out…
If it were up to me, everything important to sustaining life–computers, blenders, sinks, beer–would be kept and deployed via a briefcase, mostly for the effect of grabbing the briefcase in times of panic and letting everyone know, not to worry, you have your briefcase. Ben Heck has the same idea, and he has fit one…
Sean Charlesworth is a digital designer from New York, and no doubt, 20,000 leagues beyond his colleagues. His OPUS V is a 3D printed, sea-punk submersible, his final project for his Masters at NYU. Complete with LED lights, moving parts and flexible tentacles. Bar none, it is the most impressive 3D prints we’ve ever seen…
This is how I imagine things would go down if the Jetsons went to the beach. The Stone Spray 3D Printer is the end result of a six month project by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and Fab Lab Bcn in Barcelona, Spain. Isn’t it amazing what you can do with a computer, an armature system, sand, glue…
So, what does the University of Washington, milk jugs, recreational boating and 3D Printing have in common? Not much… until now! The new ‘Washington Open Object Fabricator’ Group (WOOF), UW Engineering students and the Open 3D Printing Lab managed to manufacture a boat from shredded HDPE milk jugs and a hacked Plasma Cutter named ‘Big…
Logging into Shapeways last week was a bit disconcerting – almost made me think I was at the wrong website. Shapeways has completely revamped the look and feel of their site, their logo and their interface. The reason? Evolution we suppose. As Shapeways begins to offer more materials, higher quality and a better platform for its…
In between writing blogs on 3D printing, I’ve been working hard on another project – The Rygo. Made of 3D Printed Concrete, this incredible piece is going to be properly unveiled on Thursday, July 26th in Vancouver, Canada. Weighing some 3,600 pounds and standing close to 7 ft tall, the Rygo is by far the…
3D Model-to-Print (3DMTP) is a cloud-based 3D printing service for Architects and Developers that need to take their 3D models and 3D print them quickly and painlessly. After 3 years of development and testing 3DMTP has perfected an algorithm that makes it easier for users to upload their CAD files and sent to them tout suite. Laying…
As we’ve seen, Airbus thinks big. They made monster airplanes like the A380 and they took on aerospace giants like Boeing in the 1970s. They think big, really big. like 3D printing an airplane big. Not tiny little airplanes–big, honking super planes. 3D printing is primed to take off (pun intended) in the aerospace industry…
While watching the tweets from SEU 2012, Mark Burhop tweeted from a seminar on 3D Printing, “All this new #3Dprinting technology needs designs – “Great day to be a CAD person!” #seu12. But is it?
RepRap, is there anything you can’t do? The University of Pennsylvania announced they have managed to fabricate living tissue using a modified RepRap. (When is a RepRap never modified?) As if self-replicating machines aren’t scary enough, let’s have them making organic matter too. But this is great news for those in dire need of an organ,…
The Internet has given us access to resources unparalleled in the history of humankind. The volume of exchange for ideas, pictures, written text and now 3D models have been building to a climatic boom in creativity. To an extent, that depends on how you define ‘Creativity’. I see creativity as the synthesis of two previously…
A spacesuit, a pocket TV and a 3D Printer. What do these three things have in common? They’re all part of this week’s crowdfunding round-up and every bit of cool. While many Kickstarter project revolve around the arts and film industry, we like to feature the tech finds that are making Kickstarter a perfect place…
The biggest question in my head for years has been this. Can you start a business with a desktop 3D printer? With a nice little Makerbot, or a RepRap and a really useful product design, can I actually be my own, cigar-sucking factory boss? In my own living room, with a bathrobe on? An intriguing…
Remember the 3D Printed Guitars we wrote about in March? Well, designer Olaf Diegel and the ODD team have created another guitar. This one is called the ‘Atom’ and may make you look more ‘ROCK’ than a diamond studded jean jacket with the arms torn off.
I walked into Vancouver Hackerspace the other day to hang out, There, in all of it’s colorful, tabletop printing beauty, was a new 3D printer and a smiling man named Brad (aka Sublime) giving a little demo on his Tantillus 3D Printer. It’s a small machine that packs a punch. The details were marvellous for such…
Fab-fabulous machines of fabbing people. The Fabbster was developed and manufactured by German company Sintermask, the very ones who develop a unique sinter and powder deposition technology that utilizes principles similar to a silkscreen press. What sets Fabbster apart isn’t the fact that it’s high-speed (400 mm/s) or has a incredibly high-temperature extruder (300C or…
I’m always amazed by how good graphic designers have become at explaining information. Since design has leapt into the 3rd dimension, so has the elaborate art of infographics. We’ve seen it with Johannes Tsopanides’ InfObjects in a previous article. We’ve seen it with 3D printed bracelets that are made from stock market data. What’s next? Have a…
There should be five things that you do today. They should all involve string, live bait and an assortment of wild animals. Oh, and this, KICK IT.
Do you have a soft spot for hardcore hacks, fanatical fabrication, robots, steampunk and funnel cakes? Do we even need to ask? It’s exactly why we were at this year’s Bay Area 2012 Maker Faire featuring all of that and a mass of 3D printers, tons of guest speakers, Tesla coils set to music and…
¡Híjole! 3D Printed Burritos. To be honest, I thought that this project was an April Fool’s joke. Perhaps it was posted as such and I’m just now seeing it. Nope, it’s for real. Marko Manriquez has developed the Burritob0t as his graduate thesis for the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Ready your tortillas, prime the…
When the bluebonnets are dancing in the field and you feel a large antler near your spine, it’s best you not turn around. Simply put your headphones, tighten your belt on and scream, KICK IT.
3D Systems is getting into the Consumer 3D Printing market in a big way. If you recall last January, the Cube was showcased on the catwalk we all know as the Consumer Electronics Show. From the outside, The Cube seems to ‘walk-the-walk’, but can it ‘talk-the-talk’? We will soon know. The Cube is now available…
What’s the best way to illustrate years of information and research in a space small and visually stimulating enough that even the most attention deficient of us can understand? Infographics baby! But let’s add a dimension or three to that and see what can be visualized through the glorious technology of 3D printing.
I know it’s the weekend. Time to work on the tan, take the horse for a ride, wax your bike and maybe even make that crumpet basket you’ve been reading about. But before you do all of that, sit back, relax and enjoy 3 minutes and 42 seconds of bliss. KICK IT.
Great gobs of gravy! If you think you can launch a highly technical project on Kickstarter and get funded with $2,000 pledges, in less than 24 hours, you would be RIGHT. Your name would also be Michael Joyce. Mike’s B9Creator kickstarter project has met the $50,000 goal and is nearing $100,000 after less than two…
Oh, to drown your mornings in a scalding hot cup of java. Perhaps you recognize the Octo cup from Shapeways – you can buy it in white ceramic for $56. The eight-handled cup was designed by Cunicode design agency as part their ‘One Cup a Day’ project. Over a single month, new cup designs were…
By day, you’re an ordinary citizen. Yet, when you hear a cry for help, you dash into the nearest telephone booth, drop your disguise and become the savior to an innocent, mildly over-reacting damsel in distress. Or at least, you would, if it were true. Everybody wants to be a superhero, but if dressing up…
You now have the perfect reason to slap on the sideburns, Wayfarers and open up the .STL files of your British-motif 1970 Jaguar E-Type. Today, Stratasys (Nasdaq: SSYS) announces their all-in-one 3D Desktop Printer. SolidSmack was on hand at the Stratasys media event a few weeks ago and got to see first hand the factory tour…
Why, it looks like you’re enjoying your weekend. Spring hat, drink in your hand, veggie or steak kabob of your choice grilling on the hood of your neighbor’s car. If only life could be just a touch more exciting. May I introduce the SolidSmack Update? I may. KICK IT.
You know, sometimes counting is difficult. 1,2,3… Uhg, Eleventy! Maybe you need a machine to help you along. A counting machine perhaps? An electro-mechanical machine!? How about a 3D printed electro-mechanical machine? One which runs on of the pure, unadulterated power of PUNCH CARDS? YES!
Have a spare Fisher-Price record player around from your childhood? Do you like playing Portal? Well, we have the record for you! Shapeway user “Pittance” designed a record that plays the song “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton, the featured music in the end credits of the popular game “Portal”.
After pulling a little April Fool’s prank about “3D Printing your Pets” , The Economist returned to true form with a feature piece analyzing the future of manufacturing, discussing at length advances in capital and informational technologies. It’s a stellar read – if you have time, definitely read the entire piece. Here is the key takeaway.
3D printing is growing fast. It’s rather amazing that something once considered a speciality item for engineering and design firms has now slipped into the consumer market in only a few years. Right now Solidsmack is working on 3D Printing Resource page and it’s impressive how many 3D printing companies and printers there are.
STL files have been around for a while. It was originally developed as a bridge between CAD files and 3D Systems’ first 3D printers. It has become the standard format for 3D printing, but it’s increasingly seen as antiquated and limited. In reality, an STL file describes a shape and not much else. In addition,…
Have you ever wanted to actually interact with your 3D model? Sculpt its surface as if it was clay? Feel the response to bending your rubber do-hicky? How about have an snazzy-looking, aluminium 3D printer for less than $1000? Or, how about a low cost construction system without the need for specialty hardware? It may…
The Smithsonian. The Forbidden City of Beijing. You hear these names and perhaps you think of crowds of visitors and old, dusty relics. Oh, and getting completely lost (those museum maps are impossible.) Well, what else do these two places have in common? 3D scanning and 3D printing.