Category Archives: News
3D Printing Inventor Chuck Hall Gets His Cube from 3D Systems
Chuck Hull is known as the inventor of 3D printing. 30 years ago, Hull was working in Southern California at a mid-size manufacturer called Ultra Violet Products. Hull helped develop the company’s ultraviolet-light curable resins, which were used to add protective coatings to furniture and other surfaces. Hull began experimenting after hours with laying down numerous coats of the resin to make plastic models and thus 3D printing was born.
In 1983, Hull formalized this technology, called stereolithography, and later founded 3D Systems in 1986.
In the photo above, Chuck Hull is showing off his own Cube, the latest consumer 3D printer from 3D Systems. Cubify’s blog commented on this event:
None of us would be doing what we do today at Cubify without Chuck and we’re so happy he continues to bring us newer, better, and sometimes unimaginably small printers like the Cube. Naturally, Chuck had to be the first to officially receive a Cube!
MakieLab Raises $1.4 Million for Personalized 3D Printed Dolls
In May, we covered MakieLab, a Britain-based startup looking to disrupt the toy industry by letting consumers design and print their own dolls.
Now they have announced an Alpha launch and $1.4 million in seed funding.
From their press release:
Smart toys company MakieLab announces the open alpha launch of MAKIES, the first ever user-designed, 3D-printed action doll. On http://makie.me customers are designing and sharing digital avatars that are brought to life via 3D-printshops across London.
“We’ve seen amazing levels of creativity from our customers since letting the first few in during open alpha just a few weeks ago”, says Alice Taylor, founder and CEO of MakieLab. “We’re now hard at work to enable further customization of MAKIES, more creativity, and to expand to include digital and physical gaming.”
Together with the launch, MakieLab announce their seed round investment of $1.4 million. The round is led by early-stage investors Lifeline Ventures and Sunstone Capital and is joined by Anime and gaming industry veterans Matthew Wiggins, Daniel James and Cedric Littardi of superangel-fund Ynnis Ventures.
“The toys industry is ripe for disruption and 3D printing opens up for a powerful blend of digital and physical. We’re thrilled to support Alice, Jo, Sulka, Luke and team in London and Helsinki in their venture to define a new toys company,” says Petteri Koponen, Partner at Lifeline Ventures.
“MAKIES are great proof of how 3D printing will impact our everyday life in so many subtle ways. My daughter is already saving her pocket money for a MAKIE and for her and her peers this physical customization will be the norm,” adds Nikolaj Nyholm, Partner at Sunstone Capital.
MakieLab joins the ranks of culturally influential companies in the portfolio of Lifeline Ventures and Sunstone Capital – including Tinkercad, Supercell, Prezi, Gidsy, Layar and Applifier.
Congratulations to MakieLab and Alice Taylor!
How 3D Printing is Revolutionizing Rapid Prototyping
3D printer manufacture Stratasys sums up the impact of 3D printing on rapid prototyping in a brief blog post. 3D printing gives us “free range to design … [without being] limited by manufacturing capabilities.” Very powerful.
It may come as a surprise, but many Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) users already take advantage of its ability to build usable products. No other technology can withstand the wide range of applications and post-processing techniques that FDM parts can take. This is just one example of how 3D printing is making design limitations a thing of the past. In this age, we are becoming more adapted to and knowledgeable of the CAD packages that give us free range to design whatever our creative minds can think of. In the past, our designs may have been limited by manufacturing capabilities, but not today. Whatever you can scan and alter, or design in CAD, you can have in your hand within hours or even minutes. Speed to production has never been faster than with FDM systems.
Via Stratasys blog.
Photo by saschapohflepp used under Creative Commons license.
Why 3D Printing Will Be More Fun Than LEGO: Minecraft Video
As humans, we attach more value to things we create than things created for us (See Dan Ariely’s research to understand what he calls “The Ikea Effect”).
This common psychological motivation is why personalized 3D printing will engender a new generation of toys that are not mass produced. Although toys like LEGO and Lincoln Logs let kids use building blocks to create their own structures, they are still limited to the granularity of the block.
The popularity of the game Minecraft has shown that kids are ready to go beyond centimeter-tall blocks, and want to build entire worlds. One 3D printing enthusiast has demonstrated how to export your Minecraft village and print a physical copy to play with.
In the video below, watch as he walks through his digital to 3D printed transformation.
We have reported about this before. This is just the beginning. The toy industry is soon to be turned upside down as 3D printing gains popularity.
Does HP Need to Make An Acquisition to Compete On 3D Printing?
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) has a $43 billion market cap and is the largest printer manufacturer in the world. But HP has not really embraced 3D printing yet and may need to make an acquisition to truly enter the market.
Seeking Alpha describes the current situation for HP:
In April 2010, HPQ signed a collaboration agreement with one of the 3D printer companies, Stratasys to create a 3D printer called DesignJet 3D. The retail price was over $17,000 when they first came out, and it doesn’t appear that HPQ is making a giant impact with this printer.
HPQ needs to come and buy either SSYS or 3D Systems. HPQ needs to play defense, by going on the offensive. It might not seem like it, but this is the same scenario as Eastman Kodak being the 800-pound gorilla in cameras and then falling behind when the time came for digital cameras. HPQ doesn’t want to miss out on this revolution. 3D printing is within 3-5 years of becoming affordable for the general public. 3D Systems has launched a personal 3D printer for as cheap as $1300. Moore’s Law is working in the 3D printing market as prices have drop 90% in the last 5 years and will continue to drop in the future.
Look at the relative stock price of HPQ vs the current 3D printing leaders (3D Systems, Stratasys, and Proto Labs). HP is down 39% while the 3D printing portfolio is up 112% over the last 12 months.
The market is still early. Will HP make a move this year or wait for the market to mature?
Via Seeking Alpha.
Gorilla photo by poplinre used under Creative Commons license.
