Category Archives: News
Top 3D Printing Headlines from Last Week: Venture Capital, Desktop Printers, Personalized Dolls
A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from May 21 to May 27.
Monday, May 21
Tuesday, May 22
- 3D Printing Vending Machine: Print on Demand at Virginia Tech [Video]
- Objet Launches Most Versatile Desktop 3D Printer and Catchy Promo Video
Wednesday, May 23
- Venture Capitalists Looking Closely at 3D Printing Deals
- 3D Printing with Nylon to Create Flexible and Durable Goods [Video]
Thursday, May 24
- Shape Up Medical School! 3D Printing Instead of Human Cadavers
- Cheaper, Faster, Smaller 3D Printer: ORD BOT
Friday, May 25
MakieLab Launches Personalized Doll Collection Via 3D Printing
Britain-based startup MakieLab is looking to disrupt the toy industry by letting customers design and 3D print their own doll. CEO Alice Taylor has been at this mission for over a decade, as she explained in an interview with Wired:
Taylor has been experimenting with the idea of dolls that can talk to the web for some time. In early 2000, she set up stortroopers.com, which allowed users to build Creative Commons-licensed avatars on the web. A decade later, while in the basement of the NYC Toy Fair looking at digital toy avatars that were physically and commercially separated from the “real” dolls on the floor above, she had a brainwave. “I was aware of 3D printing anyway, and wondered whether you could build an avatar-maker that could automatically output a toy and I also wondered whether that toy could then affect the digital world it had come from, [to create] an infinite loop of play.”
What are Makies?
From the MakieLab website:
MAKIES are 10″ gosh-darn poseable action dolls with faces and features designed by YOU.
You get to choose what the face looks like: the eyes, nose, jaw, smile, the hair, the clothes and the hands and feet too. Once you’ve finished creating, we manufacture your exact figure for you, dress it with the clothes you’ve chosen, add the hair and eyes you’ve chosen, and put it in a beautifully recycleable cardboard tube to be sent directly to you.
According to Wired, the dolls are not ready for children yet, but MakieLab expects to complete the necessary safety testing to expand the market.
We’re also excited to see MakieLab embracing open innovation through Creative Commons.
Digital MAKIES are about to be CC-licensed: we’ll post the license details as soon as we can (backlog of things to do …!)
Alice Taylor photo by NEXT Berlin used under Creative Commons license.
Cheaper, Faster, Smaller 3D Printer: ORD BOT
In the world of $20,000 3D printers like the most recent professional desktop printer from Objet and the $1,700+ MakerBot Replicator, is there an alternative?
Yes. Discovered at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012: the ORD BOT, a 3D printer that is cheaper, faster, and smaller than the competition.
PC World’s Geek Tech blog featured the ORD BOT:
The ORD BOT is a simple 3D printer platform kit that uses an extruder to “print” 3D objects, just like the Cube or the MakerBot. However, unlike the MakerBot, the ORD BOT can only print using one color at a time (for now, anyway). But what it lacks in color it gains in speed: Its print speeds exceed 400mm per second and can reach up to a whopping 1 meter per second. This is considerably faster than the MakerBot’s output speed of 33mm per second. The ORD BOT comes with two different print areas with the largest, called the Hadron, being about 200 square milimeters.
Now the ORD BOT isn’t for just anyone–it’s made with serious makers and DIYers in mind. This platform kit is just that–a platform: You have to provide your own electronics and build the whole thing from scratch (this does make it highly customizable and flexible), but according to a spokesperson at the ORD BOT booth you can order one with the electronics included for about another $200.
There is also a wiki with various recommendations on electronics to use, as well as detailed specs and CAD files pertaining to the platform. The platform will cost you $290 for the smallest one, called the Quantum, and $400 for the Hadron–the platform plus necessary electronics is still several hundreds dollars cheaper than other commercial 3D printers out there.
Right now there are over 120 ORD BOT users, and you can get your own over at Inventables if they get enough pre-orders for another batch by May 31st. Inventables is selling the Hadron and it comes with stepper motors, you provide the rest.
Via PC World.
Shape Up Medical School! 3D Printing Instead of Human Cadavers
Medical School students have long used human cadavers in their training for diagnosis, treatment and surgery before they begin practicing with real patients. With improvements in 3D printing technology, realistic artificial body parts can be produced rather than relying on corpses. The U.S. military is currently evaluating this opportunity.
Such artificial body parts would “ideally not be actual biological tissues,” but instead would consist of materials that could physically simulate the feel of flesh and bone. Success in printing out entire body part sections containing bone, muscle, skin and blood vessels could lead to lower medical training costs and cut back on the need for animal or human cadavers.
“If such technology were possible, a wide variety of human anatomy sections could be printed on demand,” according to a U.S. Defense Health Program solicitation for small business issued on May 11.
The 3D printed artificial body parts would also ideally allow for normal CT or MRI medical scans, so that physicians could practice interpreting the scan images before diving in with scalpels. The U.S. military effort could also presumably benefit American physicians and medical schools back on the home front.
Via LiveScience.
Medical School photo by uonottingham used under Creative Commons license.
3D Printing with Nylon to Create Flexible and Durable Goods [Video]
As 3D printing matures, new printing materials emerge that allow us to build more durable goods. Nylon provides both durability and flexibility benefits over standard materials like ABS plastic. With a higher melting point, nylon is less brittle. Products that can be created out of nylon range from iPhone cases to gear parts to a bike planter like in the photo above.
The video below showcases some parts 3D printed in nylon.
And this video shows the printing process.
Via Engadget.
