Ellen Page Tweets about 3D Printing – Our Response

Canadian Actress Ellen Page, known for her roles in in Juno, Inception, X-Men: The Last Stand and other films, tweeted yesterday about the 3Doodler 3D printing pen:

no F ing way “@UberFacts: This is a 3Doodler — The world’s first 3D printing pen that can actually draw in the air. pic.twitter.com/no7yxQO687”

— Ellen Page (@EllenPage) July 10, 2013

Ellen, it is real. A pen that makes things. In fact, 3Doodler raised $2.3 million on crowdfunding site Kickstarter!

Did you know you can also 3D print bone, chocolate, and even houses?

Here are some quick guides to things you can make with a 3D printer.

Practical 3D Printing: 10 Things to Make With a 3D Printer

10 practical things you can 3D print.

Wow: 3D Printing a Lunar Base with Material Already on the Moon

How would you go about constructing livable habitats on the moon? Foster + Partners proposes to use 3D printing with material already on the moon.

CC image by Josh Jensen

In the realm of strange ideas, here’s a winner.

One researcher decided to MRI scan his own brain, 3D print a replica, and then use that print as a mold to cast a chocolate version of his very own brain. Then he ate it.

Inition co-founder Andy Millins gave his MRI brain scan data which he had on file after participating in an Imperial College research project. The team got to work by first extracting a 3D model from the sliced-image MRI data which was then 3D printed and used to create a latex mould for the casting of the chocolate brain. After consuming his own brain, Andy Millins, co-founder at Inition said: “I’ve been involved in some weird 3D projects over the years at Inition but eating my own chocolate brain was one of the most bizarre . We hope the detailed how-to on Instructables will give others food for thought.”

While I wouldn’t refer to this idea as world-changing, the attention to detail on this project is impressive. Watch the video below to see Andy Millins’s entire process. Perhaps some of the other chocolate 3D printing teams will be inspired.

Via Inition.

Brain scan photo by Liz Henry used under Creative Commons license.

3D Printing is mostly known as a method for additive manufacturing of plastic polymer, used for prototyping, creating small tools, and designing works of art. Consumer-ready printers, like MakerBot, enable anyone to be their own mini manufacturing plant – of plastic goods. This is about to change.

Innovative as well as strange raw materials are starting to emerge in the 3D printing landscape.

Chocolate. The ChocoEdge printer lets you “melt some chocolate, fill a syringe that is stored in the printer, and get creative printing your chocolate.” Available at retail for $3940.

Sandstone. D-Shape has a 3D stereolithic printer that can create large-scale structures out of sandstone. ”It prints the structures using artificial sandstone which is sand or mineral dust glued together by an inorganic binder.” More at Fast Company.

Iced Tea and Bone? Two entries from Open3DP that make the strange category are iced tea and bone. Both examples have only been shown in the lab and are not commercial yet.

Candy. CandyFab4000 from Evil Mad Scientist. “Our three dimensional fabricator is now fully operational and we have used it to print several large, low-resolution, objects out of pure sugar.”

Organs. Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is experimenting with 3D printed organs. While strange, this has huge commercial potential.

Via SolidSmack.

While most 3D printers use plastic polymers, UK scientists have changed the game, developing a method for printing chocolate. All we can say is: Delicious!

Lead scientist Dr Liang Hao told BBC about the process:

“You just need to melt some chocolate, fill a syringe that is stored in the printer, and get creative printing your chocolate.”

Chocolate 3D Printers are expected go on sale in the April. Read more at BBC.

Below is a video of the chocolate printer in action.