Left: the rigid top fractures on landing, while the top made of nine layers going from rigid to flexible remains intact (credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego, Harvard University)
We’ve seen 3D-printed cars and even 3D-printed body organs, but now the city of Dubai plans to use the technology to create an entire office building. Because they are always trying to one-up themselves. Dubai is known around the world for its over-the-top architecture, extreme stunts and attention-grabbing New Year’s Eve light shows.
We are MX3D, a company that researches and develops groundbreaking robotic 3D print technology. Our robots print sustainable materials such as metals and synthetics in virtually any size or shape. Our engineers, craftsmen and software experts bring together digital technology, robotics and traditional industrial production.
Companies looking to launch satellites into space typically spend anywhere from $10–50 million per launch but thanks to 3D printing, those costs are set to drop in a big way.
For $4.9 million, businesses can use RocketLab to send small satellites into orbit. The firm’s engine, called the Rutherford, is powered by an electric motor and is the first oxygen and hydrocarbon engine to use 3D printing for all its primary components. The New Zealand company is set to begin test flights this year and aims to launch weekly commercial operations next year. Read more
GE just 3D printed a jet engine—complete and functioning. It’s a pretty cool trick. The engine, about the size of a football, is a much-simplified version of something you might see on a commercial jet. But as we can’t fully 3D print one of those yet, this simpler design is used on RC planes instead of 747s.
GE is one of several aerospace players experimenting with industrial 3D printing. They’ve been using the tech to make finished parts for real jet engines too. Last year, for example, they said their CFM Leap engine would use 3D printed nozzles. Others, like SpaceX, are likewise using 3D printed parts in their creations. Read more
The Experimenters is an excellent new web series of animated interviews with some of the great minds and original thinkers of the last century. Its first episode highlights Buckminster Fuller, best known for his popularization of the geodesic dome—but also for being a one-of-a-kind thinker, inventor, and personality. Read more
Kyle Wiggers | Digital Trends
“The Star Trek replicator comes to mind when many people think about food synthesizers, but such a device would hardly be practical — a simple vegetable, like a tomato, would likely require tens of millions of different ingredient cartridges alone.” Read more
By Jason Dorrier — SingularityHub
There’s something almost alchemical going on at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Scientists there have genetically transformed skin cells into heart cells and used them to 3D print mini-organs that beat just like your heart. Another darker organoid fused to a mini-heart mimics your liver.
The work, developed by Anthony Atala and his Wake Forest team for the “Body on a Chip” project, aims to simulate bodily systems by microfluidically linking up miniature organs—hearts, livers, blood vessels, and lungs—and testing new drug treatments and chemicals or studying the effects of viruses on them.
Brian Krassenstein | 3D Print
“Speaking with former MakerBot CEO, Jenny Lawton, at CES this year, she told me that 3D printing will become mainstream and really begin to explode as far as adoption rates go, when a full cycle of education has been exposed to the technology.” Read more
