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In a bid to test the limits of 3-D printing technology, an audio tinkerer created a technique to convert digital audio files into a record that works on a turntable. The sound quality is scratchy, but should improve with advances in the printing technology. The 3-D printed record was created by Amanda Ghassaei, a tech editor at the project-sharing website Instructables.com. The technique "works by importing raw audio data, performing some calculations to generate the geometry of a record, and eventually exporting this geometry straight to a 3-D printable format," she explained in an article for Instructables.com. She used a resin printer called Object Connex500, which has some of the highest resolution for 3-D printing. Like other 3-D printers, it creates an object layer by layer. You can listen to a few tracks from the record here, including Nirvana’s "Smells like Teen Spirit." Even though the sound quality is an order of magnitude lower than a vinyl record, Ghassaei notes that we’re able to hear the song because evolution has fine-tuned our brains to filter out noise and focus on the important pieces of information.
Borrowing from microfabrication techniques used in the semiconductor industry, MIT and Harvard Medical School (HMS) engineers have developed a simple and inexpensive way to create three-dimensional brain tissues in a lab dish. The new technique yields tissue constructs that closely mimic the cellular composition of those in the living brain, allowing scientists to study how neurons form connections and to predict how cells from individual patients might respond to different drugs. The work also paves the way for developing bioengineered implants to replace damaged tissue for organ systems, according to the researchers. Brain tissue includes many types of neurons, including inhibitory and excitatory neurons, as well as supportive cells such as glial cells. All of these cells occur at specific ratios and in specific locations. To mimic this architectural complexity in their engineered tissues, the researchers embedded a mixture of brain cells taken from the primary cortex of rats into sheets of hydrogel. They also included components of the extracellular matrix, which provides structural support and helps regulate cell behavior. Those sheets were then stacked in layers, which can be sealed together using light to crosslink hydrogels. By covering layers of gels with plastic photomasks of varying shapes, the researchers could control how much of the gel was exposed to light, thus controlling the 3-D shape of the multilayer tissue construct. This type of photolithography is also used to build integrated circuits onto semiconductors — a process that requires a photomask aligner machine, which costs tens of thousands of dollars. However, the team developed a much less expensive way to assemble tissues using masks made from sheets of plastic, similar to overhead transparencies, held in place with alignment pins. The tissue cubes can be made with a precision of 10 microns, comparable to the size of a single cell body. At the other end of the spectrum, the researchers are aiming to create a cubic millimeter of brain tissue with 100,000 cells and 900 million connections. The new system is the first that includes all of the necessary features for building useful 3-D tissues: It is inexpensive, precise, and allows complex patterns to be generated, says Metin Sitti, a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “Many people could easily use this method for creating heterogeneous, complex gel structures,” says Sitti, who was not part of the research team.
American scientists have developed a hybrid printer that prints cartilage, which could one day be implanted into injured patients to help re-grow cartilage in areas such as the joints. The 3D tissue printer, featured in a study published in the journal Biofabrication by the Institute of Physics, is a mix of a traditional ink jet printer and an electrospinning machine. In this study, done by scientists at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, the hybrid system produced cartilage with better mechanical stability than those created by an ink jet printer. “This is a proof of concept study and illustrates that a combination of materials and fabrication methods generates durable implantable constructs,” said Dr. James Yoo, a professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and an author on the study. Other methods of making cartilage, such as robotic systems, are also being developed to improve implantable tissue. Key to the success of the hybrid printer is the electrospinning machine, which can generate very fine fibres from a polymer solution. The polymers can be easily controlled and made porous, which is important in getting real cartilage cells to integrate into the surrounding tissue. Researchers built cartilage by combining electrospun polymer with cartilage cells from a rabbit’s ear that were deposited using the traditional ink jet printer. The cartilage was tested on mice and after eight weeks it had developed the structures and properties of real cartilage, demonstrating its potential use in humans. In future, researchers say clinicians could develop cartilage specific to the needs of patients. For instance, an MRI scan of the body part, such as the knee, would provide a sort of blueprint and then matching cartilage could be created.
They’re soft, biocompatible, about 7 millimeters long – and, incredibly, able to walk by themselves. Miniature “bio-bots” developed at the University of Illinois are making tracks in synthetic biology. Designing non-electronic biological machines has been a riddle that scientists at the interface of biology and engineering have struggled to solve. The walking bio-bots demonstrate the Illinois team’s ability to forward-engineer functional machines using only hydrogel, heart cells and a 3-D printer. With an altered design, the bio-bots could be customized for specific applications in medicine, energy or the environment.
A design student has created what might be the lightest running shoe ever made. Luc Fusaro, who is also part of the team which designed the London 2012 podium, made the shoes while a student at the Royal College of Art in London. The shoes are custom-made for each athlete, and are produced using a 3D printer. Weighing just 90 grams, they are among the lightest ever made. Fusaro thinks they could be ready for competition by the 2016 games in Rio - and even the current prototypes could shave fractions off a 100m time. "The current mass-manufacturing process only allows to produce shoes with standard mechanical properties and geometries," his website explains. "Using the opportunities offered by additive manufacturing... opens up the possibility of whole new generation of athlete-specific footwear." French-born Fusaro previously studied General Engineering at Ecole Centrale Lyon - but also competed in athletics "at a national level" for a number of years. More fine-tuning is needed - the upper part of the shoe is reportedly too stiff and more comfort needs to be added. But Fusaro said they still showcase the "unlimited potential" of 3D technology. http://www.scoop.it/search?q=3d+printing&type=topic&page=1&limit=24
Via Floris Van Cauwelaert
Thanks to MRI techniques, you can see what a baby looks like before it's born. But now these images can also be used to peer inside the body of a fetus, generating a fly-through of internal tissues that rivals the view you would get from a video. http://tinyurl.com/b4k9wlz
Via Wildcat2030
DRM systems in the digital media world are nothing new and are utilized extensively in the music, movie and video games industries. Now, after applying four years ago, a company has this week obtained a patent for a DRM system that aims to stop future owners of 3D printers from printing whatever they like. The dream of downloading a new pair of sneakers or even a car might already be in jeopardy, before it’s even begun.
Via Rex Brodie, michel verstrepen, Sakis Koukouvis, Tudor Cosmatu
Spiderfab is a new concept introduced by NASA and Tethers Unlimited that could change the way that space craft are built in the near future. In theory it will be more efficient to build large structures in space rather than trying to find a launch vehicle large enough to accommodate such an undertaking of this scale. It will also be ideal for a situation in which the exact specifications of the parts needed is not known before liftoff. Tethers Unlimited was awarded $100,000 to develop the concept of space 3d printing further. Robert Hoyt, CEO of Tethers Unlimited said, “We’d like someday to be able to have a spacecraft create itself entirely from scratch, but realistically that’s quite a ways out.” ”That’s still science fiction.” Another private company called Made In Space has been studying the process of using additive manufacturing techniques. They have successfully printed tools in zero gravity. The next step, space. “3D printing and in-space manufacturing will dramatically change the way we look at space exploration, commercialization, and mission design today.” said Aaron Kemmer, CEO and Co-Founder of MADE IN SPACE. “The possibilities range from building on-demand parts for human missions to building large space habitats that are optimized for space.” Once the printers and material are set in space, missions will have the freedom to build what they need when they need it and not have to rely on transport from Earth. The company flew the printers in order to better understand how 3D printing works in a space-like environment.
Shapeways is a Philips spin-off company focused on bringing 3D rapid manufacturing technologies to main-stream consumers. Although they don’t sell any actual lighting fixtures, Shapeways offers an intriguing glimpse into the future of the lighting industry. Shapeways website is designed to enable non-3D-cad-savvy people to share in the possibilities of the technology. Shapeways has developed a series of “Creators“, small applets that allow people to design and order their own customized 3D printed objects, by simply adjusting the parameters or entering information, such as a string of text in the votive candle holder they call the “Light Poem.” Shapeways has also created a forum where designers can easily post their designs for sale, along with simple web-based technology to allow people to view and manipulate 3D content right on the website — without having to learn some complex and expensive 3D modeling software.
Research labs use many types of 3D printers to construct everything from fossil replicas to tissues of beating heart cells. Arthur Olson’s team at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, produces models of molecules; some are shown here partway through the printing process. Chemists and molecular biologists have long used models to get a feel for molecular structures and make sense of X-ray and crystallography data. Just look at James Watson and Francis Crick, who in 1953 made their seminal discovery of DNA's structure with the help of a rickety construction of balls and sticks. These days, 3D printing is being used to mock up far more complex systems, says Arthur Olson, who founded the molecular graphics lab at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, 30 years ago. These include molecular environments made up of thousands of interacting proteins, which would be onerous-to-impossible to make any other way. With 3D printers, Olson says, “anybody can make a custom model”. But not everybody does: many researchers lack easy access to a printer, aren't aware of the option or can't afford the printouts (which can cost $100 or more). Yet Olson says that these models can bring important insights. When he printed out one protein for a colleague, they found a curvy 'tunnel' of empty space running right through it. The conduit couldn't be seen clearly on the computer screen, but a puff of air blown into one side of the model emerged from the other. Determining the length of such tunnels can help researchers to work out whether, and how, those channels transport molecules. Doing that on the computer would have required some new code; with a model, a bit of string did the trick. 3D printer 'inks' aren't limited to plastic. Biologists have been experimenting with printing human cells — either individually or in multi-cell blobs — that fuse together naturally. These techniques have successfully produced blood vessels and beating heart tissue. The ultimate dream of printing out working organs is still a long way off — if it proves possible at all. But in the short term, researchers see potential for printing out 3D cell structures far more life-like than the typical flat ones that grow in a Petri dish.
Researchers have moved a step closer to creating a synthetic liver, after a US team created a template for blood vessels to grow into, using sugar. Scientists have long been experimenting with the 3D printing of cells and blood vessels, building up tissue structure layer by layer with artificial cells. But the synthetically engineered cells often die before the tissue is formed. The technology, in which a 3D printer uses sugar as its building material, could one day be used for transplants. So far, it's been difficult to make organs big enough so that they could provide useful function - and if you implant any tissue thicker than about a millimetre, we can't provide it enough nutrients without also engineering blood vessels into the tissue. Sugar is a very nice material that can be dissolved away in the presence of living tissue, it's very friendly to biological tissue and a 3D matrix out of sugar can be easily printed. You can use these types of biomaterials, cells or a combination of them, and a group of scientists has now correctly identified that the sticking point in all this is going to be vascularity - blood vessels - making sure that you've got sufficient nutrients going in and waste coming out of something that otherwise is going to be a solid block of tissue that cannot be maintained inside a living organism. http://tinyurl.com/827qtsq
There is great concern about China’s real-estate and infrastructure bubbles. But these are just short-term challenges that China may be able to spend its way out of. The real threat to China’s economy is bigger and longer term: its manufacturing bubble. Rising costs and political pressure aren’t what’s going to rapidly change the equation. The disruption will come from a set of technologies that are advancing at exponential rates and converging. These technologies include robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and nanotechnology. China has many reasons to worry, and manufacturing will undoubtedly return to the U.S. — if not in this decade then early in the next. But the same jobs that left the U.S. won’t come back: they won’t exist.
A 3D printing show in London later this year will offer visitors the chance to have their complete body scanned and printed.
Via 3d Print
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Prototypes of what would be the world's first fully 3D-printable plastic weapon could go into testing before the end of the year, the organization behind the controversial project has claimed. "We're ready," said Cody Wilson, a spokesman for Defense Distributed, the company that hopes to manufacture the "Wiki Weapon". "We're sitting on the logistics, time, resources and money. We're just waiting on a little piece of paper." That little piece of paper is a federal firearms license , the permit that is needed to legally make and manufacture firearms in the United States. Barring an unexpected issue, Wilson expects the license will be granted within the next two or three weeks. Initially, the group planned to create prototypes without a license, but after the media discovered the Wiki Weapon, the group has been under increased scrutiny and several problems have threatened to derail the project.
Scientists are developing new materials which could one day allow people to print out custom-designed personal electronics such as games controllers which perfectly fit their hand shape. The University of Warwick researchers have created a simple and inexpensive conductive plastic composite that can be used to produce electronic devices using the latest generation of low-cost 3D printers designed for use by hobbyists and even in the home. The material, nicknamed ‘carbomorph’, enables users to lay down electronic tracks and sensors as part of a 3D printed structure – allowing the printer to create touch-sensitive areas for example, which can then be connected to a simple electronic circuit board. So far the team has used the material to print objects with embedded flex sensors or with touch-sensitive buttons such as computer game controllers or a mug which can tell how full it is. The next step is to work on printing much more complex structures and electronic components including the wires and cables required to connect the devices to computers. The research was led by Dr. Simon Leigh in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick. Dr. Leigh said: “It’s always great seeing the complex and intricate models of devices such as mobile phones or television remote controls that can be produced with 3D printing, but that’s it, they are invariably models that don’t really function. “We set about trying to find a way in which we could actually print out a functioning electronic device from a 3D printer. “In the long term, this technology could revolutionalise the way we produce the world around us, making products such as personal electronics a lot more individualised and unique and in the process reducing electronic waste. “Designers could also use it to understand better how people tactilely interact with products by monitoring sensors embedded into objects. “However, in the short term I can see this technology having a major impact in the educational sector for example, allowing the next generation of young engineers to get hands-on experience of using advanced manufacturing technology to design fairly high-tech devices and products right there in the classroom.” The printed sensors can be monitored using existing open-source electronics and freely available programming libraries. A major advantage of using 3D printing is that sockets for connection to equipment such as interface electronics can be printed out instead of connected using conductive glues or paints.
3D printers – it’s a word that offers glimpses into the future that seems so far, and yet is so close. The technology, which allows you to replicate 3D objects the same way you make a photo copy, has been around for a couple years now, but, for the most part, has been far too expensive and inaccessible to the public. But now, what’s being called the world’s first 3D printing photo booth is set to open for a limited time at the exhibition space EYE OF GYRE in Harajuku. From November 24 to January 14, 2013, people with reservations can go and have their portraits taken. Except, instead of a photograph, you’ll receive miniature replicas of yourselves.
Saul Schleimer, a mathematician at the University of Warwick, and Henry Segerman, a mathematician at the University of Melbourne, are the co-creators of the Thirty Cell puzzle. They are both theoretical math researchers who also enjoy using 3-D printing—a technique for manufacturing a three-dimensional object from a computer program—to create mathematical art and visualizations. (In August, Scientific American featured some of Segerman’s sculptures in a slide show from the Bridges math-art conference.) This puzzle is a projection of a four-dimensional shape into our three-dimensional world. To explain how the projection was created, Schleimer brings it down a dimension and starts with a three-dimensional cube. Imagine a cube sitting inside a sphere. Now put yourself at the middle, holding a flashlight. The light projects all the edges and vertices out to the surface of the sphere. “We replace the usual cube that we know and love with a roundy cube on the sphere,” says Schleimer. This process is called radial projection. Segerman and Schleimer use the company Shapeways to print their models. They use programs such as Python, Adobe Illustrator and Rhino to create files of an object that they send to Shapeways to translate into very precise 3-D models. Shapeways uses the computer files to program a laser to fuse powders into the shape of a 3-D object. It can even print objects with multiple interlinked components, such as the the fidget above. Another popular type of 3D printer, MakerBot, melts new layers of a material over previously deposited ones, so the models must be supported during the entire process. Shapeways doesn’t have that constraint, but its printers are more expensive. The company lets people upload their models and then ships the printed material out to them, rather than having users own printers themselves.
After being shot in the face by a poacher seven years ago, Beauty the bald eagle lost most of her beak. Without it, the eagle couldn’t feed herself, and likely would have died in the wild. But now, Beauty’s getting a second chance at survival in the form of a 3D printed beak. A team of researchers, engineers and dentists created the world’s first prosthetic beak, which was modeled with CAD software and 3D-printed from nylon polymers. After a two-hour-long procedure, Beauty can now eat and drink by herself, though she’s not ready to be released back into the wild. The eagle remains at Birds of Prey Northwest, the conservation facility that spearheaded the recovery project.
Via Gust MEES
DUS Architects of Amsterdam has launched the world's largest 3D printer, the KamerMaker, which is capable of fabricating room-sized structures from bio-plastic.
Via Rex Brodie
Tissue engineers have succeeded in making artificial organs that use a patient’s cells to become a living part of the body, with hope for eventual organ regeneration. So far, only a few organs have been made and transplanted, and they are relatively simple, hollow ones — like bladders and Mr. Beyene’s windpipe, which was implanted in June 2011. But scientists around the world are using similar techniques with the goal of building more complex organs. At Wake Forest University in North Carolina, for example, where the bladders were developed, researchers are working on kidneys, livers and more. Labs in China and the Netherlands are among many working on blood vessels. The work of these new body builders is far different from the efforts that produced artificial hearts decades ago. Those devices, which are still used temporarily by some patients awaiting transplants, are sophisticated machines, but in the end they are only that: machines. Tissue engineers aim to produce something that is more human. They want to make organs with the cells, blood vessels and nerves to become a living, functioning part of the body. Some, like Dr. Macchiarini, want to go even further — to harness the body’s repair mechanisms so that it can remake a damaged organ on its own. Researchers are making use of advances in knowledge of stem cells, basic cells that can be transformed into types that are specific to tissues like liver or lung. They are learning more about what they call scaffolds, compounds that act like mortar to hold cells in their proper place and that also play a major role in how cells are recruited for tissue repair. Tissue engineers caution that the work they are doing is experimental and costly, and that the creation of complex organs is still a long way off. But they are increasingly optimistic about the possibilities.
Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a novel technology that can fabricate, in mere seconds, microscale three dimensional (3D) structures out of soft, biocompatible hydrogels. Near term, the technology could lead to better systems for growing and studying cells, including stem cells, in the laboratory. Long-term, the goal is to be able to print biological tissues for regenerative medicine. For example, in the future, doctors may repair the damage caused by heart attack by replacing it with tissue that rolled off of a printer. The biofabrication technology, called dynamic optical projection stereolithography (DOPsL), was developed in the laboratory of NanoEngineering Professor Shaochen Chen. Current fabrication techniques, such as photolithography and micro-contact printing, are limited to generating simple geometries or 2D patterns, while stereolithography can print large objects such as tools and car parts. The new biofabrication technique uses a computer projection system and precisely controlled micromirrors to shine light on a selected area of a solution containing photo-sensitive biopolymers and cells. This photo-induced solidification process forms one layer of solid structure at a time, but in a continuous fashion.
Sneakey - A system that can create duplicates of keys from photos. The SNEAKEY system correctly decoded the keys from a high resolution image that was taken from the rooftop of a four floor building. The inlay shows the image that was used for decoding while the background provides a context for the extreme distances that our system can operate from. In this case the image was taken from 195 feet. This demonstration shows that a motivated attacker can covertly steal a victim's keys without fear of detection. The SNEAKEY system provides a compelling example of how digital computing techniques can breach the security of even physical analog systems in the real-world.
3-D printers can make airplanes and their parts, food and more — why not entire buildings? A professor at the University of Southern California aims to print out whole houses, using layers of concrete and adding plumbing, electrical wiring and other guts as it moves upward.
Behrokh Khoshnevis is a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and is the Director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California (USC). He is active in CAD/CAM, robotics and mechatronics related related research projects that include the development of novel Solid Free Form, or Rapid Prototyping, processes (Contour Crafting and SIS), automated construction of civil structures, development of CAD/CAM systems for biomedical applications (e.g., restorative dentistry, rehabilitation engineering, haptics devices for medical applications), autonomous mobile and modular robots for assembly applications in space, and invention of technologies in the field of oil and gas. His research in simulation has aimed at creating intelligent simulation tools that can automatically perform many simulation functions that are conventionally performed by human analysts. His textbook, "Discrete Systems Simulation", and his simulation software EZSIM benefit from some aspects of his research in simulation. He routinely conducts lectures and seminars on invention and technology development.
It would use a movable gantry taller than the house you want to build. Concrete pours out and is set down layer by layer, like a typical 3-D printer would sinter plastic together. It could be ideal for emergency housing, commercial or low-income structures, but it could also be used to print out customized luxury homes, according to Khoshnevis. Or, he adds, it might be ideal for the moon or Mars. “Contour Crafting technology has the potential to build safe, reliable, and affordable lunar and Martian structures, habitats, laboratories, and other facilities before the arrival of human beings,” his website reads. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdbJP8Gxqog
Printing electronics requires “inks” with electrical properties that can act as conductors, resistors or semiconductors. These inks are becoming more versatile. One example comes from Xerox, an American firm which makes office equipment and commercial printing systems. Its research centre in Canada has developed a silver ink which can be used to print flexible electronic circuits directly onto materials like plastic or fabrics. Silver is a better conductor of electricity than copper, which is typically used in circuits, but silver is expensive and tricky to print because it melts at 962°C. However, by making silver into particles just five nanometres (billionths of a metre) in size, Xerox has produced a silver ink which melts at less than 140°C. That allows it to be printed using inkjet and other processes relatively cheaply, says Paul Smith, the director of research at the laboratory. Only minuscule quantities of silver are used and there is no waste, unlike chemical-etching processes. Xerox’s PARC research centre in Palo Alto, California, is developing ways to use such inks. These can print circuits for various components, including flexible display screens, sensors and antennae for radio-frequency security tags. With the emergence of additive-manufacturing techniques, it starts to become possible to print such things directly onto the product itself, says Janos Veres, the manager of PARC’s printed-electronics team. That includes products with complex shapes. Optomec, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has developed additive-manufacturing systems for a variety of industries. It can print electronics directly onto a pair of glasses, for “augmented reality”; it can make a plastic water tank that uses embedded electronics to measure how full it is and turn pumps on or off; it can print sensors on military armour; or an antenna on the case of a mobile phone.
Three-dimensional printers are opening up new worlds to research. Research labs use many types of 3D printers to construct everything from fossil replicas to tissues of beating heart cells. Arthur Olson’s team at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, produces models of molecules; some are shown here partway through the printing process. Christoph Zollikofer witnessed the first birth of a Neanderthal in the modern age. In his anthropology lab at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in 2007, the skull of a baby Homo neanderthalensis emerged from a photocopier-sized machine after a 20-hour noisy but painless delivery of whirring motors and spitting plastic. This modern miracle had endured a lengthy gestation: it took years for Zollikofer's collaborators to find suitable bones from a Neanderthal neonate, analyse them with a computed-tomography (CT) scanner and digitally stitch them together on the computer screen. The labour, however, was simple: Zollikofer just pressed 'print' on his lab's US$50,000 three-dimensional (3D) printer. A pioneer in the use of 3D printing for research, Zollikofer started 20 years ago with a prototype that was even more expensive and required toxic materials and solvents — limitations that put off most scientists. But now newer, cheaper technology is catching on. Just as an inkjet printer sprays ink onto a page line by line, many modern 3D devices spray material — usually plastic — layer by layer onto a surface, building up a shape. Others fuse solid layers out of a vat of liquid or powdered plastic, often using ultraviolet or infrared light. Any complex shape can be printed, sometimes with the help of temporary scaffolding that is later dissolved or chipped away. These days, personal kits go for as little as $500, says Terry Wohlers, a consultant and market analyst based in Fort Collins, Colorado — although industrial systems cost an average of $73,000. Last year, he says, nearly 30,000 printers were sold worldwide, with academic institutions buying one-third of those in the $15,000–30,000 price range.
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This is an amazing find to an extent. Being able to reinact the use of older technology and transform it into new technology. Old vinyl records can be hard to come by and now there is a path being paved to potentially bring those classics back to life now and even more advanced in the future. This will allow future musicials to use even more mediums to transfer their music to in order to spread and sell their product.
I scooped this because it was very interesting to me . For now the sound quality of this printed record may be scratchy but with the speed that technology is moving I don't believe it will be long before that changes.
Because Albums are making a come back perfecting a 3-D record printer could have big effect on the audio industry. For the professional it would mean another form of media that they may be able to make a profit from. And to the consumers it will be another way to do-it-your-self.