3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has advanced rapidly in recent years, allowing companies to quickly produce working prototypes and home hobbyists to produce various bits and bobs for the home. While plastic remains the dominant printing material, additive manufacturing with materials including metal, cement and even glass, enables the production of everything from tiny screws to engine components to entire houses ... and it's only just getting started.
A Russian firm has announced commencement on the world’s largest 3D construction printer, capable of printing an entire six-storey building before you can say “regulatory compliance”. The S–500 is the work of the AMT-SPETSAVIA group in Russia.
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Lockheed Martin is no stranger to 3D printing components, but now the company has created its largest piece to date – titanium domes to cap off satellite fuel tanks. Using additive manufacturing can help satellites be assembled faster and with less wasted materials.
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Some of the earliest houses in Northern Europe were made out of slabs of peat, as it was a cheap and abundant building material. Now, Estonian scientists are revisiting the idea of peat houses, only this time they're looking at 3D-printing the things.
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Prellis Biologics has brought the science fiction dream of printing human organs for transplant a step forward by developing a fast, high-resolution 3D printing technique that can produce living tissue that includes viable blood-carrying capillaries.
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Some day, it may be possible for tiny squishy robots to make their way through people's bodies, without being tethered to an external power supply or control unit. We've recently gotten a step closer to that being a reality, thanks to 3D-printing tech that produces magnetically-responsive devices.
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A collaboration between BMW and MIT's Self-Assembly Laboratory has produced a 3D-printed inflatable material that can change its shape and stiffness on command. It could be used in designing highly customizable and multifunctional car interiors.
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In a move that could one day lead to artificial transplant organs, a UCLA team has developed a new technique for printing complex bio-tissues using multiple materials. Using a specially modified 3D printer, it promises to one day create complex therapeutic biomaterials on demand.
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Australian company Titomic has unveiled what it claims is the world's largest metal 3D printer. Utilizing a patented process co-developed with Australian federal scientific research agency the CSIRO, the 3D metal printer boasts a build area 9 m long, 3 m wide and 1.5 m high (29.5 x 9.8 x 4.9 ft).
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As we discovered for ourselves during CES 2014, raising objects up from a flat surface using a 3D printing pen is not as easy as seasoned 3Doodlers make it look. Clearly, the earlier you start, the better. So WobbleWorks has launched educational creativity kits designed for use in schools.
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Inexpensive 3D printers often have a problem called "warpage," in which objects printed by them tend to curl up as they harden. Now, however, scientists have harnessed the power of warpage to create flat items that self-fold into predetermined 3D shapes when heated.
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