3D Printing

Construction robots have been around for a while. The new kid on this block is called Charlotte, and it's billed as being autonomously capable of building a 2,150-sq-ft home in a single day – operating at roughly the speed of 100 bricklayers.

This was my first time jumping into laser engraving, so I went in as a complete noob. I have a fair bit of 3D printing and Cricut experience, so I figured laser engraving would be a snap. Turns out, it is.

Driving 1,000 miles of public road to set five official production car lap records in five consecutive days is no mean feat. Certainly not for a car that has 3D-printed and machine-designed components. Well, the Czinger's 21C is just built different.

3D-printed housing continues to grow in popularity in the USA. The latest example of this consists of two 3D-printed homes in Colorado that showcase the impressive speed and resilience of the burgeoning construction technology.

Most 3D-printed houses we cover are either arranged on one floor or have an upper floor added later using a timber shell. However, this recent example was entirely 3D-printed across both floors in just 18 hours.

Icon has begun work on three affordable 3D-printed homes in Austin, Texas, for low-income individuals. Each of the residences features a compact layout, with a modern interior that's spread over two floors.

Anticipating a boom in nuclear energy, the US Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is using 3D-printing to speed up the building of power plants while bringing down costs.

Researchers in Australia have developed a titanium alloy that's 30% cheaper to produce than standard titanium, and is stronger and more ductile than other titanium alloys.

This remarkable house was built using 3D printing technology, but with a sustainable twist: instead of being constructed from concrete like the majority of 3D-printed buildings, it's predominantly made from a soil-based mixture.

The world's largest 3D-printed construction project is currently underway in Qatar. The effort involves printing a pair of schools, each of which smashes current records for a 3D-printed building.

While there are many uses for soft-bodied robots, the things are still only built in small batches. Scientists are out to change that, with a mass-production-capable soft bot that is 3D-printed in a single piece which walks off of the print bed.

Likened by its creators to an "ornate layered cake," the ambitious Tor Alva is the world's tallest 3D-printed building. The remarkable white tower took around 900 hours to print and rises to a height of almost 100 feet.