Science
Related: About this forumThe disruptive future of {3D} printing (BBC)
Imagine a school where a student could sketch out an idea for a new design of bicycle and not only draw it in 3D using a computer-aided design package but actually create a scale-model and test it out, using inexpensive materials and a special printer that they can build themselves in the classroom.
That's the vision put forward by Ben O'Steen, a software engineer with a social conscience who is thinking about the implications of a world where 3D printers are no longer just expensive prototyping systems for large companies but have fallen into the hands of the masses.
He has been inspired by the RepRap, a desktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic parts by extruding a heated thermoplastic polymer under computer control, which then sets as it cools and makes a usable object.
The RepRap project was started in 2005 by Adrian Bowyer, who teaches mechanical engineering at Bath University.
The schematics and all aspects are freely licensed for anyone to implement or adapt, and the current version, called "Mendel", can be built for around £350.
It makes objects from a cheap plastic made from corn starch, so is well within school budgets.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10089419
http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.thingiverse.com/
FSogol
(45,520 posts)and then you can print most of the parts to build more.
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]One by one, they're all coming true. I love it!
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)"That's why they call you Bones, right?"
silverweb
(16,402 posts)HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)Just kidding. I made that up.
silverweb
(16,402 posts)HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)...on the show"
-- Galaxy Quest
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)Jean V. Dubois
(101 posts)3D printers can't make a complete gun...yet...but they can certainly make gun parts, including high-capacity magazines. The implications are interesting.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)I love them, but if there isn't a concerted attempt to outlaw them in the next few years I'll be (pleasantly) astonished. People gotta keep the fear engines at speed, dontchaknow.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)There are much more sophisticated commercial printers available, the ones that cost like $75K. A company in Europe called Shapeways uses them to 3D print objects in glass, steel, gold, silver, and other materials. They refuse to print copyrighted or trademarked objects, but I'm wondering what will happen when the quality of items they produce is available on everyone's desktop...
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,354 posts)but a lot of designs require more sophisticated materials than thermoplastics.
originalpckelly
(24,382 posts)SLS.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)...will be the ones selling innovative sex-toy designs.
"Hon, I've downloaded Shane Diesel's prick design. Do you want anything special done to it before I hit 'Print'?"
"Could you make it bumpy?"
"Yeah, no problem. Gimme a few minutes to add them. You want a lot or a little?"
originalpckelly
(24,382 posts)you can do all kinds of things.
I never thought about it, but you really are right. That's something people want, but might not want to go to a store to get.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)...things were custom made. If you wanted a stool, you made a stool. If you wanted 5 stools, you made a stool and a stool and a stool and a stool and a stool. None of the parts of one were directly interchangeable with another.
Then came precision measuring and mechanization, and we got mass production. Now you could make a bin full of stool seats, another bin full of stool legs, and a third bin full of stool leg cross-members. If you needed 5 stools, or 500, you just took them out of the parts bin and assembled them.
Now we're stepping into the realm of mass-customization.