6 futuristic 3D printed clothes!

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/04/6-futuristic-3d-printed-clothes/

6 futuristic 3D-printed clothes

3D printing is revolutionizing the way we make things, from buildings and cars to medical devices. But that’s not all: Many forward-thinking designers in the fashion industry are using 3D printers to cut down on material waste and explore new possibilities for unique and exciting designs. Read on to learn about some of the most advanced 3D-printed clothes and wearables that they’ve cooked up.

References:

engadget.com

by Inhabitat | September 4th 2015 At 2:00pm

http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/04/6-futuristic-3d-printed-clothes/

3D printed models for kids’ operations

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/01/boston-childrens-hospital-3d-printing/

Surgeons practice on 3D-printed models for kids’ operations

Surgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital started using 3D-printed copies of patients’ affected body parts to prepare for procedures last year. Now, that move has helped save the lives of four children aged two months to 16 years old who suffered from life-threatening blood vessel malformation in their brains. Their condition gave ride to distinctive anatomies that one of the hospital’s neurosurgeon, Edward Smith, said were really tricky to operate on. So, the doctors used a combination of 3D printing and synthetic resins to conjure up copies of the kids’ deformed vessels, along with nearby normal counterparts and surrounding brain anatomy. That gave them the chance to practice extensively beforehand and reduce possible complications on the operating table.

Smith said the models allowed them to “view [the formations] from different angles, practice the operation with real instruments and get tactile feedback.” It was especially beneficial for three of the four patients, as they had arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) — their arteries and veins were all tangled up – that required the surgeons to cut blood vessels as quickly as possible, and in a certain sequence. Thanks to their preparations, the surgeons managed to fix the kids’ distorted blood vessels and cut surgery time by 30 minutes each. Smith and his colleague Darren Orbach now plan to use 3D printing to train younger doctors and for even trickier cases in the future.

engadget.com

by Mariella Moon | August 1st 2015 At 3:33am

3D printed villas and Earth like planets

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/26/3d-printed-villas-earth-like-planets/

Inhabitat's Week in Green

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: 3D-printed villas and Earth-like planets

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

NASA dropped a bombshell this past week: The Kepler Space Telescope has discovered the most Earth-like planet to date. The rocky planet is slightly larger and warmer than our world, but it orbits a star and has the right conditions for liquid water. Meanwhile, the search for alien life goes on — and Stephen Hawking gave his support to a $100 million project seeking to find out if we’re alone in the universe. Exploring distant worlds is a challenging endeavor — last week NASA proposed a novel robotic spacecraft that could harvest wind energy while surveying gas giants like Jupiter. And the Smithsonian Institution launched a Kickstarter to save Neil Armstrong’s moon landing space suit, which is starting to fall apart after years of storage.

What if you could point a gadget at an apple and instantly know how much sugar it contained? That’s the promise of SCiO, a tiny hand-held device that can measure the molecular footprint of virtually any object. In other tech news, designer Kristof Retezár created an amazing gadget that harvests water from the air while you ride your bike so you don’t have to stop for fill-ups. MIT researchers demonstrated a water filter made from a tree branch that can remove 99 percent of E.coli bacteria. And researchers developed a 3D-printed bottle cap that can tell you if the milk’s gone bad before you take a sip.

3D printing is also progressing on the macro scale — last week a Chinese company showed just how far 3D-printed architecture has come by assembling an entire villa in less than three hours. If you’re looking for something even more futuristic, we present you with the Skysphere — a solar-powered home in the clouds that responds to the sound of your voice. City dwellers will swoon at this tiny apartment that packs an entire two-bedroom house into a single space. The secret? A hidden bed that drops down from the ceiling. And just for fun, we showcased the work of Nathan Sawaya, who makes incredible large-scale Lego sculptures of comic heroes and villains.

References:

engadget.com

by Inhabitat  | July 26th 2015 At 10:00am

http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/26/3d-printed-villas-earth-like-planets/

3D printed clothes!

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/20/3d-printing-clothes-electroloom/

3D printing your own clothes just became (kinda) a reality

Unless the technology, somehow, proves to be drastically limited, 3D printing is likely to the genesis of a manufacturing revolution. Now, a team in San Francisco believes that it has taken another leap towards our utopian future by building a “3D printer” for our clothes. The team behind Electroloom hope that, a few years down the line, instead of trips to H&M, you’ll be ducking into your basement with a set of drawings the next time you need a new outfit.

Essentially, the Electroloom is a plastic box that can hold a thin metal template, for instance a crudely crafted tank top. Then, a customized mix of liquid polyester and cotton is passed through an electrically charged nozzle and spun into nano-fibers. These fibers are then drawn towards the 2D template, where they bind to each other to form a very thin, but very strong fabric. Even though they’re quite crude, the resulting “clothes” have no seams or stitching, making them much stronger than your average t-shirt. If there’s one downside, it’s that the terminally impatient will have to wait between eight and 16 hours for their clothes to form. Of course, given the various ethical and environmental issues that surround fashion providers, on-the-go clothes manufacturing seems like an easy win.

The company is looking to raise $50,000 in funding on Kickstarter, and much like Oculus and some other high-profile startups, Electroloom isn’t offering this as a consumer product. Instead, it’s offering Alpha versions of its hardware for designers, inventors and creators in the hope of improving the system. If you’re prepared to chip in $4,500 (told you), then you’ll get a prototype, complete with 1.5 liters of solution that, the company promises, is enough to produce 7 beanies, 4 tank tops or 3 skirts. You’ll be able to buy more liquid when you run out, but Electroloom doesn’t yet know how much it’ll cost you.

engadget.com

by Daniel Cooper | May 20th 2015 At 2:47pm

First 3D printed battery

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/15/rocket-lab-rutherford-engine/

Startup launches first 3D printed battery – powered rocket (update)

Rocket Lab is a Lockheed Martin-funded startup that dreams of taking small satellites to space for an affordable price — but it wants to do so using technology quite different than usual. See, the company has revealed that its engine called the “Rutherford” is (1) composed mostly of 3D-printed parts, and (2) uses batteries instead of liquid fuel. It will be paired up with the company’s Electron launch system, and together they make up the first battery-powered rocket, or so the startup claims. Its batteries power the turbopumps that deliver propellant to the engine.*

The company says it takes merely three days to print the components of the Rutherford engine out of titanium and other alloys, using an advanced form of 3D printing called “electron beam melting.” (If those components are manufactured via traditional means, it will take up to a month instead.) That means Rocket Labs’, well, rockets can be manufactured faster and will cost clients less money per launch. In fact, the startup believes it will cost only around $4.9 million to send the 65 feet x 3 feet system to space, carrying a payload that weighs up to 220 pounds. It plans to start ferrying satellites and other payloads out there in 2016.

Update: As many of you pointed out, the Rutherford-Electron rocket doesn’t use electric propulsion and still uses liquid fuel like typical rockets. We apologize for the confusion. [Thanks, Nik and RiotingSpectre].

engadget.com

by Mariella Moon | April 15th 2015 At 2:02pm

3D printable records

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

3D printable records that work on standard turntables!!

Although the quality and design needs improvement, this development means that we might all have an excuse to bust out our (grand)parents’ dusty record players and print our own tunes! 🙂

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/21/3d-printed-record/

3D printed record puts a new spin on digital music

3D printed record puts a new spin on digital music (video)
If you thought downloading music from the internet had nothing new to offer, think again. One of the tech editors over at Instructables — Amanda Ghassaei — has put a new twist on the digital delivery of music by 3D printing a record. Ghassaei developed a technique that converts digital audio files into 3D printable (33 rpm) grooved plastic discs, that actually play on regular turntables. Not only that, she printed some functioning prototypes as proof of concept. The printer used was relatively high-resolution, with 600 dpi on the x/y axes, and layers just 16 microns thick, but the audio quality is still somewhat low — 11KHz, with a 5 – 6bit resolution. The important thing, however, is that it worked — highlighting even more uses for the burgeoning technology. Want to know what it sounds like? Skip the needle past the break for a lo-fi (or is it “warmer”) demo that includes Nirvana, New Order, Daft Punk and more. Want to make your own? Head to the source for the blow-by-blow instructions.
ENGADGET.COM
by James Trew | @itstrew | December 21st 2012 At 7:15am