3D Printing- The Technology of the Future

3D Printing- The Technology of the Future

What would you print if you had a printer that could print anything? In England a technician scans the feet and ankles of Olympic sprinters and puts the data into a computer. The computer does a few quick calculations. The technician 3D prints new track shows that are customized for each athlete's unique body shape and weight, gait and tastes. 3D printing opens up new frontiers. Manufacturing and business as usual will be disrupted as regular people gain access to power of design and production. Intellectual property will be brought to its knees. In the not-so-distant future, people will 3D print living tissue, nutritionally calibrated food, and ready-made, fully assembled electronic components.

            Printers come in two varieties. There's one which takes your paper and feeds it out with what you've printed. It prints in 2-D and can print out, say, a picture of a square. The other one I'm m going to be talking about. It's more interesting and can/ may save lives and can/may change the world. Having the name of 3-D printing, it can print 3-D objects (hence the name "3-D printer"). It can print that square that a "2-D printer" can make into a cube. It adds a third dimension to everything it can print. And it doesn't only print simple stuff. It can print out manmade organs, cars, and even food.

            3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material. A 3-D printer can print something with length, width and height. And yeah, if you print ink on paper over and over again, it'll still stay flat. Its true- ink is not very useful for printing. But think about it- if you cut out that black square, put it down and then put another black square on top of that, and continue, it will start to look like a cube! And that's how 3-D printers work. They layer a layer on each of them, one at a time. They use melted plastic to do this (not all do, though). Using motors, they apply plastic to a flat surface, something similar to squeezing icing on top of a cake. They work similar to inkjet printers, only they don't use ink, to sum it up.

            3D printers have many components to do their job. This makes these printers expensive. You can decide on an initial cost, ease of assembly and tech support, operating system compatibility, cost and type of filament, resolution/ nozzle diameter, and print bed size leveling. Printers cost around $1000- $3000, although some kit that require you to build the printer cost as low as $300. The 3D printers I’m talking about are the ones that print small trinkets, souvenirs, and things like that. 3D printers that print food and other expensive things (such as rocket components) can cost you a fortune. In addition to that, printers need a computer to do their job. Computers give the printer the instructions. Without a computer, the printer is paralyzed. You can download 3D printing software such as Tinkercad to work your 3D printer.

            The Eiffel Tower cost 8 million francs, which would be 1 886 677.50 Canadian dollars at that time. It would take Canada $50 311 399.89 to build that same structure today. Imagine all that iron and paint to build the Eiffel Tower. What if there was a mistake? Clearly it would be a disaster.  But the architects were smart and so were the construction workers.  Physical models and digital both cost time and money, but unlike physical models, digital models can be easily modified once you make a mistake.

            3D printing is not a new technology. It started in 1983 where Charles Hull was using UV light to harden tabletop coatings. Hull coined the term "stereolithography" (big word) in his U.S. Patent 4 575 330 (big number) given the name “Apparatus for Production of Three-Dimensional Objects by Stereolithography” issued on March 11, 1986. Stereolithography is a printing process that enables a tangible 3D object to be created from digital data. The technology is used to create a 3D model from a picture and allows users to actually test it before going on to do some bigger things that will cost them a lot of money. In 1992, the first SLA (stereolithographic apparatus) machine is produced by 3D systems(as you can tell by the name, it is a company which manufactures 3D printers).  Developed by scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, in 1999, they engineered organs which bring new advances to medicine, including printing them. What made it interesting though is that the organs are made with the patient's own cells, so there's no risk of rejection. In 2002, scientists engineer a miniature functional kidney that is able to filter blood and produce diluted urine in an animal. Dr. Adrian Bowyer at University of Bath founds RepRap an open-source initiative to build a 3D printer that can print most of its own components, in 2005.  On 2006, the ­first SLS (selective laser sintering) machine becomes viable. This type of machine uses a laser to fuse materials into 3D products. This breakthrough opens the door to mass customization and on-demand manufacturing of industrial parts, and later, prostheses. The RepRap project , following its launch in 2005, releases Darwin, the first self-replicating printer. This is helpful because a guy who wants to make a printer for his friends can print out a 3D printer for his friends in 2008. That same year, Shapeways launches a private beta for a new co-creation service and community allowing artists, architects and designers to make their 3D designs as physical objects inexpensively. In 2009, you can build your own 3D printer instead of buying it pre-made. Also, Bioprinting innovator Organovo, relying on Dr. Gabor Forgacs’s technology, uses a 3D bioprinter to print the ­first blood vessel. In 2011, three major things in the term of 3D printing happened. The world’s first 3D printed robotic aircraft and the world’s first 3D printed car were done.  3D printing in gold silve3r also became possible. Three years ago, the first 3D-printed prosthetic jaw is implanted. These days you can 3D print just about anything- a wrist splint, a figurine that looks just like you, even components for rockets. Now food is here. One start-up, natural Machines, began printing savory meals like ravioli and pizza in the fall of 2013. Over in Germany, the 13-year-old company Biozoon has started printing easy-to-swallow pureed foods for senior citizens, molded to look like the real thing. And 3D systems will launch two commercial food printers, the ChefJet and the ChefJet Pro. As you can see 3D printing has been developing for decades.

I used to think 3D printing was not too interesting.  I was chosen to go to a city-wide science fair, and that meant high schoolers would come too. They did some pretty interesting things. One school did 3D printing, and then I thought it was pretty interesting. After doing this report, I found 3D printing could do quite a bit of things. 3D printing can print out prosthetic legs, arms, jaws, finger, and so on. In the future, you may wear 3D printed clothes, live in a 3D printed house, live in a 3D printed car, have a 3D printed robot servant, eat 3D printed food, enjoy 3D printed art, and so on. 3D printers can print almost anything. It will help us by printing things inexpensively and maybe send 3D printed food to people in poor countries(not now, that’s for sure). At the same time, 3D printed body parts can save countless lives by bringing abilities not otherwise with 3D printed body parts. Meanwhile, we will see better and more diverse materials coming to market as well as better printers with increased printing speed at reduced cost. 3D printing will make its way to many more classrooms in education as it’s the best maker tool to create objects and prototypes. And we will probably see Apple, Google or Amazon coming up with an own 3D-printers as soon as the consumer market is ready to burst.

As you can see, 3D printing is an amazing thing in this world. While we see 3D printing evolving, helping many people saving countless lives, this technology may save our world.  Be on the lookout for 4D printing- Skylar Tibbits is shaping the next development, to which they call 4D printing- where the fourth dimension is time. This emerging technology will allow us to print objects that then reshape themselves or self-assemble over time. Think: a printed cube that folds before your eyes, or a printed pipe able to sense the need to expand or contract. But going that far is too advanced now, but remember, the technology of this world is changing.

           

 Works Cited

Kelly, James F. 3D Printing: Build Your Own 3D Printer and Print Your Own 3D Objects. Que, 2014. Print.

Floyd Kelly, James. 3D Modelling and Printing with Tinkercad. Que, 2014. Print.

"A BRIEF HISTORY OF 3D PRINTING." Infographics.com. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. <http://individual.troweprice.com/staticFiles/Retail/Shared/PDFs/3D_Printing_Infographic_FINAL.pdf>.

DE WAELE, RUDY. "How 3D Printing Will Impact Your Future." TNW Network All Stories RSS. The Next Web, Inc, 20 Sept. 2014. Web. 4 Feb. 2015. <http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/09/20/3d-printing-will-impact-future-rundown-companies-keep-eyes/2/>.

"The Emergence of "4D Printing"" Skylar Tibbits:. Web. 4 Feb. 2015. <https://www.ted.com/talks/skylar_tibbits_the_emergence_of_4d_printing?language=en>.

Lipson, Hod, and Melba Kurman. Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing. Indianapolis, Indiana: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Print.

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