Matt Denton has been putting his 3D printer to good use again, possibly the only good use for those plastic-extruding machines. He’s super-sized all the pieces in Lego’s 1979 Technic Bulldozer set, which required over 600 hours of printing to recreate all 372 parts.
Stressed about job security? Worried about making ends meet? Super Mario might be a plumber, but do you ever see him fixing pipes? No, and why would he when his world is filled with random blocks that spew gold coins? Apparently hoping for an early retirement, hacker Jonathan Whalen attempted to build a real-life…
The most common types of 3D printing involve either extruding melted plastic or using a laser to solidify tiny particles, layer by layer, to slowly build up a solid object. But researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found a way to radically change that process by 3D…
If your wallet serves as more of a toolbox than a place to stash a few bucks, alongside a flat-pack knife and credit card-sized multi-tools, you can also slip in this super tiny, 3D-printed chess set. Compared to playing rock-paper-scissors, it’s a far more civilized way to make important decisions.
The plan to 3D-print a bridge in mid-air was always bonkers. How could a technology best known for creating flimsy prototypes and personalized action figures be used for permanent construction projects? Well, the team at MX3D in Amsterdam just answered all of the hard questions and revealed it: the world’s first…
When affordable 3D printers first hit the market, many predicted the machines—inspired by Star Trek’s replicators—would change the world as we know it. Many years later, the world doesn’t feel all that different, but now that I can shower under a water-spewing decapitated dragon, I’m declaring 3D printers humanity’s…
3D printers haven’t quite ushered in a new industrial revolution, but every day it seems there’s another irrational reason why you might consider buying one. As this soothing timelapse reveals, if you’ve got the patience to wait almost ten days, you could 3D print yourself an impressive replica of the Millennium Falcon
The 3D Print Guy has a brilliant YouTube gimmick: he 3D prints plastic figures, and then he animates them. This time, he sculpts and animates the sneakiest, most mischievous Rick of all: Tiny Rick.
Do you lean more towards the “trick” side of trick-or-treating? Do you, like 98 percent of the world, wonder who actually eats candy corn? If you answered “yes” to both, then head over to DragonflyFabrication’s Thingiverse page where you can download the plans for this double-barreled, wrist-mounted candy corn blaster.
How often do you actually get flowers and need a vase to put them in? On your birthday, maybe? When a family member passes? So why bother storing a rarely-used fancy vase when this clever 3D-printable plastic widget turns a party balloon into a decent place to keep a few flowers alive?
Imagine that every time you needed a prescription, you wandered on over to the pharmacy and a pharmacist printed you up your drugs on the spot. On-demand micro manufacturing would allow pharmacists to customize for dosage, for your own personal biology, or even to combine many pills into one dose. It’s a vision for…
They’ve been used by large companies for rapidly creating prototypes for at least a few decades, but finding a reason to put a 3D printer in every home hasn’t been as successful. Making accessories for your vacuum? Boring. Building pop bottle bridges? Meh. Super-sizing Lego? Hello holy grail of 3D printing.
Building a robot that can replicate everything a human can do is both impossibly complicated and expensive. So, researchers at the IT University of Copenhagen are taking the exact opposite approach: building incredibly simple robots, on-demand, that only do what humans can’t.
Researchers in Europe have created a soft artificial heart that mimics the real thing. It’s still not ready for prime time, but the approach, in which the developers used silicone and 3D-printing, could revolutionize the way patients with heart disease are treated.
Wave a high-powered laser around fast enough, and the human eye will perceive an image in the light trail left behind. That’s how laser projectors that cost thousands of dollars work, but it’s also how this cheap, 3D-printed plastic contraption turns a simple laser pointer into a full-on light show.
Pasta might not make you think “science.” But then again, you’ve probably haven’t shouted “holy shit” while you watched it curl up before your eyes.
Fertility has become a major target for regenerative medicine. What if, the thinking goes, science and medicine could be used to simply restore fertility to women who for one reason or another no longer have it? In mice, scientists have now done just that.
Scientists with the European Space Agency have shown that it’s possible to make durable bricks using simulated Moon dust and concentrated sunlight. A similar approach may eventually allow lunar colonists to 3D-print their own habitats and structures using materials found on the Moon.
The potential for 3D printing to revolutionize manufacturing is astounding—if the technology can overcome a few limitations. Researchers at MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab have come up with a novel way to both speed up the 3D printing process, and free it from the restrictions imposed by gravity.
Chain mail was an essential tool for medieval warriors hoping to avoid a quick (or slow) death by a sword. But NASA engineers hope a similar material, with a few modern upgrades, could prove to be just as useful for spacecraft and astronauts looking to survive the rigors of outer space.
