3D printing

No, this isn’t a petrified bowl of spaghetti — it’s what the white matter in your brain looks like. The Franklin Institute 3D-printed this remarkably complex model for a new exhibit. Skeptics said it couldn’t be done, but the finished product accurately reflects the 2,000 strands of nerve cells found in the brain.

This New Nanomaterial Can Withstand Forces 160,000 Times Its Weight

MIT engineers have taken inspiration from architecture to create a new material that combines high stiffness with low weight—by using a repeating geometric structure that’s airy, yet remarkably strong. The new material design has been developed in a collaboration with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and uses microlattices with nanoscale features to combine “great stiffness…

Okay Fine, the 3Doodler Can Do At Least One Cool Thing

After trying it out at CES earlier this year, we weren’t completely blown away with what the 3Doodler—a sort of handheld 3D printer—was capable of. Producing anything remotely recognizable requires an enormous amount of time and patience, which Matt Butchard must have in spades since he used the pen to create a 3D-printed model plane…

The Problem With 3D Printing in Space

Recently, NASA’s been toying with the idea of 3D-printed spacecrafts, and the prospect alone has fans of the medium positively giddy. But in our 3D-printing-for-space frenzy, we’ve overlooked the simplest problem of all: Imperfect surfaces and outer space don’t mix. The potential of 3D printing in space is phenomenal. Not only does the process itself…

Inside Shapeways, the 3D-Printing Factory of the Future

When you walk into the Shapeways headquarters in a sprawling New York City warehouse building, it doesn’t feel like a factory. It’s something different, somehow unforgettable, inevitably new. As it should be. This is one of the world’s first full service 3D-printing factories, and it’s not like any factory I’ve ever seen. Founded in the…

These Tiny Robots Are Designed To 3D Print Whole Buildings

By now, large-scale 3D printing has been around for a few years. (Crazy, right?) But there’s always been one big problem with existing technology: The printers need to be larger than the structures themselves. That’s a problem that a team of researchers say they can solve with swarms of tiny robots. The innovative thinkers at…

A 3D-Printed Squeezable Ping-Pong Ball That Won’t Dent

Even if you’ve got the table, some choice paddles, and enough room to play, a game of ping-pong can still be undone if you can’t find a tiny plastic ball that isn’t dented. Table tennis balls are notoriously easy to damage, rendering them useless to play with, which is what inspired Philipp Günther to create…

​​​​This 3D-Printed Dress Reveals More Skin As You Reveal More Data

Two NYU students have created a “wearable sculpture” that uses a mobile app to adjust the fabric’s opacity based upon how much information you share about yourself — knowingly and unknowingly — on sites such as Google and Facebook. The more transparent you are, the more “transparent” you become. It’s a project that brings new…

MakerBot has a new iOS app out that lets you track your 3D-printed projects from afar. You can see an image of what’s being built in real-time, you know, so you don’t end up with colossal failures like these.

A 3D Printing Pen That Uses UV Light Instead of Dangerous Heat

If you’ve ever used a hot glue gun for a craft project, you already know how tricky and messy they can be to work with. And this is partly why the handful of 3D printing pens already on the market aren’t the easiest tools to use. So maybe the CreoPop pen, which instead uses UV…

3D Printed Steel Structures Are As Efficient As They Are Awesome-Looking

No matter how many times you hear about a new breakthrough, 3D printing is amazing, transformative technology. Now, a new method for 3D printing steel joints stands to revolutionize the construction industry. It looks pretty badass, too. Arup, an engineering and design firm, has developed an additive manufacturing technique for critical structural steel elements that…

Shopping For a Ring Online? This Site Lets You 3D Print a Mockup

If you think shopping online for clothing was difficult, imagine spending thousands of dollars on a diamond engagement ring without trying it on first. That’s why Brilliance.com, an online jewelry retailer, has started letting customers print their own 3D mockups to try on at home. The service is less about sizing the ring to someone’s…

A Cocktail Glass Designed To Work In Zero Gravity

Most passengers can’t even get on a plane without a few drinks from the airport bar first. So how do you expect to get the average flyer onto a rocket ship for space tourism if the logistics of zero gravity make drinking during the trip problematic? Easy, you design a martini glass that’s specifically-engineered to…

Monoprice Just Gave the 3D Printer a Crazy Price Cut

With many machines well over the $2,000 mark, 3D printers are still mostly sequestered to use by professionals. Monoprice, the cut-rate technology powerhouse, is slicing more than a few hundreds off the price point with a 3D printer that costs $1,200. According to TechCrunch, this dual extruder model printer is based on MakerBot’s original Replicator,…

The Guy Who Popularized 3D-Printed Handguns Has “Exciting” New Plans

In 2012, Cody Wilson founded Defense Distributed — a company whose mission is to “defend the civil liberty of popular access to arms” through “information and knowledge related to the 3D printing of arms.” In an interview, Wilson talks about his next big plans, and says the Newtown shooting was “the cost of freedom.” Wilson,…

Nike’s Latest Bag Is Hot Off the 3D Printer

Nothing can escape the gaze of the 3D printer’s nozzle these days—including the humble duffle bag. Nike’s latest luggage uses a combination of fine traditional leather and intricate 3D printing to carry its owner’s kit. Designed and manufactured especially for Brazil’s 2014 FIFA World Cup, the Rebento Duffel is Nike Football’s first 3D-printed sports bag.…

Scientists Can Now 3D Print Human Blood Vessels

Sure, we can now 3D print stem cells and even whole organs like kidneys, heart, liver and lungs. But 3D printing blood vessels? Now that was a challenge. A team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has managed to successfully fabricate blood vessels using a three-dimensional bioprinting technique, Phys.org reports. Here’s how they did…

The First Cheap 3D Printed Food Is Delicious Nursing Home Mush

Go to the cafeteria of a nursing home and you’ll see elderly residents noshing on pureed food. It’s necessary for patients for whom chewing is difficult, but it’s not very palatable. A German company is seeking to change that by making 3D-printed, easy-to-chew food that actually tastes good. The company behind the project is called…

3D Printing an Entire Chair Is Easy When It’s One Big Puzzle

We’ve been promised that 3D printers will eventually be able to replicate almost anything we want. But how do you go about creating larger objects when your printer’s capacity is no larger than a toaster oven? The same way you can fit a Thomas Kinkade painting into a small cardboard box: You turn it into…

Intel Will Let You 3D-Print Your Own Robot This Year

Your very own Wall-E? It may not be too futuristic a prospect if Intel has anything to do with it. The company just showed off a DIY kit at the Code Conference that will let you 3D-print your very own robot for $1600. Have a 3D printer? Or at least access to one? You’re pretty…