It was only a few months ago that the first fully 3D-printed gun was successfully fired. And it’s already made its way to a museum’s permanent collection. Not bad for a youngun’.
https://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-first-entirely-3d-printed-gun-489975583
Not just one, but two of the guns were purchased by London’s V&A Museum for an unknown price. It could have just printed out its own and called it a day, but instead it opted to purchase a pair actually fired by Texan law student Cody Wilson. You know, the real deal.
The V&A described the purchase this way in a statement about the gun:
The invention of this so called ‘wiki weapon’ sparked intense debate and upended discussions about the benefits of new manufacturing technologies and the unregulated sharing of designs online. The V&A has acquired two Liberator prototypes, one disassembled gun and a number of archive items to enhance its collection of 3D printed objects and represent a turning point in debates around digital manufacturing.
True enough. But it also goes to show that a 3D-printed replication isn’t quite as good as the real thing. But you can’t 3D-print history. Yet. [Dezeen]
