3D Printing Officially Has My Attention

By Jake • July 21st, 2011 • 4 Comments

3D printing is one of those topics that has been floating around for a while, not quite grabbing my attention. It sounds fine, but the name makes it seems like paper models with no real value.

Well Chet (@oraclenerd) got my attention with this excerpt from a National Geographic Channel program.

Now this is cool stuff. I guess calling it replication makes it more understandable and more sexy than 3D printing, and yeah, it’s freaking awesome stuff.

The astronaut use case is insanely cool, i.e. the ability to create pretty much any tool on the spot, saving the cargo space and weight.

Thoughts?


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  • http://bexhuff.com bex

    3D printers are good for spec-ing out prototypes, but using it for a full-blown tool requires a whole ‘nother step. Out of the machine it’s pretty brittle: you need something like a “kiln-process” to harden the material. But, still pretty cool!

  • http://bexhuff.com bex

    ever heard of a Fab Lab? Not as compact as a 3d printer, but can produce more practical stuff

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Sure, but the one shown in the video seemed to produce a ready-to-use tool. Maybe they were skipping steps.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Not the term, but familiar w the concept, very cool stuff.