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Category: 3D printing

Nowadays almost everything is being 3D printed, so why should architecture be an exception? Many architectural firms are adopting 3D printing as their preferred technique to build structures. And 3D printed architecture is slowly but surely gaining a lot of popularity and momentum. This emerging trend is paving a path for itself in modern architecture. And I mean, no wonder, it has a ton of benefits! It’s a simple, efficient, and innovative technique that lowers the risks of errors, and also manages to save on time. 3D printing eradicates a lot of tedious steps during the construction process and simplifies it. It is being used to build homes, habitats on Mars, and even floating islands! The potential and possibilities of 3D printing in architecture are endless and mind-blowing. We’ve curated a collection of 3D-printed architectural structures that are our absolute favorites – from a 3D printed sustainable office pod to a 3D printed housing community for the homeless, every single one of these designs unleashes the magic and potential of 3D printing!

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There’s also been a lot of interest in creating more versatile “living inks” made up of bacteria, which can be genetically engineered to do everything from deliver drugs to clean up pollutants. But so far, approaches have relied on mixing microbes with polymers that help provide the ink with some structural integrity.

Now, researchers have developed a new living ink that more closely lives up to the name by replacing the polymers with a protein made by genetically engineered E. coli bacteria. The researchers say this opens the door to seeding large-scale, living structures from nothing more than a simple cell culture.

The key to the breakthrough was to repurpose the proteins that E. coli cells secrete to stick together and form hard-to-shift biofilms. In a paper in Nature Communications, the researchers describe how they genetically engineered bacteria to produce two different versions of this protein known as a “knob” and a “hole,” which then lock together to form a robust cross-linked mesh.

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Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a novel polymer to bind and strengthen silica sand for binder jet additive manufacturing, a 3D-printing method used by industries for prototyping and part production.

The printable polymer enables structures with intricate geometries and exceptional strength—and is also water soluble.

The study, published in Nature Communications, demonstrates a 3D-printed sand bridge that at 6.5 centimeters can hold 300 times its own weight, a feat analogous to 12 Empire State Buildings sitting on the Brooklyn Bridge.

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Micro-electro-mechanical devices (MEMS) are based on the integration of mechanical and electrical components on a micrometer scale. We all use them continuously in our everyday life: For example, in our mobile phones there are at least a dozen MEMS that regulate different activities ranging from motion, position, and inclination monitoring of the phone; active filters for the different transmission bands, and the microphone itself.

Even more interesting is the extreme nanoscale miniaturization of these devices (NEMS), because it offers the possibility of creating inertial, mass and with such sensitivity that they can interact with single .

However, the diffusion of NEMS sensors is still limited by the high manufacturing cost of traditional silicon-based technologies. Conversely, new technologies such as 3D printing have shown that similar structures can be created at low cost and with interesting intrinsic functionalities, but to date the performance as mass sensors are poor.

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According to Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the 4-IR follows the first, second, and third Industrial Revolutions—the mechanical, electrical, and digital, respectively. The 4-IR builds on the digital revolution, but Schwab sees the 4-IR as an exponential takeoff and convergence of existing and emerging fields, including Big Data; artificial intelligence; machine learning; quantum computing; and genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. The consequence is the merging of the physical, digital, and biological worlds. The blurring of these categories ultimately challenges the very ontologies by which we understand ourselves and the world, including “what it means to be human.”

The specific applications that make up the 4-R are too numerous and sundry to treat in full, but they include a ubiquitous internet, the internet of things, the internet of bodies, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and more.

While Schwab and the WEF promote a particular vision for the 4-IR, the developments he announces are not his brainchildren, and there is nothing original about his formulations. Transhumanists and Singularitarians (or prophets of the technological singularity), such as Ray Kurzweil and many others, forecasted these and more revolutionary developments,. long before Schwab heralded them. The significance of Schwab and the WEF’s take on the new technological revolution is the attempt to harness it to a particular end, presumably “a fairer, greener future.”

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But in recent years the government has signaled its intent to open up the sector to private players and last year passed a series of reforms designed to foster innovation and encourage new start ups. Earlier this month Prime Minister Narendra Modi also launched the Indian Space Association, an industry body designed to foster collaboration between public and private players.

One of the companies that has been quick to pounce on these new opportunities is Agnikul, which is being incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai. This February, the company successfully test fired its 3D-printed Agnilet rocket engine, just four years after its founding.

While other private space companies like Relativity Space and Rocket Lab also use 3D printing to build their rockets, Agnikul is the first to print an entire rocket engine as a single piece. IEEE Spectrum spoke to co-founder and chief operating officer Moin SPM to find out why the company thinks this gives them an edge in the burgeoning “launch on-demand” market for small satellites. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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Progress has an accelerating rate of change due to the compounding effect of these technologies, in which they will enable countless more from 3D printing, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, batteries, remote surgeries, virtual and augmented reality, robotics – the list can go on and on.

These devices in turn will lead to mass changes in society from energy generation, monetary systems, space colonization and much more! All these topics and then some will be covered in videos of their own in the future.

In this video we will be discussing automation, which is often confused with being the ‘technological revolution’ in it of itself as it is what the mainstream focuses on, and for good reason, as how we handle automation will determine the trajectory or collective future takes.

00:00 Intro.
01:30 Progress Traps.
03:50 Automation.
11:51 Retraining.
13:55 The Gig Economy.

Thank you to the members who supported this video ➤

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Known formally as additive manufacturing, or AM, in the business, the process can make almost anything—even a car.

“For our OEMs, we were able to show a print rate 50% faster than they needed for value production and an assembly rate about 35% faster than they need for full-volume production,” Kevin said. “We have a dozen programs for multi component structures,” said Kevin. “Our first production programs are going to be in vehicles on the road in early 2022. And these are with brands that are within groups that are in the top five global automotive groups by annual volume.”

So, just to review, it’s: computer-designed parts, 3D printers making those parts, which are assembled by robots, in a much smaller space than typical assembly lines.

So no more River Rouge. The Czingers say that carmakers could replace assembly lines that had been a mile long with assembly stations like the one I saw, greatly reducing the lead time, cost, and complexity of car making. And you can switch the car model that you’re building with every new assembly. No more downtime during model-year changeover. And all those spare parts carmakers have to keep in warehouses for 10 years? They will be replaced by instant 3D printing of whatever spare part you need.

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