Friday, April 25, 2014

ECN Develops A DLP Metal Printing Technique


Researchers at the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands (ECN) have developed a new technique for 3D printing that can create metal parts without melting its mineral material.


Using the research center’s Digital Light Processing-based technology (DLP), which was originally created to build ceramic parts, researchers recently discovered that the same method can be used to manufacture high quality metal components.


While there are a number of metal printing technologies currently on the market, ECN’s DLP method is unique in its ability to fashion parts without the need of melting the machine’s base material. According to Dutch researchers, eliminating the metallic melt pool created by laser sintering machines enables the production of well-compacted, homogenous and high-grade materials that can be rendered into any geometry a designer can imagine.


What’s more, because DLP metal manufacturing skips the melting process, parts can be built faster with a guarantee that each layer of a component will be made of the same constituent material, be equally as dense and have the same conductive properties.


Read more at ENGINEERING.com




by Site Admin via Fabbaloo

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Free Educational 3D Printing Curriculum Released by the City X Project

Guest Posting by Matthew Straub, Director of Communications at IDEAco


As far as we know, on Tuesday we launched the first Common Core State Standards-aligned curriculum that fully integrates 3D printing technologies, design thinking, and empathy for kids. Specifically, the City X Project toolkit is geared toward kids 8-12, and is the result of testing and experimenting with the workshop with over 500 kids in four countries. Our design thinking toolkit is meant for everyone, and we couldn’t be happier that it has already been downloaded by people in at least 13 countries.



The CIty X Project is accommodates approximately six hours of lessons, beginning with a fictional story about humans building the first settlement on a new planet, called City X. Every student participating is given a citizen card with a depiction of a City X citizen asking for help in solving a social problem faced in their new community. Teachers then guide their students through the design process as every student in the class invents something that can solve their citizen’s problem. Students make clay models, then digital 3D models, and, when a 3D printer is available, actually print prototypes of their new inventions.


The City X Project toolkit includes everything needed for a teacher run the workshop, including PDFs with printable citizen cards, designer workbooks for students, and most importantly, a very thorough and detailed instructor’s guide which will help walk any teacher through these lessons, even if they’ve never used 3D modeling software!



We began our journey toward releasing this toolkit over a year ago thanks to our Presenting Sponsor, 3D Systems. It took us nearly 20 workshops and nearly 200,000 air miles to get to this point, so we hope that any educator interested in integrating new technology into their classroom has an enjoyable experience turning their class into a room full of inventors! The full toolkit can be downloaded by educators for free at http://ift.tt/1lXa7SD.




by Roxanne via Cubify

Friday, April 4, 2014

Woman Receives 3D Printed Cranial Implant


For the past few years 3D printing has been making news in the world of medicine. From bioprinting sample organs for drug testing to creating custom prosthetics, additive manufacturing and 3D scanning are revolutionizing medicine. While those achievements are remarkable, a recent surgical procedure shows just how much AM can benefit medical science and patient outcomes.


Three months ago, a 22-year-old Dutch woman entered the UMC Utrecht hospital in desperate need of a life saving procedure. Suffering from a rare disease that causes extra bone to thicken her skull, the woman was beginning to lose her eyesight and the ability to control her face.


According to UMC Utrecht surgeon Bon Verweij, the patient’s skull had grown to 5cm thick, a full 3.5cm larger than the average human skull. Immediate action was necessary.


Read More at ENGINEERING.com




by Site Admin via Fabbaloo