PiKon: UK University launches first telescope made by 3D printing

The University of Sheffield has released the very first photos of space ever taken with PiKon, a telescope that has been made using a 3D printer.

The telescope in question costs just £100 to make and is constructed from parts readily available on the internet.

The entrepreneurs responsible, Institute of Physics member, Mark Wrigley, and University of Sheffield Physics and Astronomy research associate, Andy Kirby, have even made the plans available online so that any budding astronomers can build their own telescope, saving a minimum of £800 compared to models of the same capabilities.

The ground-breaking product, which is based on Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope design, is called PiKon; a portmanteau made from combining the alternative spelling of 'icon', which is Greek for 'image', and the name of the readily available Raspberry Pi camera, which sits in the telescope.

The product works by using a Newtonian concave mirror to form an image of whatever the telescope is focussed on directly onto the Pi camera sensor, which is mounted onto components created by 3D printing.

Because of the small size of the Raspberry Pi camera, it is possible to mount it directly in front of the mirror.

The PiKon telescope has a magnification of times 160, which means that on a cloudless night it will be capable of detailed lunar observation as well as galaxies, star clusters and some planetary observation.

Subsequent processing of the PiKon's digital images also makes it possible to use the telescope to 'stack' and compare images, therefore scanning the night skies for unusual occurrences, such as comets.

The physicists have unveiled the ambitious project, called Disruptive Technology Astronomy, as part of the University of Sheffield's Festival of the Mind (18-28 September 2014), which has been designed to make academic research accessible to the public, teaming leading academics with famous artists and creatives.

SpaceX Adopting 3D Printing and Taking it to the Final Frontier

A 3D-printed SuperDraco Engine Chamber being tested by SpaceX. 

The company is planning to use these engines for the manned version of the Dragon spacecraft. 

Credit: SpaceX

The private spaceflight company SpaceX wants to launch astronauts into space in the coming years, and it will enter the final frontier with an innovative technology: 3D printing.

California-based SpaceX is using additive manufacturing, as 3D printing is also known, to build the emergency escape rockets on its new manned Dragon spacecraft.

The capsule, known as Dragon Version 2, is SpaceX's entry in NASA's competition for commercial manned spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

SpaceX sent its first 3D-printed part into space early this year.

The part, a rocket engine main oxidiser valve, flew aboard SpaceX's Jan. 6 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the commercial Thaicom 6 telecommunications satellite to orbit. The valve flew inside one of the rocket's Merlin 1D engines.



"The mission marked the first time SpaceX had ever flown a 3D-printed part, with the valve operating successfully with high-pressure liquid oxygen, under cryogenic temperatures and high vibration," SpaceX representatives wrote in a statement.

The concept of 3D printing in space has received extensive attention in industry circles in recent months.

NASA plans to send a 3D printer produced by California-based company Made in Space to the space station this year, and the European Space Agency has mused about using 3D parts to build lunar bases.

Despite those plans, a recent National Research Council report said the technology is still in its infancy and that the materials science behind manufacturing in space is poorly understood.

SpaceX has used 3D printing to build the SuperDraco rocket engine for the company's Dragon Version 2 manned spacecraft. 

The eight SuperDracos on the capsule are designed to double as a landing system, or as an escape system in the event of a launch emergency. 

Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has spent three years evaluating the fast-growing technology, particularly for use on the Dragon spacecraft.

A 3D-printed SuperDraco engine chamber, which will be used in the escape system, passed a firing test at full thrust in late 2013.

"Printing the chamber resulted in an order of magnitude reduction in lead time compared with traditional machining, the path from the initial concept to the first hotfire was just over three months," SpaceX representatives stated.

The 3D valve inside the Falcon 9's rocket engines will also be more efficient to manufacture, SpaceX added.

After extensive testing, the 3D part is now certified to fly alongside regularly manufactured materials.

"Compared with a traditionally cast part, a printed valve body has superior strength, ductility and fracture resistance, with a lower variability in materials properties," company representatives stated.

"The [valve] body was printed in less than two days, compared with a typical castings cycle measured in months."

Robot folds itself up and walks away

A team from Harvard's Wyss Institute, Harvard's SEAS, and MIT built an autonomous robot that starts out as a single composite sheet programmed to fold itself into a complex shape and crawl away without any human intervention.

Credit: Harvard's Wyss Institute

A team of engineers used little more than paper and Shrinky dinks, the classic children's toy that shrinks when heated, to build a robot that assembles itself into a complex shape in four minutes flat, and crawls away without any human intervention.

The advance, described in Science, demonstrates the potential to quickly and cheaply build sophisticated machines that interact with the environment, and to automate much of the design and assembly process.

The method draws inspiration from self-assembly in nature, such as the way linear sequences of amino acids fold into complex proteins with sophisticated functions.

"Getting a robot to assemble itself autonomously and actually perform a function has been a milestone we've been chasing for many years," said senior author Rob Wood, Ph.D., a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

The team included engineers and computer scientists from the Wyss Institute, SEAS, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In addition to expanding the scope of ways one can manufacture robots in general, the advance harbors potential for rather exotic applications as well.

"Imagine a ream of dozens of robotic satellites sandwiched together so that they could be sent up to space and then assemble themselves remotely once they get there-they could take images, collect data, and more," said lead author Sam Felton, who is pursuing his Ph.D. at SEAS.

The robots are the culmination of a series of advances made by the team over the last few years, including development of a printed robotic inchworm -- which still required human involvement while folding itself, and a self-folding lamp that had to be turned on by a person after it self-assembled.

The new robot is the first that builds itself and performs a function without human intervention.

"Here we created a full electromechanical system that was embedded into one flat sheet," Felton said.

The team used computer design tools to inform the optimal design and fold pattern, and after about 40 prototypes, Felton honed in on the one that could fold itself up and walk away. He fabricated the sheet using a solid ink printer, a laser machine, and his hands.

The refined design only took about two hours to assemble using a method that relies upon the power of origami, the ancient Japanese art whereby a single sheet of paper can be folded into complex structures. The origami-inspired approach enabled the team to avoid the traditional "nuts and bolts" approach to assembling complex machines.

They started with a flat sheet, to which they added two motors, two batteries, and a microcontroller -- which acts like the robot's "brain," Felton said.

The sheet was a composite of paper and Shrinky dinks™, which is also called polystyrene, and a single flexible circuit board in the middle. It also included hinges that were programmed to fold at specific angles. Each hinge contained embedded circuits that produce heat on command from the microcontroller. The heat triggers the composite to self-fold in a series of steps.

When the hinges cool after about four minutes, the polystyrene hardens -- making the robot stiff -- and the microncontroller then signals the robot to crawl away at a speed of about one-tenth of a mile per hour. The entire event consumed about the same amount of energy in one AA alkaline battery.

The current robot operates on a timer, waiting about ten seconds after the batteries are installed to begin folding. However, "we could easily modify this such that the folding is triggered by an environmental sensor, such as temperature or pressure," Felton said.

One of the primary challenges in the process, Felton said, was the propensity for the robots to burn up before they folded up properly; each one runs on about ten times the current that typically runs through a light bulb.

"There is a great deal that we can improve based on this foundational step," said Felton, who plans to experiment with different kinds of shape memory polymers, materials like the polystyrene -- that are stronger and require less heat to activate, for example.

Journal Reference: S. Felton, M. Tolley, E. Demaine, D. Rus, R. Wood. A method for building self-folding machines. Science, 2014; 345 (6197): 644 DOI: 10.1126/science.1252610

Muscle-powered bio-bots walk on command - Video

Tiny walking “bio-bots” are powered by muscle cells and controlled by an electric field. 

Credit: Janet Sinn-Hanlon, Design Group@VetMed

A new generation of miniature biological robots is flexing its muscle. Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign demonstrated a class of walking "bio-bots" powered by muscle cells and controlled with electrical pulses, giving researchers unprecedented command over their function.

The group published its work in the online early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

"Biological actuation driven by cells is a fundamental need for any kind of biological machine you want to build," said study leader Rashid Bashir, Abel Bliss Professor and head of bioengineering at the U. of I.

"We're trying to integrate these principles of engineering with biology in a way that can be used to design and develop biological machines and systems for environmental and medical applications."

"Biology is tremendously powerful, and if we can somehow learn to harness its advantages for useful applications, it could bring about a lot of great things."

Bashir's group has been a pioneer in designing and building bio-bots, less than a centimeter in size, made of a flexible 3-D printed hydrogels and living cells.

Previously, the group demonstrated bio-bots that "walk" on their own, powered by beating heart cells from rats.

However, heart cells constantly contract, denying researchers control over the bot's motion. This makes it difficult to use heart cells to engineer a bio-bot that can be turned on and off, sped up or slowed down.

The new bio-bots are powered by a strip of skeletal muscle cells that can be triggered by an electric pulse.

This gives the researchers a simple way to control the bio-bots and opens the possibilities for other forward design principles, so engineers can customise bio-bots for specific applications.

"Skeletal muscles cells are very attractive because you can pace them using external signals," Bashir said.

"For example, you would use skeletal muscle when designing a device that you wanted to start functioning when it senses a chemical or when it received a certain signal. To us, it's part of a design toolbox. We want to have different options that could be used by engineers to design these things."

The design is inspired by the muscle-tendon-bone complex found in nature. There is a backbone of 3D printed hydrogel, strong enough to give the bio-bot structure but flexible enough to bend like a joint.

Two posts serve to anchor a strip of muscle to the backbone, like tendons attach muscle to bone, but the posts also act as feet for the bio-bot.

A bot's speed can be controlled by adjusting the frequency of the electric pulses. A higher frequency causes the muscle to contract faster, thus speeding up the bio-bot's progress, as seen in the video below.


"It's only natural that we would start from a bio-mimetic design principle, such as the native organization of the musculoskeletal system, as a jumping-off point," said graduate student Caroline Cvetkovic, co-first author of the paper.

"This work represents an important first step in the development and control of biological machines that can be stimulated, trained, or programmed to do work.

It's exciting to think that this system could eventually evolve into a generation of biological machines that could aid in drug delivery, surgical robotics, 'smart' implants, or mobile environmental analyzers, among countless other applications."

Next, the researchers will work to gain even greater control over the bio-bots' motion, like integrating neurons so the bio-bots can be steered in different directions with light or chemical gradients.

On the engineering side, they hope to design a hydrogel backbone that allows the bio-bot to move in different directions based on different signals.

Thanks to 3-D printing, engineers can explore different shapes and designs quickly. Bashir and colleagues even plan to integrate a unit into undergraduate lab curriculum so that students can design different kinds of bio-bots.

"The goal of 'building with biology' is not a new one - tissue engineering researchers have been working for many years to reverse engineer native tissue and organs, and this is very promising for medical applications," said graduate student Ritu Raman, co-first author of the paper.

"But why stop there? We can go beyond this by using the dynamic abilities of cells to self-organize and respond to environmental cues to forward engineer non-natural biological machines and systems.

"The idea of doing forward engineering with these cell-based structures is very exciting," Bashir said. "Our goal is for these devices to be used as autonomous sensors."

"We want it to sense a specific chemical and move towards it, then release agents to neutralize the toxin, for example. Being in control of the actuation is a big step forward toward that goal."

More information: Three-dimensionally printed biological machines powered by skeletal muscle, PNAS, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1401577111

CSU lab team custom-build helmet liner for Brazil event - video

Viewers around the world preparing to watch the World Cup next month in Brazil are also to witness a special event where a paralyzed person, with the help of a robotic exoskeleton, will rise from a wheelchair, walk to the center of the field and kick a soccer ball.

The mind-controlled exoskeleton is the work of an inspiring global collaboration among scientists, as part of the Walk Again Project.

The exoskeleton is controlled by brain activity and is relaying feedback signals to the patient. The patient's cap picks up brain signals and relays them to a computer in the backpack, decoding the signals and sending them to the legs.

More details recently emerged from some of the collaborators, namely research efforts at Colorado State University, where the CSU team developed a protective, custom-made helmet liner for the patient to wear as part of the World Cup walk-again effort.

Alan Rudolph

CSU's Vice President for Research Alan Rudolph asked David Prawel who oversees the university's Idea-2-Product 3D printing lab to create a custom lining for the helmet that the user will wear as part of the device.

Lab director Prawel talked about the lab's work in a video recently released. Basically, a man or woman will use his or her brain to tell a robotic prosthesis to move the legs.

Prawel noted the different focus areas of global teams to put this system in place. One team built the exoskeleton, basically an outside rigid frame which the patient will wear.

Other teams worked on the neuroscience aspects, while others were focused on circuitry and feedback mechanisms.

The Colorado group worked on the helmet portion, and were asked to ensure the helmet performs two jobs, of protecting the patient's head against falls, and of making sure "we protect the electrodes," a complicated design of an immense number of data points involved in the scan of the patient's head,, he said, and the scan of the inside of the helmet.

3D printing technology offered the major benefit of speed at which constant tweaking could occur.



Employees in CSU's Idea-2-Product 3D printing laboratory have developed a protective liner that will be worn by a paralysed Brazilian adult who, with the help of a robotic exoskeleton, will rise from a wheelchair, walk to the center of the field and kick a soccer ball to begin the games. 

The demonstration, known as the Walk Again project, will take place during the opening ceremony June 12 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

"The prosthesis user is outfitted with a cap dotted with electrodes that must be situated just so on the person's head so their brain can optimally communicate with the electrodes, which relay commands to the exoskeleton," they reported.

"A custom-made lining ensures the electrodes line up exactly right under a hollowed-out Bern helmet." The report said the final product is a pliable head-sized thermoplastic urethane liner.

Child's heart printed in 3D to aid complex surgery

Louisville Kentucky cardiothoracic surgeon Erle Austin has performed successful heart repair surgery on a 14 month old infant named Roland Lian Cung Bawi, heart surgery on such a young patient is not unheard of, of course, what's new is that Austin was able to map out his surgical approach using a nearly exact model of the patients heart, it had been printed on a 3D printer.

Erle Austin

Young Roland had been born with four congenital heart defects—doctors had known since before he was born that his heart had problems.

Fixing them all would prove to be a challenge. When it came time to plan the surgery, Austin consulted with other surgeons and found each of them had different ideas on the best way to fix the heart.

The ideal approach would involve the least amount of cutting and suturing—but that can be hard to plan using only conventional scanning techniques.

Looking for more precision, Austin turned to the engineering school at the University of Louisville, they'd been researching different kinds of 3D printing technology.

Researchers at the University worked with radiologists at Kosair Children's Hospital to create a means for converting data from a CT scan of Roland's heart to data that could be used with a 3D printer.

The two seemed a perfect match as CT scanning uses the same basic idea as 3D printing, it takes pictures of slices and puts them together on a computer screen to form a whole, and 3D printing is achieved by laying down one layer or "slice" of material at a time.

The 3D printing team used a MakerBot Replicator 2X, to print the heart (in three pieces) at twice its normal size, they also used a flexible type of plastic filament known as "Ninja Flex" instead of ABS.

Ninja Flex allowed the surgeon to bend the finished heart in ways that resembled a real human heart.

Printing the heart took approximately 20 hours at a cost of roughly $600.

Austin told local news reporters that the printed heart let him plan the surgery in ways he'd never experienced before, it allowed for a single surgery (this past February 10) and greatly reduced cutting and suturing, which ultimately led to a much quicker recovery for Roland, who by all accounts is now doing just fine.

Amsterdam Labs: MX3D-Metal Large scale multi axis 3D printing in metal - Video

Introducing large scale multi axis 3D printing in metal!

To say that the Joris Laarman Lab is an innovative type of group is putting it mildly. The Amsterdam place is described as "an experimental playground set up to study and shape the future.

It tinkers with craftsmen, scientists and engineers on the many new possibilities of upcoming technology."

One such possibility that has captured their attention has been coming up with a technique for large-scale 3D printing without the need for support material.

They have been exploring ways to allow the creation of 3D objects on any work surface, and not requiring additional support structures.

About nine months ago, we got a first look at a freely articulating 3D printer, developed by Joris Laarman Lab in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC).

By extruding a special fast-curing resin with a multi-jointed robotic arm, MATAERIAL (shown here), proposed a "radically new 3D printing method," suitable for "irregular or non-horizontal surfaces." 

Now, the Dutch designer has unveiled his latest breakthrough in liberating digital fabrication from a build platform: As its name suggests, MX3D-Metal can print lines of steel, stainless steel, aluminum, bronze or copper "in mid-air."

"By using innovative extrusion technology," they said, "we are now able to neutralize the effect of gravity during the course of the printing process."

Welcome to the MX3D-Metal 3D printing initiative from the Lab, creating metal structures in mid-air.

The method combines a robotic arm typically used in car manufacturing with a welding machine to melt and deposit metal, to create lines that can be printed horizontally, vertically, or in curves, without the need for support structures.

Adding small amounts of molten metal at a time, lines are printed in mid-air. The team vision is an affordable, multiaxis MX3D tool for workshops around the world.

"Introducing supportless multiaxis metal printing" says the group's promotional video.

The Joris Laarman Lab are developing different kinds of print heads for different kinds of metals.

The Labs spokesperson said that the method makes it possible to create 3D objects on any given working surface independently of its inclination and smoothness in almost any size and shape.

Their work has been in collaboration with Acotech and supported by 3D CAD software company Autodesk.

A gathering point for industrial designers, Core77, recently featured the Jaris Laarman Lab.

"The basic idea is simple: an advanced welding torch on a robot arm that communicates and is controlled by smart software" the Core77 spokesperson commented.

"They have also been working on strategies for the different kinds of 3D-printable lines."

"Vertical, horizontal or spirals call for different settings: pulse time, pause-time, layer height or tool orientation."

"This information will ultimately be incorporated in the software" the Core77 spokesperson continued.

More information: www.core77.com/digital_fabrication/joris_laarmans

3D Printing in Animatronics: Easton LaChappelle at TEDxMileHigh

How is 3D printing changing the future of prosthetic and animatronic limbs? Tinkering with this new technology 17-year old inventor Easton LaChappelle is creating robotic limbs with strength and dexterity beyond human, and will create new models for custom prosthetics in the not-so-distant future.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

3D Printing Chocolate: Eat your Own Face Desserts

MIT research associate David Carr created a special 3D printer called the "Eat Your Face Machine," which takes a model of your face and carves it into chocolate


Cornell University has developed a 3-D food printer that allows users to create edible designs.


Snowflake printed with dark Belgian Chocolate now available to order for Christmas 2014!

‘Everyone loves chocolate so that’s why we’ve tried to make it easy and accessible for mainstream consumers,’ said Choc Edge owner and University of Exeter lecturer Dr Liang Hao.

Visit: ChocEdge.com

3D Printing: No longer a Sc-Fi Fantasy

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2013 Wayne Losey, co-founder of Dynamo DevLabs, speaks about 3D printing during the Hardware Innovation Workshop in San Mateo, Calif.

With the printers users make whatever they like, iPad stands, guitars, jewelry, someone even made a rifle.

About the size of a microwave oven, the printers usually extrude plastic, layer upon layer, to create objects.

Sales are projected to jump from about $1.7 billion in 2011 to $3.7 billion in 2015. 

Credit: AP Photo/Eric Risberg

Invisalign, a San Jose company, uses 3-D printing to make each mouthful of customized, transparent braces.

Mackenzies Chocolates, a confectioner in Santa Cruz, uses a 3-D printer to pump out chocolate molds.

Earlier this year, Cornell University researchers used a 3-D printer, along with injections of a special collagen gel, to create a human-shaped ear.

Once a science-fiction fantasy, three-dimensional printers are popping up everywhere from the desks of home hobbyists to Air Force drone research centers.

The machines, generally the size of a microwave oven and costing $400 to more than $500,000, extrude layer upon layer of plastics or other materials, including metal, to create 3-D objects with moving parts.

Users are able to make just about anything they like: iPad stands, guitars, jewelry, even guns. But experts warn this cool innovation could soon turn controversial—because of safety concerns but also the potential for the technology to alter economies that rely on manufacturing.



"We believe that 3-D printing is fundamentally changing the manufacturing ecosystem in its entirety—how and where products are made and by whom," said Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of New York-based Shapeways, an online company that makes and sells 3-D printed products designed by individuals.

Products include a delicate, twig-like egg cup (cost: $8.10) and a lamp that looks like a nuclear mushroom cloud (cost: $1,388.66).

Richard D'Aveni

"We're on the verge of the next industrial revolution, no doubt about it," added Dartmouth College business professor Richard D'Aveni.

"In 25 years, entire industries are going to disappear. Countries relying on mass manufacturing are going to find themselves with no revenues and no jobs."

On ground, sea or air, when parts break, new ones can be made on the spot, and even the tools to install them can be made, eliminating the need for staging parts in warehouses around the world, said Jeff DeGrange, vice president of Direct Digital Manufacturing at Stratasys Inc., currently the industry leader in a field of about 50 3-D printer companies.

Jeff DeGrange

"We're going to see innovation happening at a much higher rate, introduction of products at a much higher rate," said DeGrange.

"We live in an on-demand world now, and we'll see production schedules are going to be greatly compressed."

Airplane mechanics could print a replacement part on the runway. A dishwasher repairman could make a new gasket in his service truck. A surgeon could print a knee implant custom-designed to fit a patient's body.

But the military, D'Aveni said, is likely to be among the first major users of 3-D printers, because of the urgency of warfare.

"Imagine a soldier on a firebase in the mountains of Afghanistan. A squad is attacked by insurgents. The ammunition starts to run out. Is it worth waiting hours and risking the lives of helicopter pilots to drop it near you, or is it worth a more expensive system that can manufacture weapons and ammunition on the spot?" he said.

In the past two years, the U.S. Defense Department has spent more than $2 million on 3-D printers, supplies and upkeep, according to federal contract records.

Their uses range from medical research to weapons development. In addition, the Obama administration has launched a $30 million pilot program that includes researching how to use 3-D printing to build weapons parts.

NASA is also wading into this arena, spending $500,000 in the past two years on 3-D printing. Its Lunar Science Institute (LSI) has published descriptions of how it is exploring the possibility of using the printers to build everything from spacecraft parts while in orbit to a lunar base.

You can read more about the NASA and the LSI 3D Printing research here

3D Printing Could Aid Deep-Space Exploration

Technological advances are bringing down the cost of space research and exploration, with 3D printing poised to provide a transformative leap, NASA chief Charles Bolden says.

During a tour of the space agency's Ames Research Center here Friday (May 24), Bolden lauded the scientific potential of PhoneSats, tiny and inexpensive spacecraft based on off-the-shelf smartphones and he singled out 3D printing as a promising key enabler of humanity's push out into the solar system.

"As NASA ventures further into space, whether redirecting an asteroid or sending humans to Mars, we'll need transformative technology to reduce cargo weight and volume," Bolden said.

"In the future, perhaps astronauts will be able to print the tools or components they need while in space."

3D Printing: A Revolution in Three or Four Dimensions

David Saint John, a doctoral candidate in Penn State's College of Engineering, working with a 3-D printer constructed by engineering students.

The printers can create 3-D solid objects from digital models. 

Credit: Patrick Mansell

It's an old idea, really. One of the oldest. To make useful things, humans remove the bits that aren't part of the thing we want.

We've learned how to then make giant factory machines that assemble the different parts into a more complex whole.

It's called "reductive" manufacturing—with some assembly required—and has dominated our lives for thousands of years.

From chipping flint arrowheads millennia ago, to carving wooden tools, to assembling chairs or tables from Ikea, to Michelangelo saying his job was to whack away waste marble, from a shapeless block, anything that didn't look like an angel; to drilling and molding and stamping and extruding and assembling parts for rocket engines and patio furniture and giant oil tankers—we make things, by the billions, mostly through variations of reductive manufacturing processes and, we've gotten very, very good at it.

But that approach is changing, and with it our future.

"3-D printing"—the colloquial name for "additive manufacturing"—is a technology that theoretically enables us to make almost anything by building it up rather than cutting something away.

Food. Guns. Toothbrushes. Shoes. Art. Clothing. Jewelry. Building materials. Electronic devices. Car dashboards. Moon habitats. Office buildings. Transplantable human organs and living tissue for medical research.

Penn State faculty and a growing group of students are fully engaged in research and practical experiments in this new world, and these programs are gaining attention and enrollments.

3-D printing as a reality has been around for a decade or more. Boosted by the rocket fuel of the Internet and a culture of collaboration and Open Source communities, and breathtaking advances in software and computing power, it is starting to hit the mainstream, earning mentions in presidential speeches and cover stories in magazines.

Do a Google search for "3-D printing" and be prepared to skim through hundreds of links.

With this technique, objects are built up in layers—sometimes only microns thick—in three dimensions. The technology has been around for a decade at least, and has been used mostly to make models in architecture, car designs and other fields.

In the past couple of years, however, it is gaining new interest and sparking innovation through advances in computer aided design (CAD) software and the Internet as it links researchers, tinkerers and entrepreneurs together.

It may reduce fossil fuel use by requiring less raw material and shorter supply lines, and can create completely new designed objects that cannot be made with old methods.

The ripples of change on a global scale will ride faster development of new designs, less dependence on fossil fuels for transportation and faster retooling or increased customization.

Read More at Phys.org

ESA Plan Multi Dome Lunar Base Using 3D Printing

Multi-dome lunar base being constructed, based on the 3D printing concept. 

Once assembled, the inflated domes are covered with a layer of 3D-printed lunar regolith by robots to help protect the occupants against space radiation and micrometeoroids.

Setting up a lunar base could be made much simpler by using a 3D printer to build it from local materials. Industrial partners including renowned architects Foster + Partners have joined with ESA to test the feasibility of 3D printing using lunar soil.

"Terrestrial 3D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, heading the project for ESA.

"Our industrial team investigated if it could similarly be employed to build a lunar habitat."

Architects Foster + Partners devised a weight-bearing 'catenary' dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a pressurised inflatable to shelter astronauts.

A 2,205-pound (1,000 kilograms - Metric Ton) piece of what part of the home could look like.

A hollow closed-cell structure - reminiscent of bird bones - provides a good combination of strength and weight.

The base's design was guided in turn by the properties of 3D-printed lunar soil, with a 1.5 tonne building block produced as a demonstration.

"3D printing offers a potential means of facilitating lunar settlement with reduced logistics from Earth," added Scott Hovland of ESA's human spaceflight team.

"The new possibilities this work opens up can then be considered by international space agencies as part of the current development of a common exploration strategy."

"As a practice, we are used to designing for extreme climates on Earth and exploiting the environmental benefits of using local, sustainable materials," remarked Xavier De Kestelier of Foster + Partners Specialist Modelling Group.

"Our lunar habitation follows a similar logic."

The UK's Monolite supplied the D-Shape printer, with a mobile printing array of nozzles on a 6 m frame to spray a binding solution onto a sand-like building material.

Oppressive China Opens Public 3D Printing Booth

While 3D printing may be touted as bringing manufacturing back to the United States, that doesn't mean the rest of the world hasn't taken notice of the technology.

Earlier this week, a 3D Printing Experience Pavilion opened in Beijing's DRC Industrial Design and Cultural Industry Base, where visitors were able to see how 3D printers work firsthand.

With a few hours to spare, they could even have their own head scanned and printed as a bust, which follows the 3D printing booth that opened in a Japanese mall last year.

Among the printed objects on display were custom phone cases, miniatures (including Aldebaran Robotics' NAO, which featured prominently at the Shanghai World Expo), and jewelry.

Visitors who wanted to be scanned had to remain still for around 15 minutes for the process to be completed, whereupon their likeness was printed in single color ABS plastic – a process which takes between two to three hours. 3Ders reports that the 3D Printing Pavilion was spear-headed by Beijing company Suntop-Tech, which is the Chinese distributor of Stratasys' Fortus and Dimension 3D printers.

3D printers could use Moon rocks to make supplies, say scientists

Future Moon colonists should be able to use lunar rocks to create tools or spare parts, according to a study.

US researchers have used a 3D printer to make small objects out of melted simulated lunar rocks.

They say the technique could help future missions to minimise the weight and the expense of carrying materials into space as a digital file would be enough.

But one expert says such a printer would have to be extremely precise.

In 2010, Nasa asked a team from Washington State University to see whether it was possible to use lunar rocks for 3D printing.

It supplied the researchers with simulated Moon rocks, or lunar regolith simulant, containing silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron and magnesium oxides.

Many hundreds of kilograms of Moon rocks were collected during Nasa missions, but the scientists did not use them because they are considered a national treasure in the US.

Lunar regolith simulant is commonly used for research purposes at Nasa.

"It sounds like science fiction, but now it's really possible," said Prof Amit Bandyopadhyay, the lead author of the study, published in the Rapid Prototyping Journal.

His team created simple 3D shapes by sending a digital file or scan to a printer which then built the items layer by layer out of melted lunar regolith, fed via a carefully controlled nozzle to form a shape. The process is known as "additive manufacturing".

A laser was used to melt the material.

"As long as you can have additive manufacturing set up, you may be able to scoop up and print whatever you want. It's not that far-fetched," said Prof Bandyopadhyay.

The research demonstrates the latest advances in 3D printing technology, which is already in use in medicine, fashion, car manufacturing and other industries.