3D Printing Could Resurrect Custom Car Making

The world was introduced to Blade on Thursday, and this is a 3D-printed supercar which has been designed by the leading automobile company as the proof of designing concept based on 3D. It aims at establishing the new technology among the micro automakers as well as to reshape the automobile industry.

The company is hoping that the micro automakers get the same evolution as it has been seen in the world of microbreweries across the United States of America. The aim is to establish democracy in the auto industry and start the new goal for the dematerialized vehicles.

The 3D-printing technologies can easily turn out the auto manufacturing very affordable for the players to enter the industry and build vehicles according to their taste and drive the era forwards. Through this technology the micro automakers will be able to deliver cars ranging upto 10000 every year. It has designed the 3D printed blade for attracting the attention of the prospective players of the auto sector.

The cutting edge product "the Blade"

It is a bi-fuel vehicle which will be able to run on CNG as well as gasoline. It will be able to hit 60mph in less than 2 seconds since it comes with a 700-horsepower engine as well as 1,400-lb ultra light build. It has been based on the node technology of the company.

This is the technology will be allow the small auto players to develop cars on higher scale. The other benefit of the technology is the reduction in the environment impact from the auto making process. This technology will allow cars to be built out of literally any material and the emission will be about one third of the total emission released during the manufacturing of the electric vehicle.

They  kept on thinking about working and manufacturing cars in affordable range and in lower volume. It is about bringing out a world which allows small yet profitable custom car makers globally.

The Auto Industry democratized

Despite the wait it might take to get the new node technology to be understood by the auto makers, we can always see a bright future for the 3D printing especially in the auto industry. Already vehicles are being made by means of fabricated manufacturing. Companies have already started exploring the application of this technology and already show some of the good uses of this printing technology.

Now what needs to be check is the cost of components to that of the quality as well as the price of the printing. It might become cheaper in some materials and others might cost more. There are no special tools required for 3D printing.

Despite the amount of effort is being put in this cost cutting manufacturing technology, it is quite clear that the vehicles will be available to the customers who are on the top of the line and it might be a long wait for the customers (average) to get their hands on it.

Injured Sea Turtle Gets 3D Printed Jaw

Sea Turtle Given 3-D Printed Prosthetic Jaw

A 45 kg loggerhead sea turtle has been given a 3-D printed prosthetic jaw, from the Dekamer Sea Turtle Research, Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre on the coast of Turkey. Akut-3, which has been named after the search and rescue team that found it, had been struck by the propeller of a boat and its jaws were nearly destroyed.

 This injury could prove to be fatal but Akut-3 was brought back to health by the Dekamer sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation centre. The sea turtle is one of the first of its kind to receive a 3-D printed prosthetic, after its success proclaimed on 14 May.

The turtle had been floating in the water back in July 2014 after being struck by the propeller of the passing boat where its injuries comprised of a fractured jaw where almost 60% of the lower and upper jaw towards the right side of his face was missing.

Where some humans tend to have a careless attitude to wildlife, there are others like those at Dekamer Centre who reach out in support and help them. The rehabilitation centre then contacted the Turkish company, BTech Innovation who is known for custom-making medical prosthetics and implants for humans, to seek its help.

Use of Mimics Innovation Suite

According to 3D Printing Industry, to improve the turtle’s prosthetic, the researchers took the CT scans of the skull of Akut-3 converting it into 3D models with the use of Mimics Innovation Suite. They printed a custom-fitted jaw and beak out of the titanium.

This was attached in surgery along with the help of surgeon and veterinarian with the use of Materialise’s 3-matic software developing a prosthetic which would be able to replace the part of the turtle’s face due to the injury.

This process appeared to work well and there seems to be no doubt with the improvement in the recovery of Akut-3.The turtle is presently convalescing at the recovery centre to make sure it has adjusted to the metal jaw which has been implanted. The beak which was made of medical grade titanium substituted the loggerhead turtles’ jaws which had been sheared off when it was struck by the passing boat.

Detailed Scan Aided in Generating Design 

With the help of detailed scans of the injured turtle’s head, it aided in generating the design of the prosthetic beak. The prosthetic was printed in medical grade titanium and sent to the surgical team where the same had been attached to the face of Akut-3.

After recovery from the anaesthetic, the turtle was in a position to move his jaw and is now recuperating on antibiotics to avoid any infection as the soft tissues of his face get attached to the prosthesis. Once it is fully recovered, Akut-3 would be returned to the sea to join the 47 other successful turtles that had been treated by the Dekamer Centre since its opening in 2009.

Besides the turtle that have been others too who have been benefitted from 3D printing, currently. There has been a tortoise in Denver who adapted to a prosthetic plastic shell made by a student at Colorado Technical University, when her original one had deteriorated because of poor diet.

Local Motors' 3D-printed car meets the Detroit Auto Show

Recently, Local Motors have showcased their 3D-Printed Car at the Auto Show. This is world’s first 3D-printed car and known as Strati, it is two-seater car, which is made up of plastic components and can reach the speed of 25 miles/hour.

Printing Process: 

This made in Detroit, Strati is two-seater car and it takes only 44 hours to print it. Crowdsources, a Phoenix-based company designs its cars, which look like the oddball Rally Fighter. Local Motors is responsible to build the Strati and brings on the floor of the North American International Auto Show, which is going to held in Detroit with all printing and routing equipment, which is here just for the occasion. The printing of this car takes only 44 hours, which in about two full working days after which all components including rough ones routed and polished to complete the final finishing look. According to Local Motors CEO Jay Rogers, first of three vehicles of Local Motors are ready to hit the market, whereas; each Strati will have the price range of $18,000 and $30,000. This two Seater car is made up of plastic components and it can hit the road with the speed up to 25 miles per hour.

About Local Motors Strati: 

The whole manufacturing and assembling process can be done in "micro-factory," of Local Motors, which is 40,000-square-foot space, containing everything needed to print, design, build, or sell a car. The company is planning to inaugurate its two micro-factories in 2015, one in near Washington, DC in National Harbor and another in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is expected that the DC location will breaks ground in the third quarter of 2015 where first fleet of 3D-printed cars will be sold. Factories are still looking for the approval because they need a local zoning law changes as per the Washington Post. As per few reports, the Strati is not yet legal for highway, and it can take few months to one year.

According to company officials, “We have arrived with small platform, but after setting up the winding course at Detroit’s Cobo Center, we have produced the passenger seats for the two-seater electric roadster. The two-seater Strati is powered up-by a Renault Twizy–sourced EV power-train which is fitted in to the 3D-printed body of car. Soon the company will test the car on modern tracks where the speed will vary between 10 to 25 mph with the comfortable conversation with the driver, but the car driver stated that car could made-up to 50 mph per hour and the car represent perfect golf car status.

This car were first showcased in September 2014, which was mostly constructed through 3D printing, which sounds like future-minded and gutsy as the part of a young ambitious company. According to reports, no one has done such things publicly till date. To actualize the process of 3D printed car, Local Motors had made a partnership with National Laboratory in Tennessee, where it has take four months to unveil, the Strati.

3-D-Printing Bio-Electronic Parts

Print Functioning Circuitry from Semiconductors

With 3D printer making a prototype or spare part out of metal or polymer, researchers at Princeton University have taken a step in expanding the technology’s capabilities by creating a way in print functioning electronic circuitry out of semiconductors as well as other materials.

They are also trying ways of combining electronics with biocompatible materials and even living tissues that can pave the way for new implants. According to Michael McAlpine, assistant professor at Princeton states that with cartridges that are full of semiconductor `inks’, it can be possible to print circuits of all types of tasks and to demonstrate it, the researcher printed a light emitting diode within a contact lens.

The display circuitry and processors in computers do not have the provision to 3-D printing since they need several complex components fabricated on the nanoscale though it could be utilised in making medical devices or implants incorporating electronics.

 For instance, researchers could print a scaffold for growing nerve tissue according to McAlpine and suggests that if they could print LEDs with circuits within the scaffold, the light could stimulate the nerves where the electronics could be used to interface with prosthetic arm

3-D Printing – Bio-Electronic Ear

McAlpine had used 3-D printing last year, to make a `bio-electronic’ ear which was made from living cells together with supportive matrix of gooey hydrogel and had conductive ink which was made from a suspension of silver nanoparticles that formed an electrical coil and could receive radio signals.

Thereafter his group worked to expand 3-D printing to semiconducting materials which enables a printed device to process incoming sounds. Semiconductors seem to be the key ingredient of information processing circuits which can be used to detect as well as emit light.

McAlphine’s team, to broaden the 3-D printing palette, built its own printer and several of them in the market presently, are only designed to print plastic The bionic ear, for example had features on the millimetre scale. In order to make LEDs they had to go to the micrometre sale.

Quantum dots were taken to make the LED by the Princeton researcher, semiconducting nanoparticles which emitted bright light in response to electrical current. Besides this, two types of metal were also used to make electrical leads and contacts for the device together with polymers and silicone matrix in order to hold it together.

3-D Printing - Various Development 

While printing with so many inks, the challenge was that they bled into each other and hence the researchers had to ensure to suspend each material in a solvent which would not mix with either of them. His team had made a cube of eight green and orange LEDs which were stacked 2 x 2 x 2 and printed the LEDs on contact lens after they were scanned in order to make the shape of the printed devices matching to the curvature of the lens surface.

McAlpines’ team are not the only ones working in expanding the possibilities of 3-D printing. Chemical engineer, Michael Dickey from North Carolina State University in Raleigh who was not involved with McAlpines’ work, states that `most 3-D printing is like a glorified hot glue gun just printing polymers.

His group developed a liquid metal which can be printed into stretchable, self-healing wires while a professor of biologically inspired engineering at Harvard, Jennifer Lewis has developed 3-D printing for tissue engineering on combining various cell types in complex patterns including blood vessels.

3D Printers Can Copy Your Loved One's Head - As a Cremation Urn

3D technology has come along a long way from being able to create a 3 dimensional image of the fetus to using the 3D technology in the 3D printers. These printers are being used for a variety of the reasons like printing of shoe burgers to printing the cars according to the requirements of the customer.

The extent or the reach of 3D technology can be felt now when we can easily add the features and the shapes of your loved ones on the cremation urns. It might sound off or may have come as a surprise for many people, but believe it or not, Vermont-based Cremation Solutions are now offering 3D printed cremation urns which hare custom made according to the request. This cremation urn will have the image of the people you love. However, mind you, this imaging is not restricted to the people you love; you can get the image of your favorite celebrity or even Obama, the president of the United States of America.

What difference will it make? 

Vermont-based Cremation Solutions have come up with a unique solution for the people who are looking to honor their loved ones in a unique way and not going through the traditional metal or wooden urns, meant for storing the ashes. According to the information available on the company’s website, they are using the most modern technology to develop the urn, which will have the closest possible resemblance to the deceased one. This will be carried out by using photographs and other facial recognition software’s, which are meant to transform the 2D image into a 3D sculpture and that too with finesse. Adding to this advantage, the company also offers “erase blemishes”, to present your loved ones in the best possible look ever.

Cremation Urn

According to the Company, the urn will come in two different sizes. The first size is 6-inches, meant for storing only a portion of the remains of the deceased, but the second urn comes in a size of 11 inches with the potential of holding all the remains or ashes of a deceased person.

The 6-inch urn has been given the name of keepsake sized personal urn. By this time, we can clearly understand that these urns will not be easy on the pockets. The smallest size of the urn has been priced at $600 while the largest one can go up to $2600. On the downside, the hair of the person has not been included but the company has stated that they can add artificial hair to give the urns a more realistic look.

While it might sound strange, but a 3D printed urn clearly shows the growth in the technology. It has already been said that the world will change due to 3D technology and there will be a rise in business as more companies are focusing on matching the needs of the customers with their service.

The Company has also stated that they are offering the service for not only the deceased ones, but also for a person who can make their own urns as well. People always plan their cremation to take the burden away from their family and nothing will add to their memories than the urn reminding them about you.

3D LED Printer Makes a Contact Lens Display Possible

3D Printed Contact Lenses 

According to researchers, 3D printed contact lenses can now be used like Google Glass or head up display showing the wearers’ data as well as monitor their health. 3D printer build up metallic or polymer material to form objects when instructed by computer code that conveys to the machine the desired dimension together with the appearance of the product, though this machine is more complex.

Researchers have started constructing prototypes for contact lens displays, and their biggest impediment was parts of fabrication which on a theoretical level is not difficult to build display in a contact lens but building and placing the tiny interrelated parts on a tiny polymer disk is a difficult task.

The 3D LED printer is a 3D quantum dot LED printer which on breaking the concept of an LED to its most basic form, researchers envisaged that they need not think of LEDs like small plastic light bulbs but stacks of interacting substance.

The printer on its part could lay down an LED with a sandwich type of a structure which is not unlike a single pixel in a display of OLED and get emissive layer which is nanoparticles of cadmium selenide that is referred to as quantum dots.

Active Approach

The quantum dots or nano sized crystals of certain substance exhibit unique or particular useful electronic properties. These are sandwiched between one layer which can donate electrons and one layer that accepts them and the entire process can be fused to a surface due to the bottom adhesive layer that is activated with the help of UV light.

Moreover, the printed LEDs are ultra-thin, almost transparent as well as flexible. The transfer of electrons through quantum dot layer causes the dots to produce photons of light and the main advantage of it is that they can be made to emit light at very specific wavelength or colours.

It means that the quantum dot screens can display more recreations of colour accurately but it would not be the first priority for contact lens display which will get static, sensible image in the user’s eye.The pixel on the other hand in a contact lens display could take one of two forms and the active approach uses individual pixel as a light source and emits photons in the eye, creating an image directly.

Passive Approach 

The passive approach on the other hand uses less power though it would be more difficult using individual pixel to bend the incoming light from the environment to portray a new picture on the retina. The issue with active approach is that it needs a good amount of power to go on and wireless power collection relies partially on physical size of the collecting antenna.

When the antenna must be physically fitted in a contact lens, it creates a hard upper limit on power supply. It is unlikely to start printing smartphone screens pixel by pixel since manufacturing in bulk would be quicker and cheaper and while doing so, things like putting LEDs in circular area of contact lens less than 2 mm, it could be helpful. The cost of the prototype print cost about $20,000 to create though there is a possibility in reduction of cost in the near future.

3D Printed Heart saved Baby’s Life

3D Printing – Life Saving Surgery

Advanced technology has given rise to improvement in the digital world which has enhanced the life style to a great extent. 3D printing or additive manufacturing – AM can be referred to various processes in printing a 3 dimensional object.

A 3D printer could be a type of industrial robot. This has also proved to be of immense help recently where surgeons used3D printed model of the infant’s unusual heart in preparation for life saving surgery.

These surgeons give credit to the 3D printing which helped them to save the life of a 2 weeks infant in need of complicated heart surgery. With the use of MRI scan data, the surgeons, at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, New York City, 3D printed a copy of the heart of the infant which was unusually structured and with holes for a surgery which would have been dangerous as well as complicating.

The 3D printed heart provided an opportunity to the surgeons in studying the organ and helped in developing a detailed surgery strategy. According to Dr Emile Bacha who performed the surgery, informed Connecticut local media that the infants’ heart had holes which was not uncommon with CHD though the chambers of the heart were also in unusual shape, like a maze.

Technique like a Road Map

This technique proved to be of immense help unlike the past instances wherein they had to stop the heart and look inside to decide what should be done. The technique helped like a road map in guiding them on and they were capable of repairing the child’s heart with a single operation.

Matthew’s Hearts of Hope had funded this project, which is a Connecticut based foundation and it is said that another 3D printed heart is in the pipeline, the details of which would be following somewhere next month. In normal situation, a surgeon views the heart for the first time when the chest is opened up, but now it is no longer the same. They now have the ability to plan the surgery much in advance on seeing a 3D Heart of an infant or a child.

3D Printing in Modern Machine

Another incident has also proved to be successful with this cutting edge medical technology where a Kentucky surgeon Erle Austin with the use of 3D printing was able to conduct the most difficult surgeries.

He had informed Maker Faire in Rome that he was using 3D printing to understand a complicated heart. Austin, like the surgeons at Morgan Stanley, had used the technology to know his approach to heart surgery at Kosair Children’s Hospital on a young child. Austin printed a copy of the heart in three parts with the use of experimental version of the Makerbot Replicator 2.

He stated that since he had an identical reconstruction he could take the front of the heart and see inside and thus make a plan on how to go about with the flow of blood and move the obstruction in the heart. The NHS is planning the use of 3D printing in modern machine while US is pioneering this high tech biomedical research and the Ministry of Defence has expressed interest in such a type of a project.

3D Printing Can Create Human Tissue To Heal Wounds

3D printers are able to manufacture spare parts for satellites, food and even human organs. Today, the world of fashion began to use 3D printing and designs luxurious rooms also. 3D printing is diversified more. This is explained by the improvement of materials incorporating different metals and materials such as plastic, wood or nylon. Jewelry and accessories 3D printed are already marketed. An Atlanta entrepreneur currently testing a printer that allows you to create unique garments from fabrics polymer material based on carbon.3D printers never cease to amaze us!

After the ability to print food, dentures or even houses, a new stage has been reached, that of bio-printing In other words, the creation of human tissues in 3D. The bio-printing is a matter of well-known research for the scientists and functional technology is already exists with pre-established patterns. The latter is however very demanding and allows no margin of error or modified during printing.

The apparatus used consists of two tanks containing stem cells bathed in culture medium. This method may be about to be replaced by another discovery by laboratories of Carnegie Mellon and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. It is based on the micro -robot capable of assembling different materials, in order to repair human tissues. Researchers led by Savas Tasoglu and Utkan Demirciont developed a hydrogel material a liquid portion and a solid portion similar to contact lenses which are found in living cells.

It is then necessary to control micro- robot remotely using magnetic fields capable of moving between different hydrogels to build cell structures. It is very difficult to realize that human tissue is composed of many types of cells operation. Scientists have still managed to catalog several materials they need to print in 3D to develop these structures such as copper rods, polystyrene beads, silicon chips and the famous hydrogels. The whole is dipped in a liquid to maintain the cells to be alive.

This approach is more accurate than the old method used previously when it comes to print components. It also makes it possible combining flexible and rigid materials together, all at a scale of the order of tens of microns of size, which is adjustable by the micro- robot. Metin Sitti, the professor of Mechanical engineering head of the Laboratory Nanrobitcs Carnegie Mellon told that their work will revolutionize the precision assembly of blocks of complex and heterogeneous tissues in three dimensions and facilitate the understanding of tissue engineering systems.

The encoding method and manipulation developed here may find wide applications in areas such as diagnostics, regenerative medicine, engineering micro physiological systems, pharmaceutical and biological research, and manufacture microscopic according to Utkan Demirci.

 The micro- robot can analyze cells, manipulate eliminate targets or change direction on a scale that we could not reach before and it can be regarded as a microscopic clamp capable of gripping and moving individual cells or groups in a 3D environment.

Now Hold Your Baby In Your Arms Before Birth Thanks to 3D Printing Technology

In recent time, 3D printing is at the center of attention as it appears to know no bounds in terms of creativity. Moreover, the area is so vast and recently one site offers its services to get the real size picture of your baby in the fetus with the 3D print technology.

This is a strange approach; the consequences could be serious for the health of the unborn child due to prolonged use of ultra sound to take the print of the fetus. Those are the days we could barely distinguish the arms of a fetus during an ultrasound. The technology is evolving at breakneck speed, this has now changed! Indeed, over the last ten years now, the 3D and 4D ultrasounds have appeared to the delight of the expectant parents.

However, this fad is not without consequences for the baby; the National Council of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of France may required to alert parents about the potential adverse effects of this practice fetus subjected to prolonged ultrasound harmful to its tissues. As this is potentially a dangerous practice, the site simply named “3D- Babies" With it, you can make a 3D impression of your child for the price of € 443. This will make it possible to “hold your baby in your arms before birth.

Obviously, the first question that arises about the usefulness of such picture and the site quickly respond that It is a great way to share the excitement of this happy event come with your friends and family. Moreover, the site even offers a promotional code for grandparents: LOVE to get a second infant at discounted prices.

 Then, of course you can also “customize“ your baby choosing the sex, the color of his skin or the position in which it is printed. Everything will be delivered in a box, still slightly resembling a coffin (?) The top of it is that you can also get 3D replica of celebrity babies, for the moment now it is only available is the pictures of the child of Kim Kardashian and Kanye is for sale.

You may think this practice completely strange and even somewhat disturbing. Some of us wonder even if the technology is not going too far in distorting one of the finest that life has to offer events, that is to say, the birth of a child but only thing we want to say that the technology is moving on!