Tea, Earl Grey, Black

Posted: March 31st, 2008 | Author: Steve | Filed under: Technology | Tags: 3D printing, consumption, dematerialization, future, Rapid Prototyping, stereolithography | View Comments

This week, during our class discussion of prototypes, the text barely touched on the subject of “rapid prototyping”, another name for 3D printing. I am fascinated by the implications that this technology has for manufacturing and for sustainability. As a matter of fact, the confluence of several different ideas and technologies are making it possible to reverse the trend of mass-production and mass consumption and turn it on its head, where soon we will be able to make what we need, only when we need it, and exactly to our specifications. Forget mass customization: think Star Trek.

For those of you who have seen the famous science fiction series, you may remember the “replicator” technology that allows the crew to create almost any object that they need, seemingly out of thin air. 3D printing technology, or “rapid prototyping”, is based on a similar idea, allowing users to “print” three-dimensional objects utilizing ink-jet printer and similar technologies.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, and engineering professor by the name of Herbert Voelcker developed the mathematical and theoretical basis for describing three-dimensional objects in a way that could be utilized by computers to control machine tools to produce those objects. In 1987, another researcher by the name of Carl Deckard built upon Voelcker’s work when he realized that products could be built-up, layer by layer, instead of machining away the excess from a block of raw materials. With the advent of modern ink-jet technologies, this layer-by-layer approach allows for a making a mind-boggling number of things.

There are many different methods that can be employed. For example, if you wanted to make a simple, solid shape, such as a intricately-detailed chocolate or a replica of a famous sculpture, you simply create a 3D model, using CAD or other type of design software, and the 3D printer will spread out the appropriate material, layer-by-layer. This method is used very often to make soft prototypes.

The possibilities start to become endless. You are also not limited to using just one material. In the same way that a color inkjet printer has multiple colored inks, a 3D printer can print multiple different materials. Using this method, medical researchers are currently working on ways to “print” tissue and organs, cell by cell.

The sustainability crowd has been focusing on how we can “dematerialize” products, reducing raw material usage and transportation costs. Readers of Treehugger.com will surely be familiar with the many articles dedicated to designs which are made for downloading and building at home. Usually, these designs employ a cut-and-build method, where one piece of plywood or cardboard or similar material is cut into pieces that are then joined to form the object.

But what if the customer could simply “print-out” the product at home, in one piece, instead of assembling it? If this is combined with dematerialization in the design of the product, then it is easy to see how these efficiencies will begin to build upon each other to create an exponential reduction in the energy and materials used, and wastes generated, over traditional manufacturing and transportation processes.

Several trends are combining to make this a reality in the near future.

This Treehugger article explains how the cost of 3D scanner are becoming quite affordable:

“Scanning or faxing paper is so 1970. Now you can get an affordable Nextengine 3D scanner ($2,495, just a little more than I paid for my first fax machine). It is another step on the road to dematerialized production, where designs are transported over the internet and printed out where needed. 3D Kinko’s are opening where you can go to get your object printed out.”

Although that article does go on to say that 3D printers are still quite expensive, this article explains how Roboticist Hod Lipson has a build-it-yourself design for a 3D printer which costs only $2,300 to build! A third article also speaks about the coming desktop revolution in fabrication.

I will conclude with this quote from Dr. Linson, which pretty much sums it up: “The only way to make something cheaply today is to have it mass-produced. For example, you wear the same shoes as everyone else. If you had a fabber, you could custom-make shoes that perfectly fit your feet. Three-dimensional printing will help us move away from the mass consumption that is so deeply ingrained in our culture”