I just cannot get my head around this, but it is surely going to change the world completely.
I just cannot imagine doing it, it just seems like magic to me.
The internet I do not really understand how it works, or mobile phones. Something like a drug being created by a printer… Madness/ black magic!
The U.S. army are all over this. They are using 3d printing to cut down the logistics bill. The idea is that instead of taking spare parts etc they will just ship the printers and raw materials and print as they need stuff.
they are also looking at printing munitions, medicine including replacement skin and food, with nutrients tailored to the needs of the soldier at a specific time.
3d printing will change our lives in the same profound way as the Internet did.
I find it fascinating and mind blowing!
In one of my lives I’m a STEM Ambassador in UK schools. I’m the T in the S cience T echnology E ngineering and M aths and this means that I visit schools to give talks, mentor teachers or answer questions from students thinking about a career in technology.
In that role, I’ve seen a number of 3D printers and have watched the reaction to them from students. You might be surprised to learn that the students are remarkably blasé about the concept.
I’m reminded of when I re-bought a turntable after having turned my back on them when CDs came out. My then young son wouldn’t leave it alone and wanted to know everything about how this odd mechanical thing worked. At the same time he was happy to simply accept the magic behind CD and DVD players - with their truly mind-blowing laser-based technology. We might look on and marvel, but the youth seem to take it in their stride.
The other issue, at the moment, is that the process is slow. Very slow. I watched a single component for a model car being printed and the entire process would take 12 hours.
Industrial printers are quicker, and this will change for the ‘home’ market as technology and the raw components improve, but you’re up against some pretty immovable physical constraints when dealing with the heating and cooling of some of the raw materials, so I wonder how quickly it will be as transformational as it is claimed to be.
The concern I have for the next generation is their general reluctance to want to wait for anything. Add to that the need to plan, plan and plan again before hitting ‘print’, and this explains why only the devoted line up to print something overnight.
The gf, trainee gp, went to a talk recently about 3D printing and medicine. There seems to be a huge amount of buzz surrounding the possible implementations, which at this time seem almost limitless.
Potentially skin grafts, replacement joints and even replacement organs. In the truest sense of the word, awesome.
This thread reminds me, I really need to swipe a 'script pad off her.
when i see Technology, i like to figure out how it works. I don’t like to look it up on google, or take it apart, or ask anyone, I just like to figure it out using my Brain.
Some things is easy. I can see how i.e. a kettle prob works. Or i.e. a can opener, but other things I struggle a bit. I don’t get printers at all, not even 2D ones. I mean, I sort of get inkjet printers, what they do is mix paint in their mouth, and then spit it on the paper, in lots of little tiny balls. I see Rolf Harris do similar. But the Laser ones, are v.mysterious. I see they have toner cartridge, and that, when you drop one, is full of like black dust, so I imagined the laser printer makes a Dust cloud, and then the laser like burns the dust onto the paper, and then the printer brushes of the excess dust, and gives it you back. But that doesn’t explain how it does Colour Lasers, or how this apparently amazing technology is i.e. so commonplace and so cheap. I suspect there is prob some genuine magic in laser printers & photocopiers that the bros from Hewlett Packard are trying to keep quiet, lest we re-instigate witch trials.
Forget prescription, talk to me about the illegal drugs!