Category: 3D Printer

By Brian Heater

Additive manufacturing has proven an ideal solution for certain tasks, but the technology still lacks more traditional methods in a number of categories. One of the biggest is the requirement for post-printing assembly. 3D printers can create extremely complex components, but an outside party (be it human or machine) is required to put them together.

MIT’s CSAIL department this week showcased “LaserFactory,” a new project that attempts to develop robotics, drones and other machines than can be fabricated as part of a “one-stop shop.” The system is comprised of a software kit and hardware platform designed to create structures and assemble circuitry and sensors for the machine.

A more fully realized version of the project will be showcased at an event in May, but the team is pulling back the curtain a bit to show what the concept looks like in practice. Here’s a breakdown from CSAIL’s page:

Continue reading… “MIT is building a ‘one-stop shop’ for 3D-printing robots”

The Riverhead, New York, home is listed online through Zillow with an asking price of $299,999. 

By Cole Higgins, CNN

(CNN)You’ve probably heard of 3D printed face masks and even 3D printed hands, as 3D printing technology has expanded over the past few decades. Now a company says it has listed the first 3D printed house in the United States for sale. The Riverhead, New York, home is listed online through Zillow with an asking price of $299,999. “This is the future, there is no doubt about it,” says Kirk Andersen, the director of operations at SQ4D Inc.SQ4D uses automated building methods, or 3D printing, to build structures and homes.”What we want to do is print homes fast, and cheap and strong,” Andersen said.

Continue reading… “A 3D printed house is for sale in New York. Builders say it will cut housing construction costs”

By Shane McGlaun 

Researchers from ETH Zürich created a new 3D-printed airway stent that is bioresorbable. Researchers believe the new stent could simplify the future treatment of upper airway obstruction. The new device is usable for treating narrowing of the trachea or the main bronchi due to injury or illness.

This type of injury or illness can lead to death because it can restrict the amount of oxygen the person gets to the brain. Today, surgeons use stents made of silicone or metal as a way to treat those patients. However, metal stents have to be removed surgically when they’re no longer needed leading to the potential for infections and surgical difficulties.

Silicone stents can migrate away from the insertion site. Researchers say that is because the implants aren’t adapted to the patient’s anatomy. The new stent developed by the researchers is tailored specifically to the patient and is bioresorbable. Being bioresorbable is important because it allows the stent to gradually dissolve after it’s implanted.

The 3D printing process used to create the stent is known as digital light processing and uses light-sensitive resins that have been adapted specifically to this purpose. The process requires researchers to create a computer tomography image of a specific section of the airway. That image is used to develop the 3D model for the stent before transferring the data to the DLP printer.

Continue reading… “Researchers create a 3D-printed bioresorbable airway stent”

By Vanesa Listek

Alternative meat startup Novameat has unveiled what it calls the world’s biggest piece of cell-based, whole-cut meat analog. Since its foundation in 2018, the Barcelona-based startup has been 3D printing plant-based meat substitutes to combat the unsustainable and insufficient global agricultural system and solve the world’s food supply problem. The news comes weeks after Novameat received €250,000 through the Spanish government to ramp up 3D printed meat production by integrating its microextrusion-technology into higher-output industrial printing machines.

Novameat’s proprietary technology mimics the texture, taste, appearance, and nutritional properties of animal meat products, including beef steaks. Based on CEO and Founder Giuseppe Scionti’s decade-long tissue engineering research, the company’s microextrusion platform takes in vegetable fat (3%), water (72%), and plant protein sources (25%) to print a meat fiber matrix that looks and tastes like the real thing.

Novameat released the “world’s biggest piece of cell-based whole cut analog meat.

In an interview with the media site FoodNavigator, Scionti revealed that Novameat’s latest development, along with the 3D printing technology that created it, could be a game-changer for the cultured meat industry. Scionti referred to his new product as a “hybrid meat analog” since his company mixed mammalian adipose cells with a biocompatible plant-based large-scale scaffold with a volume of 22,500 mm³.

Continue reading… “Novameat 3D Prints “World’s Biggest” Cell-Based Meat Prototype”

Hepnalysis is creating 3D bio-printed human liver models to detect the toxicity of drugs and reduce costs in the development of medicines.

To create liver human models bio-printed in 3D to detect the toxicity of drugs and reduce costs in the development of medicines is the objective of the Hepnalysis project, promoted by Cytes Biotechnologies, a spin-off by the UB with its base in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), and the French company CTIBiotech.

The liver damage caused by medicines is a medical, scientific and public health-problem which is becoming more important every day. The hepatic injury induced by idiosyncratic drugs, known as drug-induced liver injury (DILI), is an usually under-diagnosed pathology that affects between one and two million patients per year worldwide. Also, it is the most common cause of acute liver failure –more than 50% of the cases– and the primary reason why the drugs are removed from the market –about 30%– and hospitalizations related to medicines.

Continue reading… “3D bioprinting technology to detect drugs’ toxicity”