Category: 3D Printer

Biomedical engineers at Harvard University have developed a groundbreaking technology that could revolutionize the field of medical engineering. The engineers have created a flexible robot capable of 3D printing inside the human body.

According to the lead researcher, Professor Robert Wood, the robot’s flexibility allows it to navigate through narrow and winding passages inside the body with ease. “The real challenge in creating an ingestible robot is designing one that can move through the highly unpredictable environment of the digestive system,” he said.

The robot is made from a biocompatible material that can safely travel through the digestive system. Once inside the body, the robot uses a 3D printing nozzle to create structures such as stents, catheters, and other medical devices.

Continue reading… “Biomedical engineers create flexible robot to 3D print inside body”

Mighty Buildings, a construction technology company, has developed a new house printing robot called the Autonomous Robotic Construction System (ARCS) that is set to shake up the $7.28 trillion construction industry.

According to the company, the ARCS can construct a 350-square-foot studio apartment in just 24 hours, using a 3D printing process that creates the walls, ceiling, and floor of the building, while also installing the necessary plumbing and electrical systems. It can also cut openings for doors and windows.

The ARCS has the potential to revolutionize the industry by making housing more affordable and accessible to people all around the world. However, it has also raised concerns about potential job loss due to automation.

Continue reading… “The House-Printing Robot Shaking Up a $7.28 Trillion Industry”

3D-printed cheesecake using edible food inks, including peanut butter, Nutella, and strawberry jam. 

Scientists have developed a new method of 3D printing that allows them to print intricate designs into food, including a highly detailed cheesecake. The researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design created the technique by using a printer that simultaneously prints and cooks the food. The printer uses a heated nozzle to melt a mixture of cheese and cream, which is then layered to create the final product.

The researchers say the new method could have a range of applications, including creating personalized meals for people with dietary restrictions or swallowing difficulties. They also suggest that the technology could be used in high-end restaurants to create unique and artistic desserts.

Lead researcher Dr. Michinao Hashimoto said, “By using a 3D printer, consumers could order bespoke food designs, specifying not only the shape and size of their food but also its nutritional content.”

Continue reading… “This 3D-printed cheesecake demonstrates how future kitchens will rely on lasers for cooking”

Researchers at Imperial College in London have developed a 3D-printing system that uses multiple drones to build vertical structures while in flight. 

By Mark Crawford

Robotic additive manufacturing methods are being retooled for use in the construction industry. There are currently two ways to use 3D printing in construction: 3D-printing structural components off site, then transporting those pieces on site for assembly, or using ground-based 3D printers to produce structures on site. But ground-based printers are limited in the size of the structures they can print.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the Swiss Federal Laboratories of Materials Science and Technology have developed a system that eliminates this scalability issue by using fleets of drones equipped with 3D-printing systems. Large and complex structures could potentially be entirely built with multiple drone-based printing systems that operate from the construction site.

 
The research team, led by Mirko Kovac, a professor aerial robotics at Imperial College, calls the new process “Aerial Additive Manufacturing” (Aerial-AM), in which a fleet of drones collaborate in flight to create large, intricate structures. A multi-drone approach allows for autonomous 3D printing under human supervision and real-time assessment of printed geometry as construction progresses. Drones can also monitor and adjust their building capabilities on the fly in real time.

Continue reading… “Drone Fleet Uses 3D Printing to Build Large-Scale Structures”

D printing can potentially be a faster and cheaper method of building homes. But it may require more than technology to take these dwellings mainstream.

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To make housing more affordable in the U.S., we need more of it. Millions of additional units, by most estimates.

This shortage of housing has a range of complex causes, but the high cost of construction — which rose even further thanks to pandemic-driven labor and supply constraints — is definitely not helping.

An idea from the tech world holds the potential to make the building process more efficient: 3D printing. Startups have been experimenting with the technology in large-scale construction, and now there’s a push to take it mainstream.

Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with journalist Rachel Monroe, who took a deep dive into the topic in this week’s issue of The New Yorker.

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Continue reading… “Affordable-housing hopes are building around 3D printed homes”

University College London (UCL) have developed an exciting new 3D printing technique: “volumetric 3D printing” that lets the pharmaceutical industry customize drugs – including shape, size, dosage, and release – according to each patient’s individual needs.

BY MARK ALLINSON 

In turn, medical professionals may eventually be able to use 3D printing to “print” prescription drugs for patients in-office in the future. Not only does 3D printing promise to improve personalized medicine, but it’s also set to drastically cut cost and waste in the process. 

Solving race and gender inequalities with personalized medicine

3D printing may reduce or eliminate the problem of race and gender inequality in prescription drug manufacturing. “Currently, medications are developed especially for white adult men, which means that all women and children have an excessive prescription for their bodies”, explains Fred Parietti, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Multiply Labs, a developer of advanced robotics technology that manufactures personalized prescription drugs.

“This fact underlines the importance of the advent of personalized medicines, as well as highlighting the individuality of each patient, since the error in the dosage of certain active ingredients can even lead to the malfunctioning of some treatments”.

Continue reading… “New 3D Printer That Creates Custom Prescription Drugs Developed by University College London”

Appearances of cultured meat models without and with treatment of natural food coloring (beet) CREDIT: Jie Sun (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University)

by John Anderer

SUZHOU, China — Lab-grown, or cultured, meats represent a promising, more environmentally friendly alternative to actual meat from livestock, but high production costs have hindered its widespread use. Now, however, research out of Singapore and China reports the discovery of a way to use food waste to make cultured meat, which would reduce production costs considerably.

Cultured meat is made using animal muscle stem cells grown on a scaffold, which improves the environment for the cells by enabling transport of nutrients and allowing for the generation of texture and structure. Without this approach, the meat is more likely to end up resembling lumpy mashed potatoes.

Unique scaffolds can be created using an emerging 3D-printing technology known as Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing. These scaffolds become part of the meat product, so they have to be edible themselves, and are thus usually made using animal products such as gelatin and collagen, or synthetic materials. This is expensive to produce. Establishing a more affordable way to create edible inks for printing would be a major boon for the cultured meat movement.

Continue reading… “New 3D-printing ink could make lab-grown meat much cheaper to produce”