Ceramic artist John Balistreri wanted to explore the world of rapid prototyping and the ways it could expand the boundaries of ceramic art so, he teamed up with Gregory Little at Bowling Green State University and BGSU’s ZCorp 3D printer. Balistreri and the team at BGSU experimented with with various clays and binders to create finished, functional ceramic objects that are compatible with ZCorp’s printing process. ZCorp technology closely resembles current inkjet technology, the difference is instead of printing on paper, it prints on increasing layers of powder material.

The teacup was created by scanning a hand-thrown teacup with a 3D scanner and reproducing the teacup with the printer. The teapot, however, was printed directly from a digital file, which opens up a number of possibilities that aren’t possible with traditional ceramic techniques. With traditional ceramics, the rendering of an object is limited by the pull of gravity. Because printed ceramics are surrounded by dry media, they are able to ignore gravity to create structures that are currently either impossible or unfeasible with today’s production technologies, such as engine parts, or superior water filters. All in all, printed ceramics look pretty cool and they might change the world.

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In an announcement that has shocked the various folding communities, researchers at USC Information Sciences Institute have invented a method of folding teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy containers made from polysilicon and gold film. Why is this interesting to Ponoko citizens? The folded shapes are produced from the labyrinthine-monikered process PolyMUMPs (Poly Multi User MEMS Processes) which, at it barest essentials, is an etching process to create very small custom shapes on sheets of material, usually silicon or gold foil. (more…)

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Dimension 3D Printing Group announced nine finalists in three categories for the Extreme Design Contest, a competition to highlight the talents of young designers and highlight the power of 3D printing’s ability to solve a great variety of problems. The finalists were chosen from 800 entries worldwide entries, with three finalists in each of the three categories; University, High-School, and Arts & Architecture. Entrants in the University and High School categories were encouraged to produce designs that redefined an existing product to improve that product’s function. Submissions to the Arts & Architecture category were expected to produce original designs with an emphasis on aesthetics. (more…)

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A while back, the Core 77 blog led me to an archive of the 80’s series The Secret Life of… which beautifully relates the history and design of various household items.

But the real star of the show is the presenter himself, Tim Hunkin. He is one of a few multi-disciplined tinkerers whom I count as a personal hero. Cartoonist, inventor, broadcaster, sculptor – his book Almost Everything There Is to Know was a formative influence in my childhood. He is a great example to any of us who want engage in this new world of designing, adapting and making, embodying as he does both passion for the end product, as well as a broad variety of skills and experience to get there. The great thing is with the enablement of the web, we can all be part time designers, or adapters, or makers, and indulge our multifaceted natures while still holding down a day job. If not making it a day job.

Incidentally, I constantly have trouble defining what it is I do in my studio/workshop – increasingly I err towards the term ‘tinker’ which is unsatisfactory, evoking activities of a more mischievous nature than they often are. On his personal site, Hunkin goes for ‘engineer/cartoonist’, which gives no indication of his myriad other talents.

We need a term for this new breed of inventors to which I belong and which sites such as Make, Ponoko and Instructables seem to attract. We are changeably referred to as makers, industrial designers, inventors, indie designers, hackers: none of which seem to embody the activity truthfully (the term ‘maker’ really doesn’t cut it as a valid activity amongst some of my peers, who have the benefit of such well established terms as ‘doctor’ or ‘telesales operator’). My favourite has to be ‘post-industrial designers’, as referred to in this discussion on Core77. It would certainly be good to stick to one job-title in the future, and this seems to infer the right amounts of professionalism, independence and irreverance for me!

Anyway, back to Hunkin. Have a look at his site and you will find an Aladdin’s cave of truly joyous objects, thorough explanations of his workshop and methods, all infused with the man’s quiet, considered adoration for mechanical creativity. An inspiration, whatever he is and whatever we are!

The image above is a self portrait by Hunkin, and the images below, a human sewing machine from The Secret Life of the Sewing Machine and a cartoon from Almost Everything There is to Know, used with permission from Tim Hunkin.

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Wired - Beyond the Beyond: Open-Source Hardware Raises Its Ugly, Homemade Head

This is DIY Radio Shack meets open-source coding in the form of your own personalized “Bug”. What is it? It can be any sort of electronic device you need. For CEO Peter Semmelhack, he needed a wireless GPS device to keep track of his family in the wake of 9/11. They didn’t have those back then and he couldn’t build one either. Out of those kinds of frustrations he founded Bug Labs to enable people to do that. You design your own device from their modular devices and code the hardware together using their open-source, web-enabled, modular software and hardware platform. Homemade iPhone anyone?? I don’t think Apple has anything to worry about . . . just yet.

So it works like this - Starting off with a Bugbase, a minicomputer on Linux, you can add different devices however you want, kind of like adding Lego pieces to create your ultimate monster. A mashup of electronics. They’ll first release a GPS system, camera, motion sensor and LCD screen, with new modules released every quarter.

I sure like Legos, but unfortunately I’m not that technically inclined to write code. I’m keen to learn though. In the meantime, I’ll just have to keep an eye out on what those early adopters out there create. I do think it’s great giving the tools and accessibility for people to create what they want - the ultimate in personalization.

We like them because they share the same philosophy as we do: empowering users to design their own devices. While theirs is hardware, ours is everything but. And thanks, Bruce for your suggestion on making Ponoko shells for their Bugs. What a great idea!

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ZDnet Between the Lines Blog - Emerging Trends: 3D printing; robots galore; human augmentation.

If you’re new to the blog, you may wonder why I’m writing about this. You can quietly disregard the robot and human augmentation part (unless you’re truly intrigued). It’s the 3D printing, personal manufacturing, rapid prototyping part — this is all the stuff we’re fascinated with and truly see as a core part of how we will make and buy things in the future. From the 2007 Gartner Symposium/ITXpo in Orlando, Jackie Fenn presented the emerging trends they see on their IT radar in the next 10 years:

via ZDnet

I’d like to draw your attention to 3D printers in the 5 - 10 year range:

Personal manufacturing and fabbing: Fenn says that 3D printers will be coming to a Kinko’s near you in the not too distant future. Today, these printers are used for industrial prototyping, product designs and architectural models. But there is a growing hobbyist movement. In a few years, you’ll see home-based printing of replacement parts. Your kids will print out models of their avatars. These printers, which come from companies like Z Corporation, are in the $20,000 price range–the price range where laser printers got their start. Timeline: 5 to 10 years.

I’d like to think this will happen much closer to 5 years rather than 10 (see earlier post on The Next Disrupters and Commerical 3D Compact Printers Coming Soon). More accessible and affordable 3D printers are around even now - from DIY versions from Fab@Home & RepRap, to Desktop Factory and 3D Systems V-Flash compact, which was launched last month.

For the Ponoko community, the exchanging of designs with the ability to manufacture at home or at a local 3D printing shop is where we want to be. At the moment, current digital manufacturing technologies are right up there allowing us to do some fantastic work. But when fabbers hit mainstream, we’ll be ready (and so will Ponoko users!).

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Martian Design in Tauranga New Zealand » Making a Boomerang

We’ve got something really unique and different today thanks to some early Ponoko users. Mark and Tony from creative studio Martian Design Lab in Tauranga, New Zealand have written up their creation of a Boomerang using Ponoko. Not just your plain jane wooden one, but a fully loaded 80’s sci-fi boomerang with sensors (no, not real ones unfortunately) and blades!! The design sketch alone is pretty cool but wait till you see the results they got in real life. Mark’s promised to post a final picture on their blog soon so we can’t wait to see it. In the meantime you can read and see quite a bit in their post where they describe the process they went through to design the boomerang, which is pretty intricate. Cool toy . . . I want one!

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ABC News: Organ Printing Could Drastically Change Medicine

This may seem a bit of a stretch on topics for a mostly design/maker blog, but the advances and breadth of rapid prototyping are really astounding. I know some people are trying to get their heads around the idea of printing 3D objects. Although rapid prototyping has been around for 20 years or so in the manufacturing industry, it’s still sitting just on the fringe of mainstream and personal use (see previous post on early adopters in small businesses). But forget that for a moment and try to get your head around this: Organ Printing. Bio-Engineering. Researchers are able to print out living human tissue with the goal of being able to print live organs for transplants to save people. Instead of a laser-jet ink cartridge and paper in the paper tray, they have a cartridge filled with cells and a crosslinker and a petri dish waiting underneath. They’re not there yet, but in Japan, researchers from the University of Tokyo and bio-tech firm (Next 21) are using 3D printers to print out bones made out of a strong yet lightweight plastic (not Adamantium as pondered in Gizmodo) for facial bone replacement.

Doesn’t it just amaze you how far our technology has gone and where it’ll be? How much of an impact will it have in our everyday lives? If digital manufacturing can drastically change medicine and how we heal ourselves, surely it’ll be a central part of our lives on how we get other things. Personal products to use and consume. Food. Shelter. Put in perspective, these things don’t seem as far-fetched now as printing live organs. And that’s not science fiction. It’s reality.

via ABC news and Gizmodo

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I’ve written about 3D printers before - more of the peripheral DIY varieties such as fab@home, Evil Mad Scientist, RepRap, and the designs from VUW grad students. I’ve also posted about the other commercial end like Z-Corp’s 450 printer which retails around 40 grand. But we’re starting to see a shift in the commercial variety towards a more accessible and relatively affordable one that you don’t have to build yourself.

3D Systems, a leading provider of rapid prototyping and 3D solutions, partnering with manufacturer and well-known printer brand Canon Virginia, will be releasing their V-Flash compact desktop 3D modeler which can build “ready-to-use, three dimensional models within hours from home, school or office workstations.” It is really compact at 30″ H x 27″D x 24″W, which is smaller than the current printers out there and builds models of 7 x 9 x 8 inches tall. This modeler uses 3D Systems’ latest “fourth technology platform” of disruptive Film Transfer Imaging (FTI), which I’m trying to find out what it is exactly, but it hasn’t yet made it to Wikipedia! (Correct me if I’m wrong and point the way.) This one will retail for US$9,900.

I think this is exciting to see commercial 3D printers being produced and retailed more affordable for a larger and broader segment of consumers (albeit still somewhat pricey). It’s a step towards the mainstream, which is exciting in itself. With more schools, offices and basically ordinary folks having access to this sort of technology, it’ll be amazing to see what new products and designs will come from those who previously wouldn’t have had the tools to make any!

You can see an overview of how it works at their website:

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SpendMatters: MFGx – MySpace for the Manufacturing Set

I originally read this post a month back and thought it was pretty interesting but didn’t post on it. But in looking back I think it’s worth exploring a little. MFGx is an online social networking site for manufacturers both large and small. Its founder Mitch Free is CEO of MFG.com, an online marketplace for manufacturing who created MFGx as a community place where manufacturers and those in the industry could help support each other. In the forums Mitch suggested an idea which I doubt many manufacturers would like but which just may catch on - open source hardware.

” Should certain product manufacturers publish their designs for anyone to download and move towards an open source (hardware not software) model? I think so. Why, because it would leverage the masses to proliferate their low margin hardware platform and allow them to sell the high margin consumables or data content.“

Mitch suggests Tivo as an example of where if they open sourced the hardware and let anyone make it, then they could sell the data online. I think cellphones are a great example as well. If my phone provider made it possible to open source some phone hardware I might finally get a phone I really want instead of refusing to buy a new one because none of the features match my needs or requirements. I know these are easier said than done, but I can’t help but think that Mitch might have a few ideas that make sense here. For years cars have been customized and modded to fit the needs of their users. Isn’t it time a few other product areas became open source and customizable? I know we can individually hack away at things and create our own to an extent, but if there was a tacit agreement between the manufacturers and the makers (as there is in the car aftermarket) I think there could be a lot of really cool innovation - we might even find some Jesse James type guys in the meantime. Hopefully Mitch’s comment strikes a nerve with more people in the manufacturing industry as it has with me.

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