3D printing. Stereolithography. What are all these buzz words flying around in the media today?

I’m here today to tell you that a 3D printer will be the next big thing that will be in everyone’s home. It will be the new appliance as common as your microwave and TV. Need a copy of your house key? Need to fix your device with just a little plastic thingy that broke away? Missing a simple part to your favorite toy, tool, or appliance? Then rapid, on demand, home fabrication through desktop sized 3D printers is for you!

Technology starts big and quickly gets smaller. (Pic | Fortus)

3D printers are machines that are computer controlled and create three dimensional objects out of raw materials and information. The two basic approaches are additive and subtractive. These approaches are exactly as they sound. Either the machine can deposit substrate, layer by layer, adding to itself, or it can start with a solid block and subtract away, analogue to sculpting. Either way, the machine creates physical, tangible objects. Many different materials can be used for printing such as plastic, glass, steel and even go as far as food, cells and biology, and even solar panels! Whole interlocking parts, gears, and tools can be fabricated in front of your eyes.

To better understand exactly what I am talking about, watch this 3 minute video from The New York Times.

3D printing is nothing new. Industrial applications have existed for many years now but have cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Only recently has this market come to the home and consumer audiences. Thanks to hacker labs around the country, hackers have found ways of prototyping makeshift home fabricators as kits for relatively cheap.

I’m focusing mostly on the Makerbot, which came out of NYC Resistor, a hackerspace in Brooklyn, New York. This DIY kit is a powerful tool endowing its user with the ability to rapid prototype, print whole architectural concepts, tools, toys, art and sculptures, mathematical objects, the list goes on and on.  You are only limited by your imagination.

This home operation has become such a popular grassroots movement that people share their own plans and concepts online.  There is Thingiverse, the universe of things! People have designed and prototyped all sorts of common objects which are there for anyone and everyone to download, edit, and print a copy for themselves. If you thought downloading the latest Hollywood movie blockbuster or the hottest new album for free was a “complicated and controversial” topic, how about printing out an entire vinyl record that is playable? Then what’s going to happen when anyone anywhere can compile themselves physical objects downloaded from the Internet?

Somebody printed this. (Pic | makerbot.com)

Intellectual property will certainly get even cloudier, if it isn’t already. Of course this topic is also nothing new. Many generations ago in France, weavers on looms were artists, and their intellectual property was in their style and design of weaving, demonstrating the highest quality fabrics and materials. Pretty soon humans built automated machines that could be programmed to reproduce any and all of the very best artist’s work “artificially,” if you will, and would be completely indistinguishable from the labored, handmade cloth. Because of this controversial technology that could rapidly reproduce intensive and unique labors on demand and labor free, there was opposition to such technology. These people would sneak into the machines late at night and drop their wooden clogs, sabot in French, into the gears of the machines, intentionally damaging and destroying these machines, sabotaging the technology.

This technology has far reaching implications. Already these machines can materialize interlocking parts that move and turn.  Whole tools, geared objects, complex machines, you name it. Theoretical designs and approaches to extending this technology is to be able to recycle already printed objects. Right now objects are printed from the same type of plastic Legos are made from, ABS plastic. Building a shredder that could turn printed objects back into raw plastic and could then be used again, thus closing the loop, making it almost 100% recyclable. This means the user would require only raw information to manufacture whatever object they desired.

The author made this on the computer.

So you could print up a checker board and all the checkers pieces, play a game, recycle the plastic, and then reprint out chess pieces. Experiments have also been successfully tested using milk bottle plastic, so you could effectively drink your way to physical wealth or, as they say, Wealth without Money.

And then he printed this crazy thing out. LIKE IT WAS NO BIG DEAL.

In fact, this technology is so sci-fi and futuristic that 3D printers have been tested for the International Space Station. The idea is in the event of an Apollo 13 type scenario, Mission Control and the various NASA engineers could design whatever part, piece, tool that was needed, fax up the design, and have the space station fabricate the object on demand. This is very cool! This is generation one of the Star Trek replicators actualized. We have a machine that can make physical objects from raw information on a giant space station. Now imagine future colonies on far outposts in space stations in orbit around moons and other planets being able to create whatever replacement parts, vehicles, or even upgrading their own technology.

Leaps and bounds have also been made to where scientists are experimenting with cells and biological matter as substrate printing material. They have successfully printed skin, muscle, blood veins, kidneys, heart valves, and heart tissue which is beating in a dish! This is much like that scene in The FifthElement where Leeloo is synthesized from DNA with a biological compiler.

Food and solar panels can also be printed! Even bathing suits, musical instruments, and customized jewelry can be uniquely designed entirely by you at home. You could even go as far as to help protect animals such as printing shells for hermit crabs.  Also if you don’t have a 3D printer or want to reap the benefits of expensive, high grade industrial printers, shapeways.com will create any object out of plastic, steel, brass, gold, silver, glass and many other materials.

Speaking of which, one of the coolest parts of 3D printers is their ability to make more 3D printers. These devices can make many of the parts needed to construct another 3D printer, and the amount in which it can create is increasing all the time. These printers can print upgrades for itself. In fact, with the 757 Labs Makerbot, I printed a spool to hold the plastic so the machine can now feed itself. This is an upgrade that came completely internally from itself, bootstrapping itself into a better future. This might sound kinda scary: self-replicating technology that can better itself.

Yes, maybe you should be afraid, but this is no reason to become saboteurs. The word psychedelic broken down means “mind manifesting” psyche meaning mind, deli meaning to manifest, or bring into existence. This is a tool of creation; we can go from a mental concept existing only in your mind, to a physical, tangible, downloadable object within a matter of minutes to hours. This is truly psychedelic technology.

Your kids' last toy? (Pic | singularityhub.com)

This technology is very democratizing, empowering the individual and home amateur to become an architect, industrial designer, inventors, rapid prototypers, DIY enthusiasts, artist, or just someone who wants to print up more toys for themselves. Anyone can start drawing up their own plans, parts, and designs with programs such as AutoCAD and Autodesk, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Blender, Google Sketchup, some of which are totally free. In fact, some are even marketing this technology as “the last toy you ever need to buy your kids.”

If you remember, not too long ago we had separate devices on our desktop. We had the flatbed scanner, the printer, and the fax machine.  Now today these devices have merged to become an all in one object.  It’s effectively a desktop printing press, fax machine, copy machine, and photographic lab all as a box with a USB plug on the side. Pretty soon 3D scanners and 3D printers will be an all in one device; a box with a USB plug. Just like you can make exact 1:1 ratio copies of 8.5 x 11” sheets of paper on a copy machine, you will be able to place an object down on the build platform of a 3D printer, scan the object, and replicate it indefinitely. Mark my words: 3D printers are going to be the next big thing. They will be in every classroom, every home and office, and be as commonplace as a TV screen.

(To view my collection of 3D printed objects here locally at 757 Labs, click here)

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