TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2022, 3D PRINTING

 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2022 - TECHNOLOGY WEEK - 3D PRINTING

When I last taught (six years ago) an Introduction to Computing one topic I covered was 3D printing.  Since this was at the University of Texas, and since an Austin Texas individual had developed a 3D-printed handgun, the topic was of interest.  Since then, 3D houses have had some action.

3D printing involves printing with specialized printers and specialized materials.  The simplest items might be plastic, but raw materials such as metal, graphite, and carbon fiber are also used for 3D printing

“The 3D printing process turns a whole object into thousands of tiny little slices, then makes it from the bottom-up, slice by slice. Those tiny layers stick together to form a solid object. Each layer can be very complex, meaning 3D printers can create moving parts like hinges and wheels as part of the same object.

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So what?  

It seems like 3D printing prints one item, but machines can produce thousands of such items quickly and cheaper.  Think of a coffee cup.  If you wanted a unique 3D-printed cup, it might take 20 minutes and you’d have one cup.  But, if you wanted a thousand cups for some event (say the SxSW (south by southwest) conference you could get those in a much shorter time and at less cost.

Yes - BUT.

What if you have a 1955 Packard car - and you need a custom part.- 3D printing to the rescue.  3D printing can work for one-of-a-kind, specialized items.

In the medical field, work is going on for 3D printed organs, in manufacturing 3D printed guns (and similar specialized items) can be 3D printed.  

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But, on the medical front, the concept of 3D-printed organs and body parts has been slow in taking off. 

“In 2014, a California-based company called Organovo was the first to successfully engineer commercially available 3D-bioprinted human livers and kidneys. 3D printing in healthcare is used to create living human cells or tissues for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering purposes. The process of 3D printing typically begins with obtaining a sample of a patient’s own cells to grow and expand outside the body in a sterile incubator or bioreactor. These cells are then fed with nutrients called ‘media’ and mixed with a gel that acts as a glue. This mixture is then loaded into a printing chamber to build tissues by building the material up layer by layer.”

https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/comment/3d-printed-organs-affordability/

Medical Technology Journal said:

“3D printing will be a $32 billion industry by 2025, rising to over $60 billion by 2030, according to estimates from GlobalData. 

 

“How much healthcare will contribute to this growth remains to be seen. In 2018, healthcare represented only 10% of online printing demand. In contrast, the industrial and electrical sectors represented approximately 50%.

 

But changing trends may see a necessity for more 3D printing in hospitals and places of care. As a new GlobalData report on 3D printing in healthcare finds, the growing old-age population has driven the demand for donor organs, while regenerative medicine using bioprinted, patient-derived stem cells allows for personalized treatment of certain diseases.

Think of it.  The demand for organ transplants is growing, but the supply is about the same.  So, Bob in Omaha needs a new liver - can a 3D printer help Bob?  It sure can!!!  The bionic man is just around the corner.

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How about 3D-printed houses?

An Austin Texas company has a 3D-printed home.  Here is a press release:

“The home is sited in a single-family residential neighborhood in East Austin, Texas, and was built using ICON's Vulcan construction system.

The system uses 3D printing, a technology that dispenses layers of material mechanically based on a computer program, to lay the walls of the 2,000-square-foot home. The 3D-printed wall aspects took 10 days to print.

"House Zero is ground zero for the emergence of entirely new design languages and architectural vernaculars that will use robotic construction to deliver the things we need most from our housing: comfort, beauty, dignity, sustainability, attainability, and hope," said Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of ICON, in a release.

One futurist has predicted 3D printing on the moon, building houses for researchers and scientists by 2030.  

Elon Musk (of Tesla fame) has talked of colonizing Mars - and again, 3D printing might be a viable method for housing and other items.  If 3D printing works well with some common materials, there might be common materials on Mars that could be used instead of shipping tons of materials to Mars.

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Yes, there have been 3D-printed guns.  

There also has been this comment: 

“Do 3D printed guns actually work?

“While certainly able to fire several (even hundreds of) shots, these homemade devices appear to be far from reliable. they also still require a high amount of skills and regulated metal parts to actually work. A fully 3D-printed plastic gun is very unlikely to ever function proficiently.

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It seems to me that 3D printing is still on the horizon of really making an impact.  There have been experiments but no major breakthroughs.

Can science make a functional 3D printed, thinking human being?  I don’t know - maybe God knows!!

LOVE WINS!!

Karen White, October 18, 2022, ©