Maker Movement.pdf Astronauts getting 3-D printer at International Space Station Now Playing NASA awards 'space taxi' contract to Boeing and SpaceX CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The 3-D printing boom is about to invade space. NASA is sending a 3-D printer to the International Space Station in hopes that astronauts will be able to one day fix their spacecraft by cranking out spare parts on the spot. The printer, made by a Northern California company called Made in Space, is among more than 5,000 pounds of space station cargo that's stuffed into a SpaceX Dragon capsule that was supposed to lift off before dawn Saturday. Besides real-time replacement parts at the station, NASA envisions astronauts, in the decades ahead, making entire habitats at faraway destinations like Mars. "If we're really going to set up shop on Mars," we have to do this, Jeff Sheehy, NASA's senior technologist, said Friday. At Kennedy Space Center, the company showed off a number of objects made by its 3-D printers. It was designed to operate safely in weightlessness inside a sealed chamber.
ASEE PRISM - NOVEMBER 2011 - FEATURE Fuel cells are typically made from three materials that have to withstand heat ranging from room temperature to 800° Celsius. But because the materials expand at different rates when heated, degradation and cracking can occur where they meet. To help solve this problem, Denis Cormier, a professor of machining and manufacturing at the Rochester Institute of Technology, is developing fuel cells that are produced by 3-D printers, microlayer by microlayer. Instead of having potentially weak seams binding them together, the materials blend into one another. “You gradually transition the materials,” Cormier explains. It’s an intricate weaving process that can’t be done by conventional manufacturing technologies. Such delicate fabrication is among the breakthroughs that enthusiasts hail as the first stirring of an American industrial revival. If, as Locke contended, manufacturing remains vitally important to U.S. national and economic security, it is in dire need of a reboot. 3-D printer. TOPˆ
British Museum now lets you 3D print its artifacts using Sketchfab Why visit a museum halfway around the world, when you can check out 3D scans, and print them from your own home? Sketchfab, a platform that lets users publish and share 3D content online, unveiled on Thursday an option for users to make their files downloadable. Under Creative Commons licenses, a user can either publish 3D content "for display and download" or "for display only," Sketchfab said in a blog post. The company also announced that it is hosting the "first downloadable collection" of the British Museum in London. Colossal marble bust of Zeus by britishmuseum on Sketchfab If artifacts are not your style, Sketchfab also has other content in its extensive database, such as Christmas decorations, 3D printable cases for Nokia, HTC and Apple smartphones, as well as objects created by Microsoft, including a mustache-shaped cookie cutter. Sketchfab currently offers more than 200,000 3D objects, but not all uploaded files are immediately downloadable.
3D printing in schools Credit: Caroline Poe Photography Check out this post from Austin-based design technologist (at frog) Gregg Wygonik, who attended what is now officially known – by proclamation of the Mayor! – as ACE Academy Innovation Day. I never get tired of reading about young kids who need no explanation of what 3D printing is or why it’s powerful. Gregg is an enthusiastic MakerBotter, and he answered our call to action (wittingly or not) for a community member to go represent us at this cool day-long science fair for young innovators. And then one of the youngsters asked Gregg why he was running Windows on a Mac, while another schooled his peer on time-lapse YouTube videos of 3D prints in progress. Heh…kids. Were these kids exceptionally engaged in the world or is that just what kids are like these days? While we got questions from parents about how it worked, the kids all seemed to know… Thanks, Gregg (and his colleague Brooks!) The video below shows a little more about what the day entailed.
Documentary 'Print the Legend' Goes Inside the World of 3D Printing The genesis of and challenges to the 3D-printing revolution are subjects that take center stage in a new documentary called Print the Legend. From directors Clay Tweel and Luis Lopez (Freakonomics), the film sets out to act as a "'time capsule' of a nascent industry," Tweel told Mashable. "The result is both a look inside a compelling new technology, and hopefully, a story about the challenges of growing any type of business, and facing the moral dilemmas our marketplace presents." That it is. Tweel said he knew "nothing" about 3D printing when he walked into the doors of MakerBot nearly two years ago, but working behind the scenes has taught him much about the industry. Print the Legend is now in theaters across New York and Los Angeles, and is also available on Netflix. BONUS: What Is 3D Printing and How Does It Work? Have something to add to this story?
The Future Of Education Eliminates The Classroom, Because The World Is Your Class This probably sounds familiar: You are with a group of friends arguing about some piece of trivia or historical fact. Someone says, "Wait, let me look this up on Wikipedia," and proceeds to read the information out loud to the whole group, thus resolving the argument. Don’t dismiss this as a trivial occasion. It represents a learning moment, or more precisely, a microlearning moment, and it foreshadows a much larger transformation—to what I call socialstructed learning. Socialstructed learning is an aggregation of microlearning experiences drawn from a rich ecology of content and driven not by grades but by social and intrinsic rewards. Think of a simple augmented reality app on your iPhone such as Yelp Monocle. This is exactly what a project from USC and UCLA called HyperCities is doing: layering historical information on the actual city terrain. So look beyond MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) in thinking about the future education.
Layer by Layer Buildup: GE made the aircraft engine component on the left by using a laser to melt metal in precise places, beginning with the single layer seen on the right. The parts in jet engines have to withstand staggering forces and temperatures, and they have to be as light as possible to save on fuel. That means it’s complex and costly to make them: technicians at General Electric weld together as many as 20 separate pieces of metal to achieve a shape that efficiently mixes fuel and air in a fuel injector. But for a new engine coming out next year, GE thinks it has a better way to make fuel injectors: by printing them. To do it, a laser traces out the shape of the injector’s cross-section on a bed of cobalt-chrome powder, fusing the powder into solid form to build up the injector one ultrathin layer at a time. These innovations are at the forefront of a radical change in manufacturing technology that is especially appealing in advanced applications like aerospace and cars. David H.
AR week 3 kideville | Design Make Play | 3D Printing at schools - cunicode kideville | Design Make Play | 3D Printing at schools kideville is the second project by kide: it is a city, made up of 3D printed houses, designed by children and built on a RepRap 3D printer. The project was first presented in the exhibition “Design in Marveland” in Kensington, London, where the visiting children could participate in an ongoing workshop, design their ideal house and watch it being 3D printed directly at the exhibition. “Design in Marveland” featured a collection of works by children and products by established designers for children. kide is a unique teaching tool for schools which allows children to design and make 3D printed toys through playing a creative game. By using the computers to design, the 3D printers to make, and the toys to play with, children create a link between the virtual and materialistic 3D worlds. kide (www.playkide.com) is a project by Dejan Mitrovic (www.dejanmitrovic.co.uk)
60 Excellent Free 3D Model Websites 3D printers have immensely revolutionized the art and manufacturing industry. With advancements in the 3D printer technology, it is now not very difficult to own one, even in your home or office. Moreover, you don’t have to be an AutoCAD engineer to design a 3D model for your needs, as this job is taken up by numerous 3D model websites. So, either you want to create 3D furniture, a mechanical component, or even human or animal figurines, here are 50 of the best free 3D model websites to cover up all your needs. Take a look. 10 Cheap and Affordable 3D Printers to Buy 10 Cheap and Affordable 3D Printers to Buy There was a time when 3D printers were a novelty - but not anymore. Pikbest Pikbest offers thousands of 3D models that are presented under various categories like decoration, wedding, appliances, bathroom, kitchen, furniture. GrabCAD GrabCAD Community Library offers 2.8+ million designs and models including CADs, thanks to its largest community of designers, engineers, and students. Cults