The A3-sized panels are created by placing a fluid photovoltaic or pv ink onto slim, bendable plastic. This could mean that in the near future everyone has the capability to create their own solar energy farm at home.

Dr Scott Watkins, CSIRO materials researcher stated on the subject:

“The general concept of being able to manufacture on demand, in a house or in a workplace, is really a key feature of what we’re doing.”

Five years did the scientists at CSIRO need to develop the bendable solar panels, which currently are gaining interest from big companies that see a variety of use cases. Mobile phones, notebooks and magazines are potential products that could carry them in the near future. ”There are so many things we can do with cells this size. We can set them into advertising signage, powering lights and other interactive elements. We can even embed them into laptop cases to provide backup power for the machine inside,” Dr Watkins said.

The capability to print solar panels is not new in itself – but what is new is the capability to create them as huge and powerful as the Aussie edition. A new $200,000 3D printer makes this all possible. This 3D printer can print 30 centimetre-wide panels which generate between 10 to 50 watts of power per square metre and have been proven to last at least six months.

The desire to play with toys in real life will always stay and VEEMEE – in cooperation with Playstation – is the smart one by being the first to jump into this with both feet. PlayStation®Home now offers a 3D printer called the VEEMEE 3D printer. The printer uses the SLS technology.

The 3D printer will be available in the PlayStation®Home as of today. This is their press release:

Bring your PlayStation®Home personal space bang up to date with the laser-driven technical marvel that is the VEEMEE 3D Printer.
No more (virtual) trips to the (virtual) mall for (the virtual) you. Instead you can stay at home and manufacture a wide variety of (virtual) items in the comfort of any personal space. Hologram Chair, Beast Companion, Ninja Throwing Stars, Seagull Hat or… Feet for Hands..? All these and more can be printed out in a few seconds for you and your friends.
Keep coming back to your 3D Printer to see if anyone has bought gifts for you, and to check out the regular updates and promotions.
Visit Home Square to be rewarded your very own free 3D Printer with 50 free vouchers and get printing today.

Check out their release video

The weapon is called “the Liberator”, as a homage to cheap pistols distributed by the Allies in France during World War II. The Liberator was printed on a Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer. It consists of 16 parts, 15 of which are 3D-printed. The last part, the firing pin, is a simple nail, found in any hardware store.

This being such a controversial topic, the news coverage on this 3D printing “succes” has been enormous. Anti-gun campaigners have criticised the project and Americas and Europe’s law enforcement agencies said they are monitoring developments.

Take a look at this BBC coverage on the topic

Cody Wilson said he is not out to spread violence with his project. He says this is about freedom; “This is about enabling individuals to create their own sovereign space,”. What is your opinion? Do you think 3D printed guns should be banned or do you think that would be a violation of freedom? Let us know.

Source: BBC

Do read this very interesting press release that Princeton University released this Wednesday. 

The full press release

Printable ‘bionic’ ear melds electronics and biology

“The design and implementation of bionic organs and devices that enhance human capabilities, known as cybernetics, has been an area of increasing scientific interest,” the researchers wrote in the article which appears in the scholarly journal Nano Letters. “This field has the potential to generate customized replacement parts for the human body, or even create organs containing capabilities beyond what human biology ordinarily provides.”

Standard tissue engineering involves seeding types of cells, such as those that form ear cartilage, onto a scaffold of a polymer material called a hydrogel. However, the researchers said that this technique has problems replicating complicated three dimensional biological structures. Ear reconstruction “remains one of the most difficult problems in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery,” they wrote.

To solve the problem, the team turned to a manufacturing approach called 3D printing. These printers use computer-assisted design to conceive of objects as arrays of thin slices. The printer then deposits layers of a variety of materials – ranging from plastic to cells – to build up a finished product. Proponents say additive manufacturing promises to revolutionize home industries by allowing small teams or individuals to create work that could previously only be done by factories.

Creating organs using 3D printers is a recent advance; several groups have reported using the technology for this purpose in the past few months. But this is the first time that researchers have demonstrated that 3D printing is a convenient strategy to interweave tissue with electronics.

The technique allowed the researchers to combine the antenna electronics with tissue within the highly complex topology of a human ear. The researchers used an ordinary 3D printer to combine a matrix of hydrogel and calf cells with silver nanoparticles that form an antenna. The calf cells later develop into cartilage.

Manu Mannoor, a graduate student in McAlpine’s lab and the paper’s lead author, said that additive manufacturing opens new ways to think about the integration of electronics with biological tissue and makes possible the creation of true bionic organs in form and function. He said that it may be possible to integrate sensors into a variety of biological tissues, for example, to monitor stress on a patient’s knee meniscus.

David Gracias, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins and co-author on the publication, said that bridging the divide between biology and electronics represents a formidable challenge that needs to be overcome to enable the creation of smart prostheses and implants.

“Biological structures are soft and squishy, composed mostly of water and organic molecules, while conventional electronic devices are hard and dry, composed mainly of metals, semiconductors and inorganic dielectrics,” he said. “The differences in physical and chemical properties between these two material classes could not be any more pronounced.”

The finished ear consists of a coiled antenna inside a cartilage structure. Two wires lead from the base of the ear and wind around a helical “cochlea” – the part of the ear that senses sound – which can connect to electrodes. Although McAlpine cautions that further work and extensive testing would need to be done before the technology could be used on a patient, he said the ear in principle could be used to restore or enhance human hearing. He said electrical signals produced by the ear could be connected to a patient’s nerve endings, similar to a hearing aid. The current system receives radio waves, but he said the research team plans to incorporate other materials, such as pressure-sensitive electronic sensors, to enable the ear to register acoustic sounds.

In addition to McAlpine, Verma, Mannoor and Gracias the research team includes: Winston Soboyejo, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton; Karen Malatesta, a faculty fellow in molecular biology at Princeton; Yong Lin Kong, a graduate student in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton; and Teena James, a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins.

The team also included Ziwen Jiang, a high school student at the Peddie School in Hightstown who participated as part of an outreach program for young researchers in McAlpine’s lab.

“Ziwen Jiang is one of the most spectacular high school students I have ever seen,” McAlpine said. “We would not have been able to complete this project without him, particularly in his skill at mastering CAD designs of the bionic ears.”

Source: AAAS, the science society

The company, Pirate3D, launched only days ago but already is starting to get a little bit of buzz despite a lack of any real detail. A flashy splash page and a few nice renderings from an industrial designer are all it takes to draw some interest and without any machine specs there is nothing to get excited about. The images shown on their site showcase a few nice parts, but the description of “a 3D Printer everyone can use” may draw people in.

At least a few of the available details point to this machine having some potential. The co-founder named in the press release shows up in LinkedIn as a recent graduate of a Material Science program in Singapore. A handful of social media sites have also picked up the story and run with it, probably because the images that are available have a professional look. Facebook is the primary draw with over 1000 likes on their fan page, but there is a signup gimmick that is driving this (signup to enter a contest).

The initial response is partially because of the lack of information; they are even running a “contest” in order to announce their base price. Anyone who has developed a product knows this could mean one of two things.

1. The printer is not fully designed and there is no way to know the final cost that will be profitable.
2. The printer is not at all designed and there is no price for a theoretical concept.

Either of these scenarios should create hesitation for anyone looking to purchase a machine soon. The links to their youtube page are still broken and there are no demos of the “Smart Objects” design software shown on their landing page. When asked over email and on the forums for more details the response has been, “The pricing will be revealed next week”. Thankfully Pirate3D has not actually announced the machine is for sale, their webpage has a signup for more information but not pre-orders.

With the popularity of 3D printing on the rise, the US President mentioning 3D printing in his annual State of The Union, and 3D printer OEM stocks on the rise, there is amble opportunity that this is a bubble around the slick output of an industrial designer. When things get to the point of being over-hyped all it takes is a nice picture and a professional looking website to make things take off. Right now there is no way of knowing if the Buccaneer is the real thing but we will be watching closely to see what comes of it.

3D Systems announced that as of yesterday their new ProJet X60 series is available. This series of printers is (as 3D Systems claims) able to print 90% of the colors available in Adobe Photoshop using VisiJetPXL materials (their new premium composite).

The new ProJet line is build on the already proven ZPrinter platform that came from the old ZCorp and was the first full colour 3D printer line available.

The six available models are:

• ProJet 160 – compact size, most affordable monochrome printing

• ProJet 260C– compact size, most affordable full color 3D printer available

• ProJet 360 – medium size, monochrome printing affordability

• ProJet 460Plus – medium size, high-quality full color printing

• ProJet 660Pro – large format, premium-quality full color printing

• ProJet 860Pro – super-large format, premium-quality full color printing

Check out their promo movie for some print examples and some additional info

“We have achieved excellent function in a fully cellular 3D human liver tissue.  With Organovo’s 3D bioprinted liver tissues, we have demonstrated the power of bioprinting to create functional human tissue that replicates human biology better than what has come before.  Not only can these tissues be a first step towards larger 3D liver, laboratory tests with these samples have the potential to be game changing for medical research. We believe these models will prove superior in their ability to provide predictive data for drug discovery and development, better than animal models or current cell models,” said Keith Murphy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Organovo.

Cross-section of multi-cellular bioprinted human liver tissue

Key research features

Organovo managed to combine three key features that set their 3D tissues apart from 2D cell-culture models.

1. The tissues are not a monolayer of cells (approximately 20 cell layers thick)

2. The multi-cellular tissues closely reproduce the distinct cellular patterns found in native tissue.

3. The Organovo tissues are highly cellular, comprised of cells and the proteins those cells produce, without dependence on biomaterials or scaffold for 3-dimensionality. As Dr. Sharon Presnell, CTO and VP of R&D stated: “They actually look and feel like living tissue”.

Click here for more information about Organovo’s 3D Human Liver Tissue Model.

The Mcor Iris is an amazing 3D printer with True Colour (1 million+ colours and 5760 x 1440 x 508dpi !). This is the same 3D printer Staples is going to use for their print service. You can read more about that here.

Lets take a look at these great prints the Mcor IRIS made using ColourIT software. Wow.

All images courtesy or Mcor.

Barobo  is a UC Davis spin-off that “aims to make robotics more affordable, adaptable, reconfigurable, and reprogrammable for education, research and industrial applications.” The primary product is the Mobot, a programmable robot whose parts are now freely available on their website.

For $140 the Mobot kit includes all of the robotics required to build a Mobot as well as the intrustions on how to assemble. The only thing the kit does not include is the actual plastic parts that make up the Mobot – instead these are available as models and are intentded to be 3D printed. This seems like a great way to extend the learning for STEM subjects while providing students with a fun project that has a cool outcome.

Barobo will continue to sell the parts when necessary (at least for some time it seems) but they are not afraid of people cutting into their business by producing their own models. From the PR Newswire release, Co-Found Graham Ryland:

“We’re breaking from traditional business models and relying on our users to, not just assemble the robot, but play an active role in manufacturing the plastic parts. We’ve proven the technology in the classroom and want to get it into students’ hands as quickly and cheaply as possible. Relying on customers to manufacture their own plastic parts wasn’t an option just a few years ago, but 3D printing technology has made this new way of rolling out an educational product possible.”

As far as 3D printing food is concerned, you just need to pick the elements you wish to include in your meal and rest assured that it would be exactly how you thought about it.

Freedom of Creation is a famous design studio and Janne Kyttanen is one of the people who set up this studio. His most recent research activities and tests on 3D printing have been focused on 3D printed food. There have been researches on pasta and cupcakes however the tests on plaster and plastic might show the path to additionally complicated formulas. Janne Kyttanen is regarded as one of the innovators of product design and 3D printing.

He has voiced a number of valuable opinions. According to Kyttanen:

1) The success of 3D printed food will rely on an effective business model and the type of advertising/campaigning

2) For monetizing printed food, novelty goods would be the ideal course of action, as a minimum in the beginning

3) As soon as 3D printing of victuals starts, the design sector should adopt it from the food sector. Janne is convinced that food design as complementary recipes on the Internet is a wonderful model of how the outlook to the ownership of intellectual properties is heralding. Design ownership or copyright will soon be a matter of the past with loosening IP regulations when 3D printed food turns out to be a popular trend.

The concept is presently functioning through blending peeled powders and fluids with the three dimensional printer in order to ensure that users can notionally produce any food they want to. This venture is still under the improvement phase. However, Janne says when a particular degree of achievement is made where molecules and particles may be maneuvered, there is no bound to what can be attained.

Persuading businesses about the financial success of 3D printing is one more objective which has the potential to speed up developments in the domain of 3D printing of foods. Earlier, Janne stated that printing things at home might contribute towards cost reduction and this can be implemented for food as well. Nonetheless, getting big businesses on the same platform is something difficult to achieve.

Kyttanen advised that a unique campaign might attract the keenness of businesses and he cited the instance of collaborating with a well-known brand of chocolates where customers will be permitted to scan their faces and get them produced as chocolate cakes.

As soon as all these take place, printing your favorite burger will just be a matter of time. The endeavor behind this is undoubtedly commendable, says the media.