February 5, 2016
A team of students from Delft University of Technology have designed and produced a fully functional 3D printed stainless steel bicycle. It looks like a robot did some heavy metal basket weaving.
At the beginning, we noticed the project was being welded at MX3D in Amsterdam, the folks working on a 3D printed steel bridge.
The Arc Bicycle is apparently the first ever 3D printed metal bicycle to be produced using a welding process.
(Link: www.bright.nl, Screenshot: YouTube video by Arc Bicycle)
January 7, 2016
Stalaclights are bulb shades that look like famous buildings designed by Dutch designer David Graas. A play on words with the mineral formations ‘stalactites’ (stalagmites are the ones on the ground pointing upwards), these bulb shades are 3D printed and resemble some of the first skyscrapers of New York, Chicago and more. The shade can be placed over the bulb, as the lighting is LED and therefore doesn’t burn through.
Graas also makes street furniture you can laser cut and 3D print out yourself. The “I’m Too Sexy For The Sidewalk” series consists of three different furniture designs you can download for free and produce yourself using cardboard found on the street.
(Link: www.neatorama.com, Photo: www.davidgraas.com, one of the Petronas twin towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Tags: 3D printing, buildings, chairs, David Graas
September 23, 2015
In 2013 3D printed shoes by United Nude were unveiled during Paris Fashion Week, and this time ice block inspired shoes have been recently launched during Vogue’s Fashion’s Night Out in Taipei, Taiwan. The shoes will be on display there until 28 September and feature a live 3D printing installation.
United Nude’s creative director Rem D. Koolhaas said that 3D printing allows them to experiment with new shapes much quicker than before without big development costs and for very small quantities. The shoes have eight-inch heels and were were printed on a CubePro desktop printer using plastic PLA filament.
(Link and photo: www.dezeen.com)
Tags: 3D printing, shoes, United Nude
August 11, 2015
London-based Dutch designer Frank Kolkman, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, has built an open-source device that could enable ordinary people to perform keyhole surgery on themselves, aptly entitled ‘Open Surgery’.
This DIY surgical robot was made using 3D printing and laser cutting technologies, and would be suited to do surgery on the lower abdomen, procedures including prostate surgery, appendectomies or hysterectomies. The device would normally be controlled by a person and in this case, using a PlayStation 3 controller to be able to move in all directions.
“Open Surgery investigates whether DIY surgical tools outside regulated healthcare systems could plausibly provide a more accessible version of healthcare,” Kolkman explains. His idea is to demonstrate that medical innovation can come from outside the medical field, as more and more people from first world countries turn to medical hacks that can be found on YouTube.
It cost Kolkman 5,000 USD to make the device, and at the time of filming, he claims that an appendectomy in the US costs 10,000 USD, while a professional surgery robot costs 2 mln USD.
(Link and screenshot: www.dezeen.com)
Tags: 3D printing, DIY, hacking, operation, surgery
June 28, 2015
Would you like to own a ‘real’ Van Gogh without either risking bankruptcy or an entry in Interpol’s ‘most wanted’ list?
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam comes to the rescue. In 2013 the museum started a collaboration with Fujifilm to 3D print copies of famous Vincent van Gogh paintings that are said to be indistinguishable from the originals when viewed with the naked eye.
Every brush stroke is copied in these replicas (called Relievos) which go for about 25,000 euro each. Art historian Ko van Dun saw one last week and reports:
The copy is so good that it is indistinguishable from the original. Not nearly distinguishable, not even a little, just not at all. Yesterday I stood in front of one, an experience which left me flabbergasted. You are for all intents and purposes looking at a true Van Gogh – in my case The Harvest from 1888, one of the painter’s most famous works – with the exact same colours as the original, the exact same highlights, relief, everything.
So far [the museum has failed to] find customers, but that would seem to be a matter of time.
The possibilities of this technology boggle the mind. Van Gogh Museum hints at some of them when it alludes to its “mission to inspire and enrich as large an audience as possible”. In other words, next time you stand in front of a Van Gogh, it might not even be the original.
You can see some of the technology behind the 3D scans in this YouTube video.
(Link: Trendbeheer; illustration: extreme close-up of The Harvest via Van Gogh Museum)
Tags: 3D printing, forgeries, Fujifilm, Van Gogh Museum, Vincent van Gogh
June 15, 2015
Startup company MX3D that does 3D printing of metals and resin in mid-air has plans to print a steel bridge in Amsterdam without any additional support structures. Using ‘multi-axis’ industrial robots and an advanced welding machine, MX3D can print with steel, stainless steel, aluminium, bronze and copper in mid-air. In September the city of Amsterdam will announce where the bridge will be built.
“The robots will begin printing the bridge on one side of the canal and will create rail supports as they go. They will be able to gradually slide forward on supports, literally creating the bridge upon which they are crossing the canal.” MX3D’s bridge will be made of a new steel composite designed by the University of Delft.
MX3D will be collaborating with many parties on this project, including Amsterdam’s Joris Laarman Lab with their supportless, magical 3D printing of metal.
(Link: phys.org, Photo of freeform metal lines from dezeen.com)
Tags: 3D printing, Amsterdam, bridge, Joris Laarman
January 6, 2015
Designed by Dutchman Oskar van Deventer, the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube, known as the Over The Top 17x17x17, was solved last November by American Kenneth Brandon.
Besides solving puzzles, Brandon also shoots time-lapse videos and made a six minute one of his solution here below. He also mentions that he has a 7.5 hour version floating around for his hardcore fans.
The Guinness World Records awarded the ‘largest order Rubik’s magic cube’ to the 17×17×17 cube made by Van Deventer in 2011. Van Deventer has all kinds of puzzles for sale, made with 3D printing technology.
(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl, Photo: Rubik’s Cube knockoff)
Tags: 3D printing, Guinness World Records, puzzle, Rubik's Cube
November 9, 2014
Dutch designer Michiel van der Kley created Project EGG, which features 4,760 3D-printed stones, each one different and printed by someone else abroad, and mailed back to van der Kley for final assembly. Project EGG uses biodegradable polylactide (PLA) plastic stones that have been designed with parametric software. The project came about after Van der Kley’s recent experiments with desktop 3D printers, which prompted him to find other ways of creating larger works, without being constrained by the relatively small size of current desktop models.
(Link: www.treehugger.com, Photo: projectegg.org)
Tags: 3D printing
August 12, 2014
There are people addicted to using their smartphones, and maybe you’re one of them. Fear not, you can buy or ask someone to buy you the NoPhone, so you can finally have conversations with humans instead of checking your phone the whole time.
Dutch creatives Ben Langeveld and Ingmar Larsen together with a couple of New Yorkers thought up the 3D printed NoPhone, a black rectangular bit of plastic that feels like a smartphone in your hand, but isn’t one.
According to them, a person touches a smartphone about 150 times a day, significantly reducing a person’s real-life interaction. The NoPhone is like the pen a smoker puts in their mouth to ease cravings.
I bet people would buy the NoPhone for someone else as a huge hint that watching them stare at their phone is annoying. In fact, Langeveld and Larsen made the NoPhone with that specific type of addict in mind.
(Link: www.adformatie.nl, Photo: NoPhone)
Tags: 3D printing, Smartphones
March 28, 2014
The UMC Utrecht hospital has recently implanted a 3D printed skull (pic) made of plastic into a 22-year-old woman, a world’s first according to the hospital that claims it is a revolutionary procedure that has never been done before.
The hospital says that the patient suffers from a rare affliction where the skull bone steadily thickens, placing too much pressure on the brain. The woman’s surgeon, Bon Verweij, says she has been losing the ability to make facial expressions, and that it was only a matter of time before she would lose other crucial brain functions and eventually pass away.
UMC Utrecht has performed several operations replacing sections of skull bone, but this is the first time they attempted an entire cranium. The hospital waited a few months before announcing the operation, making sure it was successful first. “The patient has regained her capacity for facial expression, is free of complaints, is back to work and it is nearly impossible to see she was ever operated on”, Verweij says.
The UMC Utrecht thinks this technique of 3D printing can also be used for patients with different bone abnormalities, repairing skulls after accidents, or with tumors.
A year ago Leiden University was developing the 3D printing of skin for medical purposes.
News item in Dutch, but the visuals tell the story:
(Link: www.nltimes.nl, Photo of an Ultimaker 3D printer)
Tags: 3D printing, bone, skull, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht
