Erm.. What’s 3D Printing?
It had been a very busy week at work, so I took some time off on the weekend, I was playing football with my neighbour’s ten year old, Ted. He is a curious kid, very chatty and full of energy, he popped a question asking “Uncle, what do you do?” I told him, “I do 3D Printing” , he put a confused face asking “what is thaaat?”
I’m still figuring out how to explain 3D Printing to adults and here was a ten year old asking me this. Ted knew nothing about prototyping, CNC machines or manufacturing. How do I explain 3D printing to him now?
So I told him, “You have a great idea for an object, you can imagine in your mind how it will work, and how cool it will be when it’s done. You can see in your mind how each piece works together and how much easier it makes your life. But putting that into words is a little challenging. You’d like to make something that you can touch and feel which resembles the picture in your mind. You create a a rough sketch of what the object will look like on paper, That’s a 2D design of your idea. Now you want to physically hold the model of your idea. That’s a 3D design and I transform these 3D designs to physical models.”
Now he was very excited to see the models I’ve made and wants to make one himself. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking the first time I was introduced to 3D Printing, I was scrolling through social media and this video caught my attention “In a ground-breaking project, a Brazilian toucan which lost the upper part of its beak while being trafficked has been fitted with a prosthesis made with a 3D printer.”, they had 3D printed a beak, a beak! I was blown away with what they were trying to do. I thought if this technology was implemented, it would change the way we perceive solutions to everyday problems. Its definitely making a huge difference to the product manufacturing industry but also significant contribution towards the fields of health-care and education. This technology is breaking the barriers of traditional methods and paving new dimensions for innovation.
And you know what’s interesting, even before 3D Printing prevailed on earth, it had invaded ‘Space’. According to NASA, The first commercial 3D printer in space is up and running.
The machine, known as the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF), was installed aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in late April, 2016. It printed out its first tool — a wrench that astronauts can use to do maintenance work aboard the orbiting lab.When something is broken, and they need to replace a part, it can be long and expensive to send them what they need. They could simply 3D print it. It is the same thing if a tool is missing. It would be so much easier and time-saving if they could just 3D print their screwdriver when they needed it! A 3D printer working in orbit would allow to create satellite structures.
I could go on and on about it..”
but it was getting dark and Ted had to go home.
I wanted to share this with all of you, how transforming ideas to prototypes has become easy, 3D printing has optimized geometry and inventory, It has given product developers and manufacturers the freedom to think and build products that weren’t possible before.
So this is my 3D story, What’s yours?
See you next weekend!
