Printers

I was actually toying with the idea of changing my already 9 year old inkjet printer recently, but as happens when you are looking for one thing on the Internet, references to something else caught my eye, in this instance 3D printers. Not that I need one, but I find the idea of printing three-dimensional objects quite fascinating. Even more so if you can do this in your own home!

Do you remember the dot matrix printers of the 1970s and 80s? Back then most people wouldn’t have thought of ever seeing a 3D printer in action. I still remember when the first models were sold some 30 years ago, then costing the same as a decent family car. How things have changed! Cheap 3D printers are now sold for around $200 (or the equivalent in your currency) while a high-end consumer model will set you back a few thousands. And just in case you were wondering, a high-end industrial machine will still cost in excess of 100k

There are plenty of useful contraptions, some of which could now even be easily produced at home, and then there are those items that really boggle the mind, for one, because I really struggle to see the usefulness, for example, of a 3D-printed Darth Vader pen holder. Or think of Dieter Michael Krone, a German, who first made a paper airplane folding machine way back in 2014. He also, a few years later, invented the least offensv machine gun in the world, which can fold and shoot hundreds of airplanes. Simply stick 200 sheets of A5 (that’s 5.8 x 8.3 inches for our American friends) paper into the back of the machine gun, pull the trigger and a barrage of up to 120 paper airplanes every minute will fly out into the air (there is even a video of the gun in action). Not yet answered is the question who is going to pick the planes up again.

One costume artist, or cosplayer as my 20 year old son teaches me, takes his hobby particularly seriously, having spent 6 months to 3D-print and then assemble multiple parts into full-size Iron Man suit. And since I am talking superheroes, I might as well mention the various instructions you will find to print your own Batman or Judge Dredd models, or, if Star Wars is your cup of tea, stormtrooper helmets.

Now if you are a foodie, you may want to skip this paragraph: Would you fancy a printed pizza, followed maybe by some Candy treats in various flavours out of the 3D printer? Believe it or not, these things already exist! Alternatively, vegans rejoice, Spanish company Novameat is famous for 3D printing vegan meat. Essentially, their technology manages to reorganise the nanofibres from vegetables’ proteins to make them seem like animal proteins. And plant based meat has been around for a while and gets the big corporates’ juices flowing as I explained in my post ‘burger wars’ a while ago. Will our kids or grandkids one day be able to print their food at home? I suppose that would be a serious step up from the self-ordering fridge in my post ‘smart everything everywhere’.

After eating your printed lunch, you might feel the need for some outdoor sport: Jim Smith 3D-printed and assembled in some 1000 hours his own Kayak out of 42 different sections. And apparently it is watertight. Or if you’re rather into playing football, Nike created already in 2013 its new design of Vapour Laser Talon football boots, the first ever 3D printed football boots that were designed to help athletes perform at their best thanks to a lightweight design and powerful traction grips. On the other hand, if you’re more the arty type, then the 3Dvarius, the first 3D printed and fully playable electric violin should catch your eye (watch the video and I’m sure you’ll agree that it looks peculiar but sounds good).

Decorative objects, musical instruments, sneakers and even food, there is hardly an area which three-dimensional printing hasn’t entered yet. So far so good, no life is at stake when printed musical instruments are being played. And it is my choice whether I want to feast on a printed pizza or burger. More complex are situations when we may not be aware that printed parts are being used, such as the 300 pieces in the GE9X engines which will power Boeing’s 777X. It seems that the aviation giant has been using 3D-printing since 1997, and it currently 3D prints approximately 300 non-metallic parts across 10 different aircraft platforms. In total this equates to more than 20,000 3D printed parts flying in the skies today – maybe not something you want to think about when you are cruising towards your holiday destination at 38‘000 feet.

3D-printing no doubt is going to become ever more prevalent, not least because it allows the ultimate customisation: Each item produced can be truly unique. This certainly is a big advantage when considering printing individual body parts. Scientists in the U.K. have 3D-printed the first human corneas using stem cells, while researchers in the Netherlands have developed the first antibacterial tooth – something which no doubt is not going to be popular with dentists. And last but not least scientists here in Switzerland have 3D-printed the first artificial heart made out of silicone. It needs more work though as at present it only lasts 3000 beats, which is about half an hour (you can watch a video here).

One can‘t help being amazed realising where we have come from in just about four decades, from printing text and low definition graphics with a dot matrix printer to 3D printed body parts. While we all got used to the ever increasing computing power of our notebooks and smartphones, the evolution of peripheral devices did not get nearly as much attention. And maybe that’s exactly where some of the big future advances lie. But that is for our kids and grandkids to make it happen.