Saturday 16 September 2017

Nothing Says The Future Quite Like 3D Printer Filament

By Dorothy Miller


It is doubtful that anyone could have imagined the technological breakthrough of the three-dimensional printers. Although it is still little more than a toy to most people, this toy is better than Lego blocks, erector sets, fashion plates, and real working Hot Wheels combined. With a little 3D printer filament, the boundaries of potential creation do not exist.

The initial introduction of this technology did not seem to raise very many glasses at first. In fact, not many average people really had any notion of exactly where the tech was most easily applied to their lives. It is doubtful that anyone, including technical gurus, really understood how this technology would create the potential to completely rewrite manufacturing as it is done today.

Initially hobbyists bought these up and created ornaments for Christmas trees and other general artsy projects. The ornaments suddenly could have solar lights that attached or were part of the object. Then these very artistic yet very average people realized a potential for moving parts, small machines, ornaments that jingle when they strike each other, kept moving by the basic laws of perpetual motion.

There are many children who, for whatever reasons, are born with hands, arms, feet, limbs missing. When a parent of such a child saw these tiny machines hanging from artificial trees, ornamenting the Holidays of strangers, an idea suddenly emerged into concept. A parent made a child an artificial hand that was radically Transformers in appearance, and could be redesigned over and over as they grew.

With the expansion of the materials available for these printers, so do the ideas and objects that human beings create. Some first prototypes do not live up to their originals, such as the first musical instruments created. However, electric instruments created in this way have a most excellent sound, and some of them are unlike anything anyone has ever dreamed could be.

Clothing designers have even taken a hand at creating the first styles and designs utilizing this medium. There is no end to how this industry, and others, will be forever changed with this technology. From the mind of an artist that utilizes the hands of robotic whimsy, even our clothing is three dimensional now.

Erupting from this flood of creative flow came yet another unexpected tsunami of potential. The implications of using this type of manufacturing in order to create body parts from stem cells carries a heavy implication that our bodies could one day be self-maintained biological machines, and we can be our own mechanics. This potential for all of us to live longer and better without doctors is heavy.

The truth of the matter is that all manufacturing, of all products we use in our daily lives, may one day be designed by us and printed in our own homes. This means warehouse districts are over, along with all the jobs that they represent. This technology will force us to rethink everything we know about how and why people work, and we must recreate ourselves as fully as we might recreate our aging bodies someday sooner than we knew.




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