Skynet is Here: 3D Printing Robots
I have this little hobby, and I call it Skynet search. I basically look around the internets for signs of an emerging Skynet. What? Have I ever said anything negative about your hobbies? Gardening? Or collecting stamps? Can your hobby save humanity? Well today is a big day in Skynet search because I’ve just heard about RoboEarth. RoboEarth allows robots to build on and learn from the experiences of other robots. The project aims to be a internet for robots. Currently every robotics project has to ”teach” their robot to navigate in the real world. By collecting and centralizing information on objects, navigation and recognizing objects Robo Earth does this for everyone. Potentially each robot connected to the network will instantly be as capable of navigating our world as the network is. This also frees up a lot of robotics researchers time so they can concentrate on making the robots better.
Scientists and researchers from the Technical University of Eindhoven, Philips & the univ
Iris van Herpen’s new 3D printed Escapism couture collection for .MGX
Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen has just shown her Escapism couture collection during the haute couture week in Paris Spring Summer 2011. This is her second 3D printed fashion collection after Spring/Summer”s Crystallization. The collection is a collaboration between Iris van Herpen and architect Daniel Wildrig with our label .MGX by Materialise. The hats are designed and made by Stephen Jones. The shoes were made by Rem Koolhaas” United Nude. “Escapism is about the addiction of constantly escaping reality by digital entertainment, something that nowadays is a big part of everyone’s world.” We loved that our company could be a part of creating something so beautiful and feel that the collection is stunning.
Luckily, we’re not the only ones. The collection was very well recieved with fashion critic Philippe Pourhashemi saying of it, “I got emotional watching her show and felt transported to a different world. Her women looked like beautiful insects or seductive crea
This week in 3D printing: 22nd to 28th of January 2011
January 24th. Takae a Fab@Home 3D printer some gifted chefs and what do you get? 3D printed mexican food on CNN Money.
January 25th. Our 3D printing a better paperclip project ends up on FastCoDesign & PSFK.
January 25th. A complete 3D printable Settlers of Cata game on Thingiverse sparks off a debate on twitter on copyright & copywrong.
January 26th. The Pixar blog shows off a lovely Zcorp 3D print of Lotso.
January 27th. We add stainless steel 3D printing to our line up.
January 28th. Oscar van Deventer, puzzle savant & allround nice guy, makes one of the worlds largest and most complicated twisty puzzles using 3D printing and PopSci salutes him!Â
Have a nice weekend! Did I miss something? Tell me in the comments.
3D Printing in Steel is now Possible!
Today we launch Stainless Steel 3D printing. This will allow designers to 3D print in steel and give them more freedom to design beautiful things. This is especially true because 3D printed steel comes in 7 different finishes. These finishes allow you to get your steampunk on and 3D print wonderfully old looking new things.
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3D printing & piracy. 3D printing The Settlers of Catan
Roughly an hour ago a tweet emerged stating “3D printing board game piracy is already a thing“. The tweet was pointed towards a thing on Thingiverse called 3D games pieces by Sublime. Â The game pieces, if printed out would constitute a complete version of the very popular Settlers of Catan boardgame.
Now everyone with a 3D printer can take this game, 3D print it and have it without paying anything to the designer. The information has spread vast and wide across the internet, possibly forever. And this is before the blogs get a hold of it!  Â
Through Thingiverse and Twitter the idea of a 3D printed Catan now exists. As long as the file is there somewhere on the internet, people can 3D print Catan. So, you will not only not have to pay Klaus Teuber, the creator of Catan, money for his game this one time. You will never have to give him any money any more for infinite copies of Catan. If the design of the copy is good enough, then potentially no one will ever have to giv
3D Food printing on CNN money
You should really read this great story by the people over at Cooking Issues about how they used a FAB@Home 3D printer to 3D print massa for CNN Money. It is nice to contrast Cooking Issues” take versus the CNN Money article. See the video below also to see how 3D printing makes Mexican Food.
Using 3D printing to build a better paperclip, the Infinite Clip
We wanted to make something beautiful and fun for Thingiverse. You know how people have tried to build a better mouse trap? We”re trying to build a better paperclip, using 3D printing. The paperclip is a scion of mass production, patented in 1867. We tried to reimagine this evergreen of manufacturing and would be curious to know what you think. Â
The cool thing about the Infinite Clip is that not only can it clip paper but it can also attach to lots of things in lots of different ways. It can serve as a hook and clip onto things in four different directions. The clip is flexible and can be used to hold small things as well as thick things.
You could adapt the design if you want to. By changing the thickness of the design you can make it stronger depending on the tasks at hand.  Need a clip to hang up some clothes? Change the design to make it close much tighter. Need a bigger clip? Just scale and print another.Â
We”ve test 3D printed
This week in 3D printing: 15th to the 21st of January 2011
January 17th. Fresh Fiber and Freedom of Creation turn to Kicksarter to try to fund an iPad customization tool.
January 18th. i.materialise launches titanium 3D printing for you, me and everyone else, a world first.
January 18th. Stratasys and HP announce that their cooperation will be extended and that sales of the Designjet 3D HP branded Stratasys 3D printers have “exceeded their original forecasts.”
January 19th. We discover that gold 3D printing is now possible.
January 20th. Amit Zoran”s Flute continues its rise to popularity, hitting the New Scientist website.
As always do remind me if I left something out! Have a nice weekend.
DMLS: 3D Printing in Titanium Possible with i.materialise
Direct Metal Laser Sintering – or DMLS for short – is a game changer when to comes to direct 3D printing of metals. We’re proud to announce that as of today everyone can use our online 3D printing service for printing your design in titanium – yes, 3D printed titanium! Read on to learn more about DMLS printers, the DMLS technology, and our DMLS titanium. (more…)
This week in 3D printing 8th to the 14th of January 2011
January 8th. Makerbot is crowned best of CES by David Ewalt of Forbes.
January 10th. Dr. Adrian Boyer of the RepRap project writes about Hod Lipson”s Factory @ Home report for the White House. You should take the time to read it here.
January 10th. Fabbaloo reports on Andrew Monti”s idea for “Books that print” using QR codes.
January 11th. Fab Camp Liverpool is a go, it is a weekend “aimed at raising awareness of the revolution in digital fabrication.” Visitors will be able to 3D print and learn about it and other manufacturing technologies at the event.
January 11th. MIT student Charles Z. Guan makes a Make-A-Bot, a Fused Filament Fabrication machine based on RepRap and Makerbot.
January 11th. The Times features 3D printing in an article “Lost your car key? Never mind, print another with new 3-D printer.”
January 12th. An open source guitar is 3D printed using Blender and an open innovation company called Zoybar. This is an example of network
