By Alan
You want to build something? The steps used to be: Think, sketch, draw, draft, design, prototype, engineer, fabricate, cut, form, machine, assemble, build, mass produce.
Some of those steps required specialized training, or years of experience to do. In the last few decades, the world changed because you could get fabrication from Computer Numerical Controlled machine tools to grind away material from a giant block of metal, plastic or wood.
But, in the last few years, this has dramatically changed. Imagine being able to think of a shape or object, draw it in the computer, and have a real model of it sitting in your hand an hour later. The part isn't carved away from a big block, instead it is created layer by layer from scratch, in plastic, metal, or even edible materials such as hard candy or chocolate.
This used to be the basis for cool science fiction like Star Trek's Holodeck. Neal Stephenson's third novel The Diamond Age, is based on the idea that matter compilers when given a pattern and power, can fabricate anything just by assembling molecules one layer at a time until the item is completed. In fact, George Clooney has reported in his blog that he is producing a 6 hour miniseries for the SyFy Channel based on that novel.
Children think nothing of the idea (hey, that's what Lego is all about), but anyone who has actually tried to make something knows how hard it is to actually fabricate something to exact specifications.
There are a couple technologies employed to do this.
- Paper layered - MCOR Technologies uses pieces of paper, cut one sheet at a time, and glues it together.
- Resin powder bonding - Fine powder is printed by adhesive into a 3D shape. This method allows for full color prototypes.
- Fused Deposits - a liquid is squeezed from a nozzle in a continuous string, layer by layer. Materials can be plastic, polymers, resins, or even edible foodstuffs such as chocolate or hard candy.
- 2-photon photopolymerization - by intersecting 2 lasers in a solid block of gel, you can heat some gel into a solid where the beams intersect.
Of these methods, powder bonding is probably the fastest, and fused depositing is most likely the simplest.
Hewlett Packard (The makers of HP computers) has recently announced that they are going to be entering the 3D printer market by re-branding Stratasys printers as their own. While these are still quite expensive for the home owner (probably going for $15,000 apiece), they are quite affordable for the small business who might want to do small object fabrication with precision.
Here's a publicity video for Stratasys printers. At the end of the video, it shows some large sized objects that were printed:
Jay Leno has used 3D scanning and printing technology to restore his old classic automobile parts that just don't exist anymore. He wrote an article in Popular Mechanics last July talking about his efforts. Jay would print his parts in plastic, and then create a mold for metal casting.
Shapeways recently announced that they provide 3D printing in Stainless Steel, which allows anyone to make craft objects or jewelry.
A small startup called "That's My Face.com" is creating 3D portraits from a few 2D pictures, and they sell full colored masks that look like the original person.
Most of these high precision 3D printers are tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The common man can't afford one.
Enter Bre Pettis. Founder of MakerBot Industries, and inventor of the MakerBot Cupcake. 
He is the self admitted everyman geek who has made it his life's goal to have 3D printers available to anyone who wants one.
In a recent blog post of his, he talked with someone from Shapeways and said something quite interesting:
Why did you guys start Makerbot Industries?
We felt compelled. We decided to live the dream. We followed our hearts.
Shouldn’t you guys be making the next YouTube or something (Bre used to work for Rocketboom, Etsy & MakeZine as their video producer)? Why 3D printing?
We love the internet, but web apps are very 90’s. Personal Manufacturing the new black. We see the future and it’s full of flying cars, replicators, and moon colonies. You can watch videos of the MakerBot Operators popping our collars from the moon colony on youtube when we get there.
Here's the Cupcake in action:
If you really wanted to, you could build a Cupcake from scratch. All the plans are there. The circuit diagrams and cabling are all there, the instructions (and advice from other builders) are there.
If you aren't up for building your own circuit boards, you can buy major parts the patterns for cutting your own Cupcake frames. They also supply kits with all the parts in case you want to just assemble the thing in a single weekend. Total cost? Between $600-$1000 depending on how many parts you are going to make yourself. You can also get a fully assembled Cupcake for $2,500. That's amazingly cheap when you consider most 3D printers are going to go for $10,000 - $15,000 or more for the next year or so.
This is the beginning of when the Internet reaches back out into the real world. It's going to be world changing when you can make anything you want, any shape you want. You just download or make the design, feed it into the printer, and it makes it.
Combine it with a 3D photocopier, and you have a 3 dimensional duplicator.
It's possible in the future that model companies like Revell, Monogram, or AMT will just let you download the parts to their model, and you can assemble it. (Or if you are lazy enough, you just print the assembled model).
Now I just have to figure out how to save enough money to justify getting one of these kits.
[Update: As I was writing this article, Make Magazine announced that they were featuring MakerBot in their latest monthly magazine Make. There is a good video tour included in the article]
MAD21