3D Printing – Revolutionizing Technology and Changing Lives at a Rapid Rate 3D printing is now available for the classroom, office and home. It is new and exciting and advancing quickly. Just how does this process work? It really isn’t all that complicated. The 3D machine makes a three dimensional solid object from a digital file. Most of the work is done before – in the designing of the file. Not good at designing? Apps are available that allow you to design in 3-D and some sites allow you to download others models or share your own. At this point, just about anything you can imagine can be manufactured by a 3D printer: toys, clothes, candy, jewelry, lampshades, racing car parts, prosthetic body parts and even mechanical devices. Next up? Cars and even houses are in the works.
3D printers have come a very long way in a very short amount of time. They have become cheaper and easier to use in the past few years. The cost has gone from (approximately) $20,000 in 2010 to less than $1000 now. Companies are now making efforts to develop affordable 3D printers for home desk tops. IT companies are beginning to enable their hardware to perform 3D scanning. Imaging creating an object from your phone! Turning real objects into 3D models will soon become as easy as taking a picture from your cell phone.
Printing a 3D object from your phone, building a house or car with a printer – these are all incredible advances. But my favorite advancement brought on by 3D printing is the transformation of healthcare, especially for children. Now we can improve lives using medical devices printed by a machine. Examples of objects that have been printed by a 3D printer recently are: bone replacements, cranium replacements, synthetic skin, heart valves, medical models, ear cartilage and even printed human tissues. Young children are also benefiting from this new technology. Children are not qualified to receive upper limb prosthetics because they outgrow them too quickly. The printer has changed that and children around the world are now able to have 3D manufactured limbs. Check out this video of a little boy receiving a prosthetic arm, just like his hero “Iron Man”, from the real Iron Man himself.