World’s First 3D-Printed Car

It took 44 hours to manufacture, and has 49 parts. 
The car, known as the Strati, is perhaps the world’s fully drivable, almost completely 3D printer-manufactured automobile. Local Motors used crowd-sourced design and a custom-built 3D printer to create the one-of-a-kind (for now) 3D printed car and assembled it over six days at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago, Illinois a few weeks ago.

The all-gray Strati is somewhat larger than I expected. It sits low to the ground like a race car and features just two custom leather seats. On parts of the body, you can clearly see the printed layers, in others, the Strati has been milled to smooth perfection. The body feels, well, like plastic, but also extremely solid. It has race-car lines, but also a custom-built quality. Rogers tells me that there are 227 printed layers in the chassis and the only limit was the 3D printer. Eventually, Local Motors expects to use larger 3D printers to print even bigger cars (can you say “3D-printed SUV?).

The 3D-printed car is going to change the way car manufacturers create vehicles. By cutting down the time and cost to build cars, Local Motors has shown the automotive world that things need to change. This line of vehicle is the catalyst, and you can be the first to own it.

Women Walks Again with Exoskeleton

In 1992, Amanda Boxtel suffered a vicious skiing accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors said she would never walk again. This week, she proved them wrong, with the help of the world's first 3D printed exoskeleton that gives her the ability to climb out of her wheelchair and walk once again.

The Ekso-Suit Amanda wears is fully bespoke. 3D Systems used data from a full body scan to print custom-tailored pieces that fit exactly to Amanda's body. Mechanical components from EksoBionics provide the automation, allowing Amanda to safely use her legs and a pair of canes to walk around.

3D scanning and printing technologies were crucial to making Amanda's exoskeleton, which took roughly 3 months to complete. As Scott Summit, senior director for functional design at 3D Systems, told Cnet, "we had to be very specific with the design so we never had 3D-printed parts bumping into bony prominences, which can lead to abrasions." Since Amanda has no sensation in her legs, even tiny skin injuries can become dangerously infected before they're found. A comfortable fit isn't just a nicety, it's a safety necessity.

This exoskeleton is the first to use 3D printing for an individualized fit, but it's not Amanda's first time using such technology: in 2010, she helped test an earlier exoskeleton design to help paralyzed patients walk again. Since then, she's been active as one of ten EksoBionics test pilots involved in the design process. Keep reading at http://bit.ly/1gwvSTl

"The impossible can be possible" is what Ben Harrison intelligently proclaims to an audience of captivated listeners. As a respected authority in the field, he strongly suggests that there are limitless possibilities for 3D printing and the duplication of human tissues that can counter the degenerative effects of aging and disease on the human body. Wow!!! Source

Scientists Create 3D Printed Heart Membrane That Can Keep Heart Beating Perfectly Forever. This video shows a rabbit heart that has been kept beating outside of the body in a nutrient and oxygen-rich solution. The new cardiac device — a thin, stretchable membrane imprinted with a spider-web-like network of sensors and electrodes — is custom-designed to fit over the heart and contract and expand with it as it beats. Source

Artificial Organs May Finally Get a Blood Supply

Artificial tissue has always lacked a key ingredient: blood vessels. A new 3-D printing technique seems poised to change that.

WHY IT MATTERS

Thousands of people die each year waiting for donor organs.

Living layers: Harvard researchers demonstrate their method for creating vascularized tissue constructs by printing cell-laden inks in a layered zig-zag pattern.

In what may be a critical breakthrough for creating artificial organs, Harvard researchers say they have created tissue interlaced with blood vessels.

Using a custom-built four-head 3-D printer and a “disappearing” ink, materials scientist Jennifer Lewisand her team created a patch of tissue containing skin cells and biological structural material interwoven with blood-vessel-like structures.Reported by the team in Advanced Materials, the tissue is the first made through 3-D printing to include potentially functional blood vessels embedded among multiple, patterned cell types.

In recent years, researchers have made impressive progress in building tissues and organ-like structures in the lab. Thin artificial tissues, such as a trachea grown from a patient’s own cells, are already being used to treat patients (see “Manufacturing Organs”). In other more preliminary examples, scientists have shown that specific culture conditions can push stem cells to grow into self-organized structures resembling a developing brain, a bit of a liver, or part of an eye (see “Researchers Grow 3-D Human Brain Tissues,” “A Rudimentary Liver Is Grown from Stem Cells,” and “Growing Eyeballs”). But no matter the method of construction, all regenerative projects have run up against the same wall when trying to build thicker and more complex tissues: a lack of blood vessels.

Lewis’s group solved the problem by creating hollow, tube-like structures within a mesh of printed cells using an “ink” that liquefies as it cools. The tissue is built by the 3-D printer in layers. A gelatin-based ink acts as extracellular matrix—the structural mix of proteins and other biological molecules that surrounds cells in the body. Two other inks contained the gelatin material and either mouse or human skin cells. All these inks are viscous enough to maintain their structure after being laid down by the printer.

A third ink with counterintuitive behavior helped the team create the hollow tubes. This ink has a Jell-O-like consistency at room temperature, but when cooled it liquefies. The team printed tracks of this ink amongst the others. After chilling the patch of printed tissue, the researchers applied a light vacuum to remove the special ink, leaving behind empty channels within the structure. Then cells that normally line blood vessels in the body can be infused into the channels.

Building actual replacement tissues or organs for patients is a distant goal, but one the team is already weighing. “We think it’s a very foundational step, and we think it’s going to be essential toward organ printing or regeneration,” says Lewis, who is member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

The smallest channels printed were about 75 micrometers in diameter, which is much larger than the tiny capillaries that exchange nutrients and waste throughout the body. The hope is that the 3-D printing method will set the overall architecture of blood vessels within artificial tissue and then smaller blood vessels will develop along with the rest of the tissue. “We view this as a method to print the larger vessels; then we want to harness biology to do the rest of the work,” says Lewis

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3D printing BioPen allows doctors to 'draw' customised implants

A handheld ‘bio pen’ developed in the labs of the University of Wollongong (UOW) will allow surgeons to repair damaged and diseased bone material by designing customised implants on-site and at the time of surgery.

Researchers from the UOW-headquartered Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) have developed the prototype BioPen that will deliver live cells and growth factors directly on-site, accelerating the regeneration of functional bone and cartilage.

The BioPen works similar to 3D printing methods: It layers cell material inside a biopolymer such as alginate, a seaweed extract, protected by a second, outer layer of gel material. The two layers of gel are combined in the pen head as it is extruded onto the bone surface and the surgeon ‘draws’ with the ink to fill in the damaged bone section.

A low powered ultra-violet light source is fixed to the device that solidifies the inks during dispensing, providing protection for the embedded cells while they are built up layer-by-layer to construct a 3D scaffold in the wound site.

The BioPen prototype was designed and built using the 3D printer in the labs at the University of Wollongong. With the right mix of cells, growth factors, doctors could even draw replacement tissue that would eventually grow into functioning nerve or muscle tissue. The composition of the cell-loaded material can be surrounded by a polymer core to add structural strength to the surgical site. It can also be seeded with other drugs to assist regrowth and recovery.

The BioPen was this week handed over researchers at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne who will work on optimising the cell material for use in clinical trials, for exmaple to grow new knee cartilage from stem cells on 3D-printed scaffolds to treat cancers, osteoarthritis and traumatic injury.

Professor Peter Choong, Director of Orthopaedics at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and the Sir Hugh Devine Professor of Surgery, University of Melbourne said:

"This type of treatment may be suitable for repairing acutely damaged bone and cartilage, for example from sporting or motor vehicle injuries. Professor Wallace’s research team brings together the science of stem cells and polymer chemistry to help surgeons design and personalise solutions for reconstructing bone and joint defects in real time."

"What’s more, advances in 3D printing are enabling further hardware innovations in a rapid manner."

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Drees & Sommer 3D Printed Augmented Reality Building. Engineering project build management company Drees & Sommer approached Inition to create an innovative presentation tool to display BIM information for a European showcase event. Source

3D Printing system that can create forms without the hindrance of gravity

MATAERIAL

A 3D Printing system that can create forms without the hindrance of gravity - video embedded below:

A brand new method of additive manufacturing. This patent-pending method allows for creating 3D objects on any given working surface independently of its inclination and smoothness, and without a need of additional support structures. Conventional methods of additive manufacturing have been affected both by gravity and printing environment: creation of 3D objects on irregular, or non-horizontal surfaces has so far been treated as impossible . By using innovative extrusion technology we are now able to neutralize the effect of gravity during the course of the printing process. This method gives us a flexibility to create truly natural objects by making 3D curves instead of 2D layers. Unlike 2D layers that are ignorant to the structure of the object, the 3D curves can follow exact stress lines of a custom shape. Finally, our new out of the box printing method can help manufacture structures of almost any size and shape.

More at the project’s website here

Source: mataerial.com

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