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We’ve blogged a lot lately about the rapid speed in which 3D printing is innovating and how the possibilities seem relatively endless.

3D printing is not only innovating in huge, life-changing ways (like printing a functioning human heart) it is also attempting to solve everyday problems faced by a lot of people.

Laura Griffiths, Editorial Assistant at TCT Magazine has recently blogged about OwnPhones and their campaign.

They plan to raise $250,000 to start the development process of custom made, 3D printed earphones.

The earphones will be tailored to each individual who can scan their own ears using a mobile app. This means the earphones will be less likely to fall out of the user’s ear, will block outside noise and can be designed and personalised to each individual’s taste.

You can read more about these earphones and the campaign that features on Kickstarter on the TCT blog.

Make sure you pick up a copy of TCT magazine for even more stories like this.

On Monday, we blogged about how 3D printing is innovating rapidly. Since then, there has been even more innovation, proving just how quickly it is moving forward.

The Guardian has announced that Oxfam, a charity fighting global poverty, have been trialling 3D printing as a way of improving sanitation, specifically in Lebanon.

A 3D printer donated to Oxfam by iMakr has been used to build parts of taps and faucets to provide more handwashing facilities for the people of Lebanon.

3D printing has also been considered as a way to build emergency shelters. This technique would be extremely quick and cost effective as it takes just 24 hours to build a set of medium term rooms out of local materials such as sand.

If you were at SolidWorks World back in January, you may have seen our very own Glen Smith present. He talked about how design automation and 3D printing are potentially a ‘marriage made in heaven’. If you weren’t at SolidWorks World or didn’t see Glen’s presentation you can watch it on the SolidWorks World Proceedings site.

Glen looked at the challenges that 3D printing faces – in particular the parts of the 3D printing process that hadn’t yet been automated.
Glen explained that 3D printing is advancing so quickly that it is very hard to keep up, he tried to make some predictions as to what he thought might happen in the future for 3D printing.

However, not even Glen could predict the amazing advancements that have happened in the 3D printing industry lately. A news article on 3DPrintingIndustry.com explains how 3D bioprinting is innovating so greatly that Advanced Solutions have launched a BioAssemblyBot that intends to 3D print a functioning human heart. You can read more about this incredible 3D printer and it’s specifications in the news pages of 3DPrintingIndustry.com.

If you do watch Glen’s presentation on the SolidWorks World Proceedings website and are as intrigued as I was to see how the 3D printed mug he talks about actually turned out, here it is…

Here at DriveWorks we can’t get enough of 3D printing.

Anything that can turn your meticulously made models in to a real 3D product without great big machines is certainly cool in our book. We love the idea that it is possible to use DriveWorks to automate the design of new parts printed by a 3D printer.

It seems though, that 3D printing may not be just for prototypes.

A Wohler Associates Report has recently shown that 28.3% of all printed 3D parts are made for producing final products not for prototyping. This signals a growth of almost 25% in only 10 years. Although often known as rapid prototyping, the market seems to be expanding for 3D printing as a manufacturing tool.

Wohlers Report Final Part Growth

As with any piece of new technology, the wider the spread of the technology the cheaper its price will be. Which is perhaps why, as well as a growth in commercial production of 3D printed parts, there is also a move towards cheaper home printing.

Gartner are predicting that by 2016 we will see Enterprise-Class 3D printers available for under $2000 (£1300). This price brings 3D printing in to an affordable price range.

Most excitingly, the lowered price will see a greater adoption rate by the general public, hopefully further expanding the uses that we might see.

Have you seen any great 3D printed designs? If so don’t be afraid to leave your comments below.

Usually Monday mornings are the time when people struggle to get back into the work routine, after a weekend away, people dread this time of the week. However, if every Monday morning was like this week’s – we’d all be praying for them to come around more often!

Finally, our 3D Printer arrived!

There was much excitement when the package arrived and within minutes it was being put together by all the technical team. We had Jane, our Operations Manager, reading the instructions to ensure it all went smoothly and was put together correctly. Impressively, after only half an hour we were ready to go into production.

We chose to print the pre-installed demo items, so we could get something as soon as possible, it’s amazing how impatient people become when there’s a new toy around!

So after time to warm up and around 8 minutes printing time – we ended up with a MakerBot logo pendant. Around 20 minutes later we managed to print a stretchy bracelet.

So after an afternoon of playing around and listening to the magical, futuristic sounds it’s now time to get down to business and start testing it with some of the tech team’s designs.

 

We’ll be keeping you up to date with our creations via the DriveWorks Facebook Page!

Now we just need to decide on a name for it…

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