This printer was shown at the GITEX show in Dubai, it is made from 24 carrot gold and is supposedly part of numerous gold and silver HP Laserjet P2015s. Its a perfectly working prototype and an auction was held with a starting price of $299 after the event.
After seeing this video, I can safely confirm that you can probably make anything with Lego. Well maybe not anything, but at least we know that it’s possible to build a printer from Lego.
This amazing project took a member member of the B3ta forums about three weeks to complete, and he’s basically used Lego and a felt tip to create a fully functioning (monochrome) printer. Take a look:
This is probably one of the funnest printers I’ve ever seen, just genius.
Here is a very interesting and exiting scientific advancement that could change alot if it ever gets mass produced. Solar paper has been created by researchers at MIT by developing solar cells that are thin enough to print them onto paper. The posibilities are endless of what these solar cells could be printed onto, you could have mobile phones that charge thereselves in the sun or houses covered in solar cell paint.
The cells currently under 2% efficient at creating power from sunlight and compared to the 20% efficiency of regular solar panels it’s not that much. And from what the director of the project says, this technology probably won’t be with us commercially for at least another 10 years. So no solar cell covered stuff for us yet.
Researchers have developed a semiconducting ink, that consists of carbon nanotubes capable of holding electrical charge. This ultimately means that small circuits could be printed straight onto… well anything I suppose. These electronic circuits could be implemented on products in shops to allow wireless walk-through checkouts. This idea is not a new one at all and is called RFID checkout, it is all ready used in a couple of stores throughout the world, but you may be able to see it being used more often now its cheap enough to be used.
This excellent advertisement was made by Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth in response to a D&AD Student Awards brief set by HP. The video was made with the concept of “Presenting an idea which promotes HP Workstations ability to bring to life anything the creative mind can conceive” and does indeed portray that idea.
Here we have another concept eco-printer, the REENK by Hyo Sun Ahn & Min Koung So. Similar to the Pencil lead printer, the REENK uses the leftover ink from ballpoint pens after they stop working. The only flaws I can see with this design is that you would probably have to buy specific CMYK pens that would probably be more expensive than your avarage ballpoint pen, and when have you ever used a yellow pen? The concept is still a great one though.
Here’s a bit of an odd one, but cool none the less. The Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal food factory, sort of a 3D printer that prints food.
Made by Marcelo Coelho and Amit Zoran the cornucopia uses an array of food canisters that individually store and refigirate the ‘cooks’ chosen ingredients. Then these ingredients are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate combinations of food. The food is then heated or cooled by Cornucopia’s chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but it also allows the user to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.
Its seems like something from star-trek, but it would be great if they start making these things for real.
Here is a video of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, an Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer, a HP Scanjet 3c and an array of Hard Drives playing Big Ideas: Don’t get any a version of a song by Radiohead. The video is made by James Houston and It’s amazing what people are able to do with pieces of old hardware and a bit (maybe a lot) of time. This video is also a great example of imaginative recycling, even if it’s not the most useful of employments.
Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.
Enrico Dini from Pisa in Italy has decided to build whole buildings using sand or even moon-dust. His 3D printer like machine, The D-Shape, sprays a thin layer of sand with a magnesium-based glue from hundreds of nozzles. The glue binds the sands into a solid rock like material, that layer after layer can build up creating anything from furniture to sculptures and hopefully someday full buildings. According to the creator, the d-shape process is four times faster than conventional building, costs a third to a half as much as using Portland cement, creates little waste and is better for the environment.
But Dini has bigger plans than just building houses here on earth. He’s talking with La Scuola Normale Superiore, Alta Space, and Norman Foster to modify D-Shape to build with moon dust. This would make moon-bases much more plausible.
This handmade epson ink cartridge lamp is made from just that, and it looks wierdly cool. Its fairly expensive if you want one at $200, but so are the cartridges that its made from. Its the second best thing you can do with your empty ink cartridges, the first being sending them in to us to recycle.
