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.
Some have you may have seen the new Iron Man film in the cinema, it was a great film and it wouldn’t be possible without Legacy Effects, the production team for the Iron Man 2 film.
One of the things I didn’t know until today is that Legacy Effects used an Objet Geometries 3D printer to create some of the parts of the physical Iron Man suit. The Iron man Gloves are one of the parts printed using the Objet printer. All parts that were made were perfectly adapted to the actors that had to wear them after the actors’ bodies were scanned for the perfect fit.
Legacy Effects bought the 3D printer for $114,000 after having used one when creating the suit from the xbox 360s’ halo ad. campaign.
IBM have carved a 3D map of the earth using a new nanometer-scale silicon milling machine they have developed. I suppose it’s not really printing as what this device is doing is actually carving away particles but still its extremely interesting.
The map that measures 22×11 micrometers and that took 2 mintutes and 23 seconds to make, would fit 1000 times on a single grain of salt. The nanomill used to make it uses heat and pressure to carve with extreme acurracy.
They also created a scale 3D model of the Matterhorn mountain, heres a video for more information:
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.
Did your camera just run out of batteries again? Or maybe you lost the USB lead to transfer your photographs onto your PC? Well maybe it’s time for you to use some older technology.
This fun DIY project made by Dippold will have you gluing and snipping away till you end up with your own simple but very affective pinhole camera.
You can print off the template for the camera here, if you do get round to making it, please do send us the results.
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.
Solar power has been a feasible alternative energy source for a while now, but it seems that a cost is one of the problems with this energy source. Well Nanosolar have developed a printing process that is far faster than high-vacuum deposition that is conventionally used to create solar panels, and effectively have reduced the cost and improved the effectiveness of manufacturing solar panels. Here is a video of their printing proccess in action:
Ink cartridges seem to be just another one of those everyday products that in some cases people dred buying, mainly because of the cost. But what alot of people don’t realise, including myself until I got into the printer business, is that printers aren’t just used for printing some work document anymore. As you’ll be able to see in some of the previous blog posts, printers are evolving into devices that you can carry around in your pocket, into 3D printers capable of printing whatever you please, bio-printers that use cells to build new organs, and much more.
But what about the ink itself? OK it’s true that most of the devices above don’t use ink, but when looking at the everyday printer, the ink it uses has pretty much stayed the same. Maybe it’s time to invent something new and exiting and of course more Eco-friendly. Well there are actually many types of ink out there apart from your everyday HP ink.
For example, have you ever heard of edible printer ink? No? Well there are many sites on the web selling just that. Ink cartridges for your printer filled with edible ink. They are used for printing onto icing sheets for cakes, etc. Just pop a edible ink cartridge into your printer and a sheet of icing paper into the paper tray and print away.
Another interesting example is actually glow in the dark printer ink. I havn’t been able to find any pre-filled glow in the dark cartridges, but below is a video showing how to make one yourself. Imagine the wonders you could print using glow in the dark ink!
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.
