you
you all some interesting 3d printed
projects now if you guys have been
exploring around the fair you've
probably seen 3d printers probably
seeing a lot of them and a lot of
different designs being produced and
that sort of thing so what I wanted to
do is share about some of the diverse
contexts in which 3d printing is useful
ways people are putting these things to
use and for the most part not showing
the kind of you know fun like easy
little printables that you might print
just as little kind of giveaways trying
to focus on ones that would fit into
various contexts and trying to share a
lot of stuff that I haven't shared
before at previous thoughts have given
about design for 3d printing so my name
is matt griffin and i'm currently
working on a book on design and modeling
for 3d printing which features a not
only a lot of the fundamentals and
background for how to sort of level up
in design for 3d printing but also
really focuses on a lot of the examples
out there in the world a lot of
interviews with members of the community
people sharing about their experiences
figuring out how to do work in in these
areas I'm also the director of community
and support at Adafruit and so I'm doing
these two activities at once okay so a
lot of people talk about how they want
to use a 3d printer in like a household
context and I wanted to share a couple
of examples I thought were pretty
interesting where people are actually
practically doing this right now so the
wall-e wall plate customizer project I
don't know it's a little bit washed out
in the display but it's it's the one in
the in the top left corner so one of the
things that you can print pretty easily
on a 3d printer desktop 3d printer are
our flat plates and so it was a pretty
clever idea to build a customizer so
that you can take the the wall socket
covers and make ones that are precisely
suited to your individual needs so
there's a tool you can go and visit and
select the kind of things you need in a
particular place and build and print
that plate and that to you know to to
get you know to go and find exact plate
that you would need for your home for
your specific purpose might take some
effort but this way you can you can
select things precisely that you're
looking for the t-rex showerhead is just
sort of a fun project there a lot of
people messing around with a t-rex head
and putting into all sorts of context
and so you have a standard way of
attaching shower heads so this person
had fun with with taking the t-rex and
and turning into you know a shower head
there are a lot of uses for 3d printing
in the garden and in particular making
you know sort of just the kind of thing
you need and in the quantity that you
need so these these hooks are used my
Alex English to make a trellis for
gardening his backyard you can replace
knobs and handles and all sorts of
pushes and pulls and here's an example
of a blender knob and well let's see so
one of the things that's exciting about
having a desktop 3d printer and working
with the material like fdm style
printing where you're printing in
plastic layer by layer is that the
material cost is not that much so you
can you can make specific things that
you find handy it also means that if you
you think about what you can make in
combination for what's in your house you
can find combinations like this this fun
project to take a jam jar and turned it
into a mug just printing the handle just
to give it sort of a second life to that
particular jam jar and the floss bow
that Marty made who's in the back there
he revealed earlier that after me taking
this a beautiful photo of it and getting
excited about it it doesn't actually
function as intended but he tried it and
he learned some things and he could he
could get printed again and probably
adjust it so that it can handle the kind
of stress of flossing and if you're
going if you're gonna have a bookend on
your shelf you might as well you know
get some additional mileage out of it so
there are a huge number of designs that
people have created and shared of
bookends that you know have you serve
additional functions whether they're
including information like this one that
is a sign saying you know these are the
books of already read and there's a
matching ones book still to read seems
like you know when you have the
opportunity to make the thing that you
need you can choose which sort of tool
you're using their on your on your
bookshelf and I just thought that the
the ball string match for doors your
cabinets was handy because it recreates
you know a kind of latch that you could
easily grab off the shelf but you know
making it yourself you can learn how it
works and make one that's uniquely
suited to the particular door that you
have in mind anyway I just wanted to
share a couple of the different contexts
that within the world of the home where
people are using these things I have
some you know some list there things
like you know kitchen living room or
chills etc I just read an interesting
piece by alex english where he was
sharing all these gardening projects and
he found it very satisfying to be able
to design you know just the things he
needed specifically for his garden and
it gave him sort of additional sense of
involvement with his yard and see
spent time doing his fav favorite to
plat pastimes at the same time so the
world of 3d printing and food is is one
that's you know getting more and more
attention right now and they're been
number really interesting projects here
but this this area is still sort of
finding its feet one of the best uses
for a 3d printer if you're working with
food is to use it for mold making
processes so you can just about any 3d
printed solution you can print out a
positive well you can then make a food
safe silicone mold of that and and use
it to produce things like these wedding
chocolates in the top left corner that
were taken from scan data there there
are a number of interesting projects the
sugar lab is has been working with
printing in very fine grain sugar to
produce all sorts of objects and they
are now part of 3d systems and have been
doing projects on the the new chef jet
and so they're printing in this these
objects that initially are these sort of
plain white sugar objects and they've
been experimenting with taking a second
pass and doing things like flying colors
and images that kind of thing so you can
make not only shape but use it as a
matrix to put your images you have in
mind on it the talk just before mine was
talking about a whole bunch of
interesting projects in space well
there's a lot of interest combining 3d
printing of food and space because
that's a context in which you you need
to have the food preparation elements
preserve for very long periods of time
so they have to be i slayed in in safe
ways and then recombine and the thing is
that a lot of the cuisine available in
space is very limited and astronauts
have always complained of about this
it can sort of drive them a little bit
batty up there because they don't really
have the you know the kind of options
and the the the places to mix things
together to give you an experience of
cooking which is a very helpless sort of
feeling okay can you guys hear or is it
okay that's very exciting over there too
I'm sure so so one of the nice things
about the experiments and 3d printing
and food is taking advantage of types of
3d printers that are the most part of
extruding pastes the pushing pastes out
anything that could be used with a
substance so they've found ways is kind
of split up the raw elements and give
you know the astronaut a little bit more
control over recombining them there so
they feel like they're they're having
experience like like cooking they're
getting to have you know this is this
amount of this and this amount of that
so that they don't feel so helpless and
so these experiments have currently I've
only been you know experiments on the
ground seeing what might be possible but
they're starting to sort of push new
directions for how you can work with the
constituent elements and how you can
separate materials so that they they
work well for sort of recombine them
later while the so the first really
interesting 3d printing and food project
that was getting a lot of attention was
a use of a reprap to print pizzas
because it turns out a pizza is
something you could definitely print
with a 3d printer because you can print
the breaded area you can print the sauce
and you can print you know put the
things on top of it you'd want so it's a
it was a promising area where all the
elements could be isolated and stored in
ships you have very long periods of time
but but you could then you know make
something and cook it right there on the
platform so additional research taking
it further and trying to find ways to
get more nutrition in there as been
looking at a lot of different other
sources including
other sources for protein such as grubs
and all kinds of things that you might
not initially think it sound very
appealing but you have a offer the
opportunity of you know providing really
high you know really good matches for
your nutritional needs in elements that
can be recombined from separate sources
so so while the space projects are
looking at you know how you can can take
these elements and preserve them for
long periods of time and then you know
we combine them there's a foodie need
project from natural machines it has a
kind of the opposite goal they they have
a 3d printer that you're encouraged to
take fresh ingredients and combine and
combine them right there immediately and
you create you know projects to print
food but it's it's using those as you
know the very fresh ingredients to
create the objects so you have an
opportunity to kind of have another
aesthetic experience of the the food
that is in your environment and ways to
actually work with with food that's
different than traditional cooking so
it's sort of the opposite effect and
speaking of taking substances and sort
of squirting it out I hope that you guys
have seen the booth right behind you the
pancake bot is a very cool use of a of
this exact sort of principle it's it's
an automated machine for printing images
and objects out of pancake better right
onto a griddle it's a really neat
project and should check it out so you
can you can make you can make cookie
cutters they condemn in very specific
shapes any shape you can come up with
and you can also take it even further
and these the rollers that are in the
bottom right corner it's probably hard
to see from where you guys are so the
artist George heart made these elaborate
patterns into rollers that you can then
roll out and and it will produce very
elaborate patterns
and you can cook cookies from those this
is just two examples of some simple 3d
printing and food projects they're both
involving 3d scans so the bottom one was
it was how those the chocolate wedding
gifts from the previous page were
created printing the sort of mustard
yellow 3d scan print and then making a
mold around it using foods food grade
food safe silicone mold and then
producing a we experiment with a whole
bunch of different types of chocolates
and surface treatments including the
sprinkles in the like the silver
sprinkles to the far right we then took
a different scan and and took some
modeling clay and did some more work
with it this was some clay that we had
handy that we were using to kind of hold
the the mold together and to fill in
sort of negative areas so so Kate
Sullivan who is the cake designer who I
was working with who's created these
pieces she made some ears on this
portrait of her son and we made another
mole of that and it made little
chocolate Easter bunnies of him so this
when you talk to people your kind of the
you know Ober hobbyists people who are
spending a lot of time making very
careful scale models of all sorts of
different projects a 3d printer is
incredible tool and it's and not just
for printing sort of whole objects one
of the main use is that I've been seeing
over and over are people making just the
parts they need if if they're working in
a specific scale and they they needed an
element that's hard to define or make
they're able to print that and have a
place to start even if most of their
activity with the model it's going to be
you know the elaborate surface
treatments and painting and getting
things you know to look exactly like
exactly right to their final models the
it's uh in the very top right corner is
it this extraordinarily elaborate train
it's unfortunately probably too small a
photo of it but this is a guy who is a
very hard core model train hobbyist who
it's been a long time working with
actual photos of this very long train
this specific type of train piece and
slowly built it up 3d printing all the
parts and adding them together I mean
there are many parts or separate here
slowly getting sort of work together and
so he was able to he or she either Jodi
was able to bring all of the sort of
skills from other model railroad
projects to bear on this but make
exactly the right form to start with and
was able to find solutions to actually
make it sturdier and in the right places
and give right in the places where you
need to so it could ride in the track
properly and the photos of this project
are just really incredible but people
are designing a you know they're
spending time fascinated with vehicles
of the past and it's paying their time
design them in a in 3d software and
they're able to to find ways to print
them out at you know if you know
sometimes just as a reference even if
they're not going to spend a lot of time
doing elaborate finish to make it look
exactly like the original thing but you
don't have to necessarily spend all the
endless time with appear to be months to
work on that train project to get a
pretty good look you can also spend
some time with a vinyl cutter and
creating stickers and decals and that
sort of thing to dress up a 3d printed
model to give it the kind of final
finish that you're looking for so
speaking of scale dollhouse is another
world in which scale is really essential
and you might have you need a very
precise piece and even if you have it
the scale up to make a piece in a
different scale manually is quite tricky
I mean just the math alone of trying to
compensate for you know adjusting a
piece from one scale to the other in yet
still work make it sturdy enough in the
and you know functional in the final
scale can be can be hard but when you
design this with 3d printing in mind you
can plan ahead so that you can you can
thicken and adjust the parts if you if
you need to scale it but the like the
the lounge in the middle of the bottom
section by pretty small things is a
really interesting project because it if
they printed one piece and they
accomplish the it accomplishes some
things that seem very tricky for a 3d
printer but Casey had spent a long time
printing it and testing and finding what
would be the you know the right way to
produce them all of that scale so it's
it sort of sort of a tested piece that
you can then produce and the the sofa
there is from a project from team team
USA on Thingiverse called am a diverse
project where they are recreating to
scale a whole bunch of classic furniture
from the madman universe so 3d and
medicine is an area that a lot of people
have been getting more and more
interested in there's a lot of research
and there's a lot of
news coming out of this area even though
a lot of the things that are covered are
pretty far from their stilts or research
findings they're pretty far from being
put into practice there are a number of
really interesting projects that are
happening and sort of changing our world
right now everything from projects like
the the surgical prep part that I have
listed in the that's the red heart in
the lower left side that was actually
produced from a 3d medical scan of a
heart that had defects and a surgeon was
able to investigate this model and
practice the surgery in this model to be
ready for taking care of you know to
optimize the time spent on the surgical
table to take care of a really tough
hard situation also things that are
being put into place in to use
immediately there's some very
interesting past etics projects
everything from the very high end
prosthetics from the bespoke innovations
that are have finding ways to design
both prosthetics and fairings that they
are really a perfect match for the
person who's receiving them to suit
their aesthetic and their and their
lifestyle goals in many cases getting
them sort of back into the activities
that you know maybe in another context
would have been they would never been
able to return to but then there's also
the DIY prosthetics like the Robo hands
project in the top right corner there
are a number of people both like the
enable table it's over near the food and
drink in the corner that are doing
incredible work looking into how you can
use these DIY printing tools to produce
affordable prosthetics for those who
need it in particular children who grow
so quickly that if you don't have many
many iterations of updates
it's just it's just not as useful of a
prosthetic for them they don't they're
not able to behave this you know the way
that they would like to if they're
constantly having difficulties with fit
I'm going to kind of head through and
share some of these last areas a little
bit more quickly there a broad range of
uses in 3d architecture everywhere from
3d models like the the residence model
in the in the upper right corner and
there's also attempts to make full-scale
dwellings now the proto house in the
upper left side is still very conceptual
at this point but it's a serious
seriously intended project to try to
find a way to produce a house very
quickly that that wouldn't does not work
on the typical the typical to debased
blueprint sort of layout of a typical
home that's able to sort of take it take
into account ability building it that
behaves in 3d all throughout it
including ways to handle things that
would be in the walls and that sort of
thing as well as the places that the you
know that you walk around how you
navigate the space there's the 3d
printed canal house which is the project
still ongoing in the Netherlands that is
an attempt to throw up a facade a
building scale facade and it's they've
been making a lot of progress with it I
suggest following that project speaking
of attempts to make facades and things
that are sort of building scale the
digital grotesque project in the the
bottom left corner different well
difficult to see in a single photo it's
a very interesting way to take some of
the various ways of generating complex
is real
baroque sort of architectural pieces
from abstract processes and then they've
said about finding ways to produce them
I a tremendous scale so there it's there
more art projects than would be
necessarily affordable at this point for
an actual home or building but it's
pretty wild to see these these pieces
standing you know like like 10 12 feet
tall where the by running processes that
generate these kind of ribbon II broke
touches that you that might be there
like a cousin to things that might have
been done using plaster or other
substances in the past but there it's
sort of a dialogue between the
architects and and the tools that
they're using their a number of artists
who have been pushing 3d printing to
really far from the very beginning
artists have actually been involved with
3d printing from its very earliest days
trying things finding ways to produce
things either that would be difficult to
produce a different way or in some cases
would be impossible to produce another
way and what's interesting is that now
this is reaching the desktop 3d printer
DIY world so you have projects like
Shane hopes work the the one that's
transoms substrate anal artwork there
which is an interesting process where he
he actually generates them from spending
a lot of time with software that's
designed to do molecular analysis of
substances and he uses that to produce
geometry and then he he has build in
tuned 3d printers to sort of recreate
that experience and the pieces are
just tremendously beautiful and
compositionally some of the strongest
work in the of abstraction in 3d
printing but it's interesting that
conceptually there's a there's a direct
through line from his very earliest
stages working with it to the final look
because the pieces are in in some ways a
type of data visualization of the
molecular investigations that generated
their geometry you can see over in
Autodesk book booth the Tom Burton
Burton woods Ariane 3d print book
project he has it over there it's pretty
interesting it was sort of i believe it
was the first project to produce a book
of 3d printed objects and it collects a
whole bunch of different models that it
can be sort of all closed up together
but once it interesting to consider both
as a grouping and in turn being what's
examining each one in terms of its three
dimensionality and one of the most
classic design tasks in general is one
that's been really embraced by 3d design
for 3d printing is making lamps and a
couple of my favorite lamp projects are
here like that that dear project where
it's it you know it's it's s it's built
to hope you know it's built a model like
a deer head on the wall but it's a light
source it's that style of a kind of
loose weave surfaces that has come out
of 3d printing history as ways to the
most part conserve how much material
you're using also makes a really
interesting diffuser for for putting a
light source inside of it and the new
clamp right beneath it was generated
from
examining video footage of nuclear
explosions and turning that into a 3d
model and so it's it's interesting
because it's it's both a physical model
for something you obviously couldn't
hold in your hand but also because of
the nature of the model and how it
relates to a physical process it ends up
being a really interesting lamp too as
far as the way that light works through
it on the the opposite corner the lower
left there are certain lower right is a
project by nervous system which is
really interesting lamp project where
the nervous system found ways to to
generate a lamp that would feel like
something produced the natural world and
they once they had the series of tools
to generate these kind of shapes they
generated a number of them and produced
some unique lamps so each lamp is unique
anyway so I'm just that's all I got to
for today but you know I'd love to chat
with any of you guys afterwards if you
have any questions or if you've seen any
really interesting models that you would
like to send my way and thank you guys
very much