Hello friends, welcome to Infoseemedia. Today we are going to discuss 3D Printing.
How would you like to have a machine that could make anything you want it, sounds good doesn’t it. Well, this is now possible through the magic of 3d printers.
While you might not yet see a 3d printer sitting alongside your toaster or your TV at home. You will start to see them more and more in places like in schools, shops, hospitals, and many other places.
What is a 3d printer and how does 3d printing allow us to make almost anything from nothing?
Well, first we need to take a step back and look at how we normally make stuff. Basically there are four ways we make things.
#1 Subtractive manufacturing
In subtractive manufacturing, we take a lump of material like wood or metal or stone. We cut away some parts of it to make the thing we want. So we remove or subtract just like we do in maths, the material we don’t need to create something. This could be carving a wooden chair from a tree or making a statue from some stone.
#2 Forming
Here we take a block of material and we apply a force to change its shape. My personal favorite of a formed object is Wallace and Gromit made by shaping or forming plasticine.
#3 Casting
This is where you take a solid material you make it into a liquid and you pour it into a mold. A nice example of casting one of my favorites is the way we make chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs.
#4 Additive manufacturing
This is where we have nothing, to begin with. In this, you take your material and you add it exactly where you want it until you have your final object. 3d printing is one type of additive manufacturing, and it involves making an object by adding material one tiny layer at a time.
How 3D printing gets done?
Well, it all starts by making a drawing of the thing you want on your computer. The computer then makes a special kind of file which it sends to the 3d printer. Then the 3d printer reads that file and prints the object layer by layer to make the thing you want.
Why would we want to do 3D printing?
3d printing can help people to make new shapes and new objects that were not previously possible. Here all sorts of different materials can be used like plastics or metals or food or even living cells that your body is made of.
Who uses 3d printers who cares about this?
Engineers are using 3d printers to make parts of jet engines that are lighter and stronger to make airplanes and more efficient and use less fuel.
Doctors are using 3d printers to make new hands and arms and legs that are perfectly fitted for the patients who need them.
Chefs are experimenting to make amazing new types of food that you just couldn’t even imagine.
Hospitals are using 3d printers to make new body parts for people such as new bones to repair really bad fractures perhaps to the face or to the hand. Even using 3d printers to make objects from cartilage, the thing that your ear is made of to make new ears for people who may have had a bad accident.
One day we may even be able to 3d print new organs inside your body like kidneys or livers using the patient’s own cells. In these printers, 3d printing is already changing the way we make stuff. Who knows what amazing things you could make with a 3d printer in the future.
