Friday Five: 5 Mind Blowing 3D Printed Creations!

3D printing has been baffling minds all over the world for years now, but with 3D printers becoming more accessible, it has lead to some pretty cool and crazy creations. Everything from watches, cars, and even houses have been produced from 3D printing. It's pretty cool and a little scary to think what can be created with 3D printers, since there seems to be no limits to what can be made with a 3D printer. Here are 5 cool and innovative 3D printed creations that might blow your mind!

 

 

1. 3D Printing Just Got Sweeter

A 3D candy printer prints sugar, chocolate, or candy in pretty much any design imaginable. It is a fun way to customize the shape, look, and color of candy. You can now easily design the candy you dreamed of and even make a candy that is shaped like you!

 

 

 

 

2. Robohand

The Robohand is a mechanical 3D printed hand with fingers! 3D printing has taken prosthetics to a whole new level. The first Robohand ever created was made for five-year-old Liam, from South Africa, who was born with amniotic band syndrome (ABS), which left him with no fingers on his right hand. Within minutes of wearing his custom 3D printed Robohand, Liam beamed excitedly and expressed how he could now pick things up as he described its movement by saying: "it copies me." 3D printing prosthetics not only offers a great replacement, but an improvement over what until recently would be considered cutting-edge technology.

 

 

 

 

3. Thermal Mapping

Create light art with your own 3D printed thermal mapping device! Adafruit created this fun thermal mapping device that lets you have fun and create light art with some 3D printing and heat sensors. The thermal mapping works as a way to view the different temperatures in your environment. If you have a 3D printer, Adafruit provides an assembly guide for you to make your own thermal mapping device so you can point and view the heat radiating from different objects or spaces. You'll literally be able to see the heat coming off people and products and can make a light show out of it!

 

 

 

 

4. Custom Kicks

New Balance is one the latest shoe manufacturers to use 3D printers to create footwear for professional athletes to meet their needs and specifications. 3D printing allows New Balance to create shoes specified to an athletes' foot measurements to provide maximized performance. This is revolutionary for the shoe industry. A day may come where you scan your feet and receive a custom pair of shoes in return. 3D printing in the shoe industry is a bold step toward a world of mass-customized everything.

 

 

 

 

5. Bionic Ear

Scientists at Princeton University used a 3D printer to create an ear that can hear better than human ears. The scientists used 3D printing of cells and nano-particles, followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with the cartilage, creating this Bionic Ear. The result was a fully-functional organ that can hear radio frequencies a million times higher than our human ears!


What's the most innovative use of 3D printing that you've seen or heard about so far?

Post By: Justin Narayan