User:Djl5217

Blog 1

Part A

1. Even though I don't own a tablet, I thought that this tablet stand would be very nice to carry with you or to leave on a desk. 2. I like motorcycles, so even though this is just a model I think that it is artistic and beautiful. 3. Round tuits are worth a chuckle the first time but after that they have no point. 4. Model of Mario. Funny/awesome. 5. This is a four headed totem pole piece. It seems to not have a purpose and it is strange that someone would want one just to sit on their desk.

1. useful http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23784 2. artistic http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:42265 3. useless http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:35377 4. funny http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24751 5. strange http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30852

Part B

I would like to think that I am sometimes a tinkerer. My Dad is definitely a tinkerer and has multiple projects that he has worked on in energy and sustainability. I believe that not only corporate mentality but schools have made people focus only on results. No boss wants their workers to fail 80% of the time, and you can't pass school with a 20% either. This focus on correctness I think has made people self-consciously give up if they don;t think that they can do it well in the first try. This mentality is completely reverse of good design and tinkering. "Fail often to succeed sooner" is a quote from David Kelley of IDEO that could be a motto for tinkerers.

I think the biggest principle I got out of the interview is to always put yourself in the seat of the user, or watch how they react. The happier the user is the more successful the design will be. When I saw his rapid prototyper I was surprised that he didn't have one already. It is also a great idea. What better project for a kid than to use their creativity to build a prototyper that they can continue to design and experiment with. I think the main thing to remember is that it can always be improved. Think outside the box, most ideas are helpful as long as you build off them to improve.

Blog 2

The features that are being demonstrated do not seem to be impressive. Copy, paste, save and delete are all commands that we have become accustomed to. However, if it was the first time that I had ever seen these ideas I think that they would be amazing. Being able to automatically retype something, save anything, and have a method of moving across a screen that is not through the keyboard, revolutionizes a computer experience. I have used a DOS computer system and other programs that do not use a mouse and we don’t realize how amazing a mouse really is until it is gone.

People’s initial reaction to the mother of all demos was that the whole thing was a hoax. Viewers didn’t believe that what he was doing was possible. I think that sharing your knowledge all depends on the outcome that we want. Sharing ideas is all about learning and progressing ideas. Keeping ideas secret and patenting them seems to all be in the hopes that money can be made. As a university we want all students here to understand the technology and all of the possibilities that it contains. So our goal should be to share the information to allow other people to learn. By sharing this information other people can add their ideas to ours and we can come up with new technologies to advance the 3D printing. I think that having all of our printers and information online is a great idea. The only way to make it better is to continue to add instructions and pictures so that anyone can easily understand and replicate the systems.

Blog 3

Contour Crafting: Automated Construction

This use of 3D printing is pretty amazing. I didn't know that they had concrete that could be stacked without a support structure. Building houses this way could revolutionize the construction business. I know that many homes are now being built in modules, so by printing them in this fashion they could be built faster and more efficiently.

How 3D Printers Are Reshaping Medicine

I have heard of researchers printing human tissue before and it seems like an incredible idea once it is working. It we could print organs and skin whenever an emergency occurred a new organ could be printed in a few hours instead of trying to find a donor which could take months. Skin graphs could be printed instead of taking skin from other parts of the body. These printers could save lives and help people heal much faster. I had never thought of the impact that it could have on pharmaceutical companies. More effective, cheaper, and faster testing of drugs could lower the cost of drugs and may speed the advancement of medicines so that more people could get treatments. Even though these printers are not perfected it sounds like the impacts that they could offer are worth the time and money that are being spent to make them a reality.

A $300k 3D-printed burger exists, because why not?

I could think of a lots of things to spend $300k on, but a burger is not one of them. I'm sure that in the long run there may be a use for 3D printing meet, but it kinda seems like a waste of money. The research may be beneficial for other things also, but if organs are 10 years out for the medical field I feel like it will be at least that long or longer til we have 3D printed food. Even then it is debatable whether or not they could print a quantity that could put a dent in the amount of meat the US uses in a year.

The Delicious Future: 3D Chocolate Printer Finally Available for Purchase

Printing chocolate sounds like something that would be really neat for fancy catering or bakery businesses. Having complex shapes and the ability to print anything would be great for specialty items. I don't see chocolate for the masses using this technology though. It is still easier to melt large quantities in molds. However, the coolness factor of these printers would make them worth it for some.

3D Printing Fashion

Printing clothing sounds like a very interesting concept. Most all the 3D printers print solids, but clothes would have to be flexible to wear. I would like to know what materials that they use and how comfortable the clothes really are. Also, most clothes are woven. So how does a 3D printer keep the fibers together without melting them together? Printing clothing seems like a novel idea, but not very practical in a large scale.

Finding other 3D printing ideas is pretty easy. A quick search brought up some of the ones previously discussed like the houses and fashion, and also new ones like baseball bats, guns, sand castles, exoskeletons, and drugs. Since this technology can be used with many mediums there are people experimenting in all kinds of disciplines.