There is so much that you can do with a 3D printer and I think that it is incredible that we can do so much just on a small printer. I think all people should own a 3D printer. You can print anything that you could possibly want to print. The possibilities are endless, and you can design your own things too. Being able to print any plastic object of our choice it cool, many things can be made with a 3D printer.
Here is the article of how there are scientists that have created a 3D printed arm that actually works. The arm is connected to the nerves in the rest of your arm and electronically can move to your muscle movements. The cool thing about this is that they don’t cost anymore than 100 dollars unlike prosthetics that can cost thousands of dollars, and this is being done on a desktop 3D printer that anyone could have in there house. People are now printing parts for their 3D printers, so when something minor breaks or snaps and will eventually need to be fixed you and just print the part out and it can be replaced on the printer. This is especially nice because you will not have to A: buy a new printer or B: buy a new part, but this is only for minor fixed but major fixes must be replaced.
NASA is using 3D printers for things in space too. Up in space there was 3D printers sent up. There ended up being a tool needed and the printer was there. They designed the tool and had a stl (Standard Tessellation Language) file for a 3D printed ratchet (link). The ratchet was printed and it actually worked. The cool thing about the ratchet was it was MIS (Made in Space), therefore printed in space and designed in space. Also doctors are scanning hearts and other body parts before surgeries so they can better plan and see what and how they need to access the organs. Ths was first being done in late 2014. It has advanced enough where they are printing actual bones for knee and hip replacements. .
At Maker Faire Milwaukee 2015 I met the people at Dremel. They were telling me about the new version of the dremel Idea builder. This has now been released onto the market at 999 dollars. This machine is more of a out of the box printer that is ready to go in about 30 minutes and has a couple files ready to go on it that can be printed once it comes out of the box.
A couple of things that is worth mentioning is that this is a hobbyist machine. This is not just something you click a button on and it starts spitting out product. This has to be oftenly fine tuned, fixed, refilled, and cleaned. You also need to know how to program and design too. Otherwise, it is a really fun machine to have. The biggest problem today with 3D printing is the price. Since 3D printing started, the price has started to go down a lot but it still is not very cheap, so this is one big reason that people do not think that 3D printing is something worth paying upwards of 500 dollars
You might be asking yourself “So what, I am not going to spend 700 dollars on a 3D printer.” If you think about it, it would be a cool device to have because these printers are getting cheaper every year, and you would be quite surprised on what a device like a 3D printer can do when something breaks and you actually need one.
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