Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what Will? What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So I was reading about three D printing this week
Speaker 1: and I realized I've been thinking of it as a
Speaker 1: new technology when really it's been around for nearly half
Speaker 1: a century.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I actually had no idea I went back
Speaker 2: that far. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, the Japanese researcher Hideo Kodoma submitted the world's first
Speaker 1: patent for a three D printer in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: and two years later, American inventor Chuck Hall created the
Speaker 1: first working prototype. And before you ask, yes, we do
Speaker 1: know what the first object you prayed was. It was
Speaker 1: a little plastic eyewash cup. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what I was expecting you to say, but that definitely
Speaker 1: was not it. And what even is an eye wash cup?
Speaker 1: It is a tiny cup with a curved rim to
Speaker 1: fit around an eyeball, so if you get a piece
Speaker 1: of dust in your eye, you can fill the cup
Speaker 1: with water and flush it out.
Speaker 2: Like, was this a recurring problem for Hull?
Speaker 1: Yeah? His eyes were notoriously dirty dirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I'm actually not sure why he chose an eye
Speaker 1: wash cup, And I know it sounds like a random
Speaker 1: thing to make as the first three D printed object,
Speaker 1: but to be fair, that would probably be the case no.
Speaker 2: Matter what he picked.
Speaker 3: You know, it's still impressive that he was three D
Speaker 3: printing over forty years ago. Like, I feel like I
Speaker 3: only heard about.
Speaker 2: This in the last I don't know, at least within
Speaker 2: the last decade, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it took a lot of years of fine
Speaker 1: tuning to make three D printers affordable and simple enough
Speaker 1: for the consumer market. But now that we have, it's
Speaker 1: easy to see what guys like Codoma and Hall knew
Speaker 1: the whole time, which is that three D printing is
Speaker 1: truly revolutionary. It's transforming almost anything you can think of,
Speaker 1: from construction to food prep to aerospace engineering. And of
Speaker 1: course there's an incredible creative community that's developed around it too.
Speaker 1: And the reason we're thinking about all of this is
Speaker 1: that one of our listeners asked us to do an
Speaker 1: episode about three D printing, and we love an intriguing request,
Speaker 1: and we really wanted to know how people make things
Speaker 1: out of thin air or thin plastics.
Speaker 2: So let's dive in.
Speaker 3: Hey, their podcast listeners welcome to part time genius. I'm
Speaker 3: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 3: friend Mangeshot Ticketer and on the other side of the
Speaker 3: soundproof glass printing out the same sheet of paper for
Speaker 3: what must be the hundredth time now, not exaggerating. He
Speaker 3: just keeps printing. That's our friends and producer Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 3: He just keeps loading and reloading the same sheet. He's
Speaker 3: wasting a fortune on ink. But do you know what's
Speaker 3: going on with this mango?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said he felt left out about not having
Speaker 1: a three D printer, so he's using a two D
Speaker 1: printer to print out a picture of a three D printer.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: I guess the idea is if he prints it on
Speaker 1: the same page enough times, eventually the ink would build
Speaker 1: up and the picture will be three dimensional.
Speaker 2: You know, that's an interesting idea.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that'll work, but you've got to admire
Speaker 3: this guy's ingenuity always. And weirdly enough, that is basically
Speaker 3: how a three D printer works. Like following instructions from
Speaker 3: a digital file, the printer gradually builds an object by
Speaker 3: adding one layer of material on top of another on
Speaker 3: top of another, and the problem here is that you
Speaker 3: need to use something a bit sturdier than liquid ink,
Speaker 3: and most.
Speaker 1: People make three D printed objects out of plastic, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but plastic is really just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 3: So industrial three D printers can handle all kinds of
Speaker 3: multiple materials, including ceramic, wood, fiber, paper, glass, even edible proteins.
Speaker 1: Actually, oh, that's right, edible proteins. So will When was
Speaker 1: the first time you heard about three D printers?
Speaker 3: You know, I feel like this probably goes back to
Speaker 3: the days when we were working a little bit more
Speaker 3: closely with the house Stuff Works team.
Speaker 2: Even thinking back to.
Speaker 3: You know, Marshall Brain who founded so many years ago,
Speaker 3: and remembering him talking about this, it might have been
Speaker 3: a little more than a decade ago. It was probably
Speaker 3: like fourteen fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: How about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think about the same.
Speaker 2: I remember.
Speaker 1: Around twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen. The first time I
Speaker 1: heard something interesting with three D printers was before this party.
Speaker 1: They had all these attendees send in photos and then
Speaker 1: as a party favor, they were handed a three D
Speaker 1: printed pez dispenser of their own face.
Speaker 2: Oh no, cool. I remember thinking that was just really
Speaker 2: weird and fun.
Speaker 1: At the time. But the thing that really blew me
Speaker 1: away was when they started talking about those three D
Speaker 1: printed foods like pizzas and cookies, Like if you could
Speaker 1: print a meal at home, that just seems so futuristic
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The London pop up you're talking about was called food Inc.
Speaker 3: And even though it was only open for three days
Speaker 3: back in twenty sixteen, it made an impression because it
Speaker 3: was many people's introduction to the idea of printable meals. Now,
Speaker 3: in the years since, lots of other companies have tinkered
Speaker 3: with similar concepts, including a finished research center that's developing
Speaker 3: vending machines that print snacks huh. And this Israeli food
Speaker 3: tech company called Stakeholder Foods that's specializing in three D
Speaker 3: printed meat, which sounds so weird.
Speaker 2: How do you print meat?
Speaker 3: It's you know, you can load just about anything into
Speaker 3: a three D printing syringe if it's a smooth consistency.
Speaker 3: So Research as a Columbia did it with chicken puree
Speaker 3: and ran it through a system that cooked it while
Speaker 3: it was printing. But in the case of Stakeholder Foods,
Speaker 3: the three D printed meat is actually plant based. They
Speaker 3: make three D printed whitefish filets and steak using a
Speaker 3: mixture of water, soy and pea protein, also oil and
Speaker 3: a few other ingredients in there. And so these faux
Speaker 3: meats have different textures, so the outside gets crisp when
Speaker 3: you cook it, and the steaks even come with lines
Speaker 3: of three D printed fat.
Speaker 1: That sounds so bizarre, but I guess it's fine as
Speaker 1: long as it tastes good, right, So.
Speaker 3: The bad news about that. There was a Wired journalist
Speaker 3: named Matt Reynolds and he did this taste test last
Speaker 3: year and he described the Stakeholder meats as being quote
Speaker 3: technically food, but ad they quote had all the joy
Speaker 3: of licking a catering catalog. So you know, delicious food
Speaker 3: might be an area where three D printing still has
Speaker 3: a long way to go.
Speaker 1: So you know, you mentioned that London restaurant and how
Speaker 1: it was many people's first introduction to three D printed foods,
Speaker 1: but Gabe tipped me off that Star Trek had a
Speaker 1: machine called the Replicator that could produce anything on demand,
Speaker 1: so basically a three D printer, and the crew mostly
Speaker 1: used it to make food and drinks, which is pretty cool,
Speaker 1: But I guess, as you were describing, we're not quite
Speaker 1: there yet no.
Speaker 3: But I am glad you brought up the connection between
Speaker 3: three D printing and science fiction, because this idea has
Speaker 3: been a recurring theme in sci fi stories for some
Speaker 3: time now, and some actually predate Charles Hol's Big Brain
Speaker 3: break through in the early eighties. In fact, the earliest
Speaker 3: known reference to three D printing was in a short
Speaker 3: story by American novelist Murray Leinster. It was called Things
Speaker 3: Passed By. It was published in nineteen forty five, about
Speaker 3: four decades before hle printed his Eye wash Cup, and
Speaker 3: it describes a machine that uses plastic to create three
Speaker 3: dimensional objects from two dimensional drawings.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure he described printing an eye wash cup.
Speaker 2: I kind of wish.
Speaker 3: But now in this story, the tech is used to
Speaker 3: build spaceships, and the process is incredibly similar to how
Speaker 3: three D printers would eventually work. So Linser describes the
Speaker 3: liquid plastic flowing through a hose connected to this moving
Speaker 3: arm that gradually deposits blobs of plastic in shapes determined
Speaker 3: by the drawing. Now, he likened it to an insect
Speaker 3: spinning a cocoon, which I kind of actually love that description, and.
Speaker 1: It's kind of accurate, right, Like, so Obviously this stuff
Speaker 1: is rooted in sci fi. But walk me through some
Speaker 1: of the real world applications of three D printing, Like
Speaker 1: why were so many people excited about it?
Speaker 3: The since people are so enamored with three D printing
Speaker 3: is because of its ability to help us prototype. Take
Speaker 3: jewelry for instance, Like, Historically, it's been a very time
Speaker 3: consuming process. So after coming up with an idea for
Speaker 3: a piece of jewelry, the designer had to hand carve
Speaker 3: a model from clay kind of sculpt out the details there.
Speaker 3: Then they'd use that model to create a mold, and
Speaker 3: then finally pour molten metal into the mold to create
Speaker 3: this finished piece. That could take days or weeks or
Speaker 3: even longer depending on how sophisticated it was. But now
Speaker 3: jewelers can actually design new pieces digitally using CAD software
Speaker 3: and three D print them as wax or like a
Speaker 3: resin model, and then they can go from design to
Speaker 3: prototype or even a finished product in just a few hours.
Speaker 3: These days, about ninety percent of all jewelry sold in
Speaker 3: the US has been made with some degree of three
Speaker 3: D printing.
Speaker 1: So what definitely do you mean by some degree?
Speaker 3: Well, in addition to prototyping, designers can skip the mold
Speaker 3: making stage and just print metal jewelry directly. This has
Speaker 3: done through a process called laser centering, which also kind
Speaker 3: of sounds like something they'd have in Star Trek.
Speaker 1: Yeah, star Trek, the next generation of jewelers, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let me tell you what centering actually is.
Speaker 3: So you spread this thin layer of metal powder on
Speaker 3: a bed and then a laser fuses it together. Then
Speaker 3: you spread a thin layer of powder on top of that,
Speaker 3: and then laser it again, building layer by layer, and
Speaker 3: after each sweep of the laser you add a fresh
Speaker 3: layer of powder on top, and it keeps building until
Speaker 3: the object's finished.
Speaker 1: That's obviously incredible. But are we just using this for
Speaker 1: jewelry or are there other applications?
Speaker 2: No, it's just jewelry.
Speaker 3: People have not figured out anything but jewelry now. Definitely
Speaker 3: other applications, like all kinds of industries are using laser centering.
Speaker 3: For example, car manufacturers use it to prototype hardware. It's
Speaker 3: even used for some finished products like aerospace components, medical hardware, electronics,
Speaker 3: like it's pretty long list.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of medical hardware, one thing that blew me
Speaker 1: away is that almost every hearing aid on the market
Speaker 1: these days is three D printed.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people use have a hard time finding hearing aids
Speaker 1: that match the contours of their ear canals, and that's
Speaker 1: because hearing aids only came in a few standard sizes,
Speaker 1: so if one of them didn't fit, you just had
Speaker 1: to make do with something that was too loose or
Speaker 1: too snug. But now with three D printing, audiologists can
Speaker 1: take a digital scan of a patient's ear and create
Speaker 1: a perfectly customized hearing aid just for them. And you
Speaker 1: can find these advances all over the medical field, like
Speaker 1: whether it's with three D printed surgical tools, implants, or
Speaker 1: even artificial limbs.
Speaker 2: That is really so cool. We've come a long way
Speaker 2: from that one little eye wash cup.
Speaker 1: And I think the coolest fact about this technology is
Speaker 1: that it's not just limited to stuff like making a
Speaker 1: custom phone case or improving an industrial production process. It's
Speaker 1: actually improving and saving lives every day in ways that
Speaker 1: most of us don't even realize.
Speaker 3: Indeed, and you know, we have some really fascinating examples
Speaker 3: of that coming up. But first, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3: You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 3: the world of three D printing. All right, mego, so
Speaker 3: tell me more about how this technology is actually saving
Speaker 3: lives these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not just saving any lives, it's saving turtle lives.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm intrigued, tell me more so.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty sixteen, a group of animal rescuers in
Speaker 1: Brazil came across a tortoise that had lost eighty five
Speaker 1: percent of its shell in a brush fire. The tortoise,
Speaker 1: which the team named Freddy, didn't have a high chance
Speaker 1: of survival without a shell, so after treating the little
Speaker 1: guy for his burns, they decided to build him a
Speaker 1: new one. First, they built a three D model of
Speaker 1: a shell based on pictures of Freddy and other tortoises.
Speaker 1: Then they printed out in four interlocking pieces, and the
Speaker 1: all white plastic shell was assembled in gluten place around
Speaker 1: Freddy's body, and as a final touch, the team hand
Speaker 1: painted it to make sure it looked like his old shell.
Speaker 3: That's heartwarming and pretty amazing science. Yeah yeah, I love
Speaker 3: the story. And it's not just Freddy. Other turtles have
Speaker 3: been saved with three D printing as well. For example,
Speaker 3: in places like Arizona and Florida, hundreds of turtles a
Speaker 3: year are injured by cars and left with broken shells,
Speaker 3: and a turtle with a hole in its shell is
Speaker 3: highly vulnerable to infection and even spinal damage. In the past,
Speaker 3: custom prosthesis for this type of injury could cost hundreds
Speaker 3: of dollars or more. But now it's actually possible to
Speaker 3: scan the broken pieces of a turtle shell, create a
Speaker 3: three D model, and print out new ones for as
Speaker 3: little as I don't know, like twenty bucks, oh wow.
Speaker 3: And similar techniques have been used to restore bird bills,
Speaker 3: reattach alligator tails, and replace the missing limbs of cats, dogs,
Speaker 3: and other species including humans.
Speaker 2: It really is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: And actually, you know, you talked about how three D
Speaker 3: printing has brought the cost of animal prosthesis down, and
Speaker 3: that's actually also true for humans. So high end bionic
Speaker 3: arms canst upwards of one hundred thousand dollars, which means
Speaker 3: that less than one percent of the adult amputee population
Speaker 3: can actually afford to buy one.
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. But is that because the components
Speaker 1: are so expensive or why is not?
Speaker 3: I mean, that's part of it, But the other issue
Speaker 3: is that the production process is just super complicated like,
Speaker 3: different components get made in separate factories by different companies,
Speaker 3: then yet another company assembles them. So all these manufacturing
Speaker 3: costs and markups get factored into that final price. But
Speaker 3: three D printing can streamline this process by cutting out
Speaker 3: the middleman. Now a company can scan print and as
Speaker 3: symbol a bionic arm with a single facility.
Speaker 1: And so how much cheaper does that actually become?
Speaker 3: You know, there's some variables here, like the size and
Speaker 3: complexity of the arm, and of course what kind of
Speaker 3: insurance you have. But if you look at the two
Speaker 3: leading companies in the field, you've got Unlimited Tomorrow and
Speaker 3: Open Bionics. Their prosthetic arms cost five to ten times
Speaker 3: less than a traditional manufactured one. And this is especially
Speaker 3: important when you consider the difficulty for young amputees because
Speaker 3: kids outgrow these prosthesis and you know, they need bigger
Speaker 3: ones as they get older.
Speaker 1: You know, I never actually thought about that, Like I
Speaker 1: feel like I get stressed out watching how fast my
Speaker 1: kids outgrow their shoes. Yeah, you can't even imagine for amputees.
Speaker 3: No, it's very true, and the lower cost isn't actually
Speaker 3: the only advantage here, because when all the components are
Speaker 3: three D printed. There's also more opportunity for customization. For instance,
Speaker 3: open i Biotics calls their limb the Hero Arm, and
Speaker 3: it has all these cool magnetic panels that you can
Speaker 3: pop off and on. They come in different colors and textures.
Speaker 3: You can coordinate them with your outfits. They even make
Speaker 3: these panel sets based on licensed characters, so you can
Speaker 3: trick out your arm to look like like Iron Man's
Speaker 3: Gauntlet or Adroid from Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Like, there's so many cool possibilities.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that is great for kids, but I bet
Speaker 1: there are plenty of adults who would also love a superhero,
Speaker 1: are right.
Speaker 3: I mean it's so cool you get to cosplay at
Speaker 3: work and nobody can complain because like, that's just.
Speaker 2: Your arm, you know.
Speaker 3: And I know that decorating your arm might sound frivolous,
Speaker 3: but I actually found this quote from one of open
Speaker 3: Bionics founders, Samantha Pain, and she pointed out that having
Speaker 3: a prosthetic limb that purposefully looks artificial is kind of
Speaker 3: subversive and fun. So, as she puts it, quote, a
Speaker 3: generation ago, as a society, we valued conformity. Everyone wanted
Speaker 3: to look the same, and that's why you saw a
Speaker 3: lot of prosthetic arms that tried to blend in that
Speaker 3: tried to look human, but as engineers, we couldn't quite
Speaker 3: get the look right. So it's really cool that as
Speaker 3: time moved on, we began to celebrate individualism and self expression.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels really liberating. Of course, while getting creative
Speaker 1: seems smart for three D printing for your prosthetic arms,
Speaker 1: when it comes to three D printing internal organs, it
Speaker 1: helps to get as close to the real deal as possible.
Speaker 1: And that's why bioinc is so important, because while your
Speaker 1: body might not accept a bladder made of artificial material
Speaker 1: like plastic or carbon fiber, if you print one using bioinc,
Speaker 1: the chances are it'll get along just fine with your interiors.
Speaker 2: So what is bioinc.
Speaker 1: It is basically a mixture of a special kind of
Speaker 1: eletin and the cultured cells needed to create living tissue.
Speaker 1: And this gets a little technical here, but let's say
Speaker 1: someone's missing an ear and their doctor wants to print
Speaker 1: a functional replacement, which is a thing they can actually do.
Speaker 1: The first step is to harvest stem cells from the patient.
Speaker 1: These are undifferentiated cells, meaning they don't have a specific
Speaker 1: purpose yet, and they can turn into other types of
Speaker 1: cells like tissue or bone. You can kind of think
Speaker 1: of them like a blank template of the human body.
Speaker 1: So the doctors would manipulate the genes in these stem
Speaker 1: cells so they develop into cells that do have a
Speaker 1: specific purpose. In this case, that would be functions related
Speaker 1: to hearing and balance. Then you mix them with gelatin
Speaker 1: and some other high end biomaterials to create something called
Speaker 1: bioinc and you load that into a three D printer
Speaker 1: and voila instant ear. And the best part is, since
Speaker 1: it's made from the patient's own cells, the odds of
Speaker 1: the body rejecting it are much much lower compared to
Speaker 1: a donor transplant. This actually might blow your mind, but
Speaker 1: the first three D printed organ was transplanted into human
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen ninety nine, which is the same
Speaker 1: year a few other important things happened like SpongeBob SquarePants
Speaker 1: debuted and Napster launched.
Speaker 2: So three equally important advanced mess.
Speaker 1: But that's also the year that scientists at the wake
Speaker 1: Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine created a new bladder using
Speaker 1: cells from a patient, and they successfully implanted it in
Speaker 1: the same person without any complications. The procedure has actually
Speaker 1: been repeated about a dozen times since then, and all
Speaker 1: of those three D printed bladders, even the ones from
Speaker 1: a couple decades back, are still fully functioning today. Wow.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm thinking, as you're talking about this, about
Speaker 3: all the people waiting on transplant lists for organs, So
Speaker 3: can we do this for any organ.
Speaker 1: So as the technology stands, it's easiest to bioprint flat
Speaker 1: or hollow organs. So you think about bladders, things like skin, ears,
Speaker 1: wind pipes, right, these are things that have been successfully
Speaker 1: transplanted already, but anything more complex and that is still
Speaker 1: off the table. So scientists have made some headway in
Speaker 1: recent years by printing small scale, functional replicas of hearts, kidneys,
Speaker 1: even brains, and the hope is that in the next
Speaker 1: few decades they'll be able to make them full size.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe I think we've proven conclusively that three
Speaker 3: D printing can can really help humans and animals, especially
Speaker 3: tortoises with the story you were telling there, And that's
Speaker 3: all great, But like any technology, it's a tool that
Speaker 3: can also do harm unfortunately, So we probably should take
Speaker 3: a moment to recognize what may be the darkest side
Speaker 3: of three D printing, and that is ghost guns.
Speaker 1: So I know this is the thing that people have
Speaker 1: been worried about, that you can make three D printed
Speaker 1: guns that can actually fire real bullets. But why exactly
Speaker 1: are they called ghost guns.
Speaker 2: It's actually because they.
Speaker 3: Don't have serial numbers like all real guns do, and
Speaker 3: this makes them virtually untraceable. So the first three D
Speaker 3: printed gun was created in twenty thirteen by a Texas
Speaker 3: firearms activist named Cody Wilson. Now, it wasn't exactly the
Speaker 3: same as a real gun. It only fired one bullet
Speaker 3: at a time, and it was prone to breaking, but
Speaker 3: Wilson released his design as an open source project that
Speaker 3: anyone could download or modify, and over the next few years,
Speaker 3: he and others kept tinkering. They figured out how to
Speaker 3: make fully functional guns from three D printed kits and
Speaker 3: some basic metal parts, and some of these homemade guns
Speaker 3: were used in actual crimes. So, as you can imagine,
Speaker 3: this became a concern for law enforcement and for public
Speaker 3: health and safety groups gun control activists. Now, obviously there
Speaker 3: are strict rules that govern gun manufacturing in the US,
Speaker 3: from licensing to requiring those serial numbers. We also have
Speaker 3: laws that prohibit people convicted of felonies from owning guns,
Speaker 3: and three D printing sort of bypasses all of that.
Speaker 3: So what can governments actually do about this? Well, in
Speaker 3: the past few years, several states have passed laws regulating
Speaker 3: three D printed guns, specifically requiring them to have traceable
Speaker 3: serial numbers, so that's a step and just as pass bringing.
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court upheld a twenty twenty two rule that
Speaker 3: requires serial numbers and background checks for certain three D
Speaker 3: printed gun kits now, but that decision focused narrowly on
Speaker 3: some administrative details, so companies that make these kits could
Speaker 3: potentially get around it, and Cody Wilson has actually asked
Speaker 3: the Texas Court for an injunction that would prevent enforcement
Speaker 3: of that twenty twenty two rules. So it's really not
Speaker 3: clear how all this is going to shake out.
Speaker 1: That feels a little depressing.
Speaker 3: Actually, all right, well that may be the case, But
Speaker 3: after the break, I'm going to make it up to
Speaker 3: you by telling you how three D printing could help
Speaker 3: solve the housing crisis that I'm intoe.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius. If you're enjoying the show,
Speaker 1: please be sure to subscribe and leave us a nice rating.
Speaker 2: And review. It absolutely makes our day.
Speaker 1: And if you have a question you'd like us to
Speaker 1: answer or topic you'd like us to explore, you can
Speaker 1: email us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com or
Speaker 1: call our brand new hotline, which we have a link
Speaker 1: to in our show notes.
Speaker 3: That's right, and as you mentioned at the top of
Speaker 3: the show, the idea for today's episode came from one
Speaker 3: of our listeners who goes by the handle Aurora Borealis,
Speaker 3: and I love this comment so much I want to
Speaker 3: read it in its entirety. It says, quote Will and Mango,
Speaker 3: please do one on three D printing. You can three
Speaker 3: D print anything from chocolate to houses. It's true, you
Speaker 3: can use concrete.
Speaker 2: Google it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like that this had google it because they assume
Speaker 2: we wouldn't believe them, and then we google it.
Speaker 3: So our listeners never lie and we trust you guys completely,
Speaker 3: but we also fact check. So yes, I did google it,
Speaker 3: and it turns out that Aurora was absolutely right. There
Speaker 3: are companies out there that specialize in three D printing
Speaker 3: full scale houses, and their material of choice is indeed concrete. Now,
Speaker 3: this begin in Europe in twenty eighteen, and there are
Speaker 3: now companies in the US and Mexico that are using
Speaker 3: the process for major development projects.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, we're not talking about three D
Speaker 1: printing cinderblocks and stacking them into a house, right right,
Speaker 1: Like this is actually printing out all the walls of
Speaker 1: a house layer by layer.
Speaker 2: That is exactly right.
Speaker 3: Like you set up an enormous eleven foot tall robotic
Speaker 3: printer on a build site and you input a three
Speaker 3: D model of the floor plan, and then the printer's
Speaker 3: mobile nozzle goes to work squeezing out rounded lines of
Speaker 3: concrete one on top of the other. And it's kind
Speaker 3: of like this giant soft served concrete machine. That's fascinating
Speaker 3: and tasty. So I love that it is fully automated.
Speaker 3: Do you need humans to work machines? You do need humans,
Speaker 3: but not as many as you might find on a
Speaker 3: normal construction site. You really only need two or three
Speaker 3: people to oversee the build of this, and the whole
Speaker 3: system can be controlled by a tablet or a smartphone.
Speaker 2: That is so cool.
Speaker 3: And since the printer does most of the actual physical labor,
Speaker 3: the system can operate around the clock.
Speaker 2: So to compare, it.
Speaker 3: Can take two to six months to build a like
Speaker 3: a fifteen hundred square foot home the old fashioned way,
Speaker 3: but you can three D print the same size house
Speaker 3: in two weeks. Now, if you're willing to go smaller,
Speaker 3: you can print a five hundred square foot house and
Speaker 3: less than twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: That is bonkers, and they really print every part of
Speaker 1: the house.
Speaker 3: Typically, the only parts of a three D printed house
Speaker 3: that aren't three D printed are the floor, the roof,
Speaker 3: and the finishing things like you know, doors and windows.
Speaker 3: But all of the exterior and interior walls are one
Speaker 3: hundred percent printed concrete. And it's easy to tell too,
Speaker 3: because you can see the different layers there. So some
Speaker 3: people say it makes the walls look like wide whale
Speaker 3: corduroy or like the bristles on a toothbrush.
Speaker 1: I feel like that could take some getting used to,
Speaker 1: Like I imagine it's a pain to hang things in
Speaker 1: a house like that, Like you've got to drill through
Speaker 1: solid concrete just to put up I don't know, paintings
Speaker 1: or a curtain run. You know.
Speaker 3: I thought the same thing, but I actually read an
Speaker 3: interview with someone who owns a three D printed house
Speaker 3: and they said that the concrete is actually easier for
Speaker 3: hanging things because you don't have to worry about running
Speaker 3: into studs all the time. And another cool thing is
Speaker 3: that the printer can account for things like electrical and
Speaker 3: plumbing outlets, so it'll automatically build those gaps into the walls,
Speaker 3: which means no one has to cut through the concrete
Speaker 3: to build them later. Plus, because the concrete is highly
Speaker 3: energy efficient, three D homeowners tend to have lower utility bills,
Speaker 3: plus less street noise, and best of all, it is fire,
Speaker 3: wind and insect resistant. So for someone who lives in
Speaker 3: an area prone to wildfires or hurricanes or plagues of locusts,
Speaker 3: like whatever it may be, these three D printed concrete
Speaker 3: houses could actually be a lifesaver.
Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible. And I'm guessing they're a lot cheaper
Speaker 1: than normal house too, right, Well, you.
Speaker 3: Would think so, but no, not really, at least not
Speaker 3: yet so at the time of the recording. The world's
Speaker 3: largest three D printed housing development is woolf Ranch in Georgetown, Texas. Now,
Speaker 3: the homes there come in two and three bedroom models
Speaker 3: and they started just under four hundred thousand dollars, which
Speaker 3: is comparable to a similar size regular home in the area.
Speaker 3: Now that said, the three D printed real estate market
Speaker 3: is just emerging. As it scales up and becomes more efficient,
Speaker 3: those prices could come down, or you'd expect them to
Speaker 3: come down. And I really hope that's the case, because
Speaker 3: three D printed homes could go such a long way
Speaker 3: toward alleviating the worldwide housing short.
Speaker 1: You know, this whole time you were talking about three
Speaker 1: D printed concrete houses, I've been thinking about our old pal,
Speaker 1: Thomas Edison and how he would build houses by pouring
Speaker 1: concrete into a giant house sized mole.
Speaker 3: And he was just pouring the walls of the house
Speaker 3: or was it more elaborate than that?
Speaker 1: Definitely more elaborate. According to Edison's nineteen seventeen patent, all
Speaker 1: of the building's parts included the sides, roofs, partitions, bathtubs, floors,
Speaker 1: et cetera. It would be quote formed of an integral
Speaker 1: mass of a cement mixture. In theory, the molds could
Speaker 1: be used over and over again, and Edison hoped the
Speaker 1: technique would build low income housing in crowded cities. If
Speaker 1: you look online, you can actually find some of these
Speaker 1: houses and they're actually beautiful, like the moldings and things
Speaker 1: like that. The only problem was that it wasn't exactly practical.
Speaker 1: His molds were enormous and composed of more than two
Speaker 1: thousand pieces, which of course made them super expensive to assemble. Now,
Speaker 1: Edison had a hard time convincing builders to make that
Speaker 1: initial investment, and even though he offered up the building
Speaker 1: plans for free, the only concrete houses to ever use
Speaker 1: his method were part of a small test batch made
Speaker 1: by his own company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bet he'd be glad to know that we
Speaker 3: finally found this work around with three D printing, and
Speaker 3: that his idea is now reality more than a century later.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny.
Speaker 3: Three D printing has been the kind of the wave
Speaker 3: of the future for the past eighty years, going all
Speaker 3: the way back to the story I mentioned from the
Speaker 3: nineteen forties, but now here we are actually catching up
Speaker 3: to it in the present. It's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. Well, before we sign off, let's do a
Speaker 1: little fact off. Three D printing has made its mark
Speaker 1: on restaurants, operating rooms, factories, construction sites, and also on
Speaker 1: fashion runways. It turns out designers love the tech for
Speaker 1: its ability to create complex organic structures and intricate patterns
Speaker 1: with ease, and the result has been this slew of
Speaker 1: visually striking, wearable art pieces inspired by everything from sacred
Speaker 1: geometry to the iridescent feathers of hummingbird. There's even been
Speaker 1: crossover with the movie industry, where three D printing has
Speaker 1: been used to create props and costumes, for example, the
Speaker 1: elaborate headpiece worn by Angela Bassett's Queen in the Black
Speaker 1: Panther movies with three D printed and if hote couture
Speaker 1: isn't your thing and you're not a Hollywood star, do
Speaker 1: not wear you can still wear pree D printed gear.
Speaker 1: Some designers have started using it to make everyday wearables
Speaker 1: like handbags, glasses, frames, and even sneakers. Right, well, here's
Speaker 1: a fun one I've found. So the Smithsonian website has
Speaker 1: an online three D digitization portal where you can download
Speaker 1: free print ready three D models of about one hundred
Speaker 1: different artifacts that are in their collection. Users can print
Speaker 1: the models themselves or simply upload the files of their
Speaker 1: choice to one of the many on demand printing services
Speaker 1: out there, such as shape ways or craft Cloud. And
Speaker 1: that means you can print out things like a t
Speaker 1: rex skull, a Native American cat sculpture, Amelia Earhart's flight
Speaker 1: suit and not one, but two life mask of Abraham Link.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. You can't have just one.
Speaker 3: The artifacts make great decorations, gifts, learning aids, and the
Speaker 3: program supports the Smithsonian's mission to increase access to their
Speaker 3: collection for those who can't visit in person.
Speaker 2: That is incredible.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I brought up Thomas Edison earlier, so it's
Speaker 1: only fair that I give equal time to Albert Einstein,
Speaker 1: which is a rule on our show. And thankfully there
Speaker 1: is a really cool point of overlap between Einstein and
Speaker 1: three D printing, which is that you can now print
Speaker 1: free three D replicas of the toy blocks he played
Speaker 1: with as a child. The printing kit is available on
Speaker 1: a site called Open Einstein, and it was made through
Speaker 1: a partnership between the Lego Foundation, Unilever, Ikea, and National Geographic,
Speaker 1: which is a wonderful and surprising collective of companies. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the kit provides models for thirty six building blocks of
Speaker 1: different sizes and shapes, all of which were scanned directly
Speaker 1: from the set of wooden blocks that Einstein used when
Speaker 1: he was a kid. The original blocks were made by
Speaker 1: this German company, anchor Stein Baluchistan and These must have
Speaker 1: been popular because they were actually used by a whole
Speaker 1: group of budding geniuses. Frank Lloyd Wright had them as
Speaker 1: a kid, and Buckminster Fuller also had a set of
Speaker 1: his own. So results may vary with your own kids,
Speaker 1: but you know, if you're trying to raise a genius,
Speaker 1: it might be worth a shot, all right.
Speaker 3: So we've covered a bunch of things that three D
Speaker 3: printers can make, but one thing that's still beyond their means,
Speaker 3: at least for now, is other three D printers. It
Speaker 3: kind of reminds me of when you were a kid
Speaker 3: and people are like, if you had one wish and
Speaker 3: you can't.
Speaker 2: Wish for lots more wishes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it would be a neat little trick because even
Speaker 3: though the cost of three D printers has come down
Speaker 3: in the last decade, they are still quite pricey. But
Speaker 3: if new three D printers could be assembled using low
Speaker 3: cost printed materials, the technology would become accessible to just
Speaker 3: about everyone. The problem is there are over one hundred
Speaker 3: different components in each device, and while many of them
Speaker 3: are simple enough to be reproduced by a single plastic
Speaker 3: printing unit, other parts.
Speaker 2: Aren't printable at all. You think about things.
Speaker 3: Like motors bearing circuit boards, but that hasn't stopped makers
Speaker 3: from trying so. The most famous example is the long
Speaker 3: running project called rep Rap, and they spent over a
Speaker 3: decade trying to develop the world's first self replicating three
Speaker 3: D printer. They went through multiple itterations, made a lot
Speaker 3: of headway, but the most recent build was still only
Speaker 3: able to produce about seventy percent of the parts. Now
Speaker 3: the project has been installed for a few years now,
Speaker 3: but with three D printers getting more and more capable
Speaker 3: by the day, the dream of having one in every
Speaker 3: home could eventually come true.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of a three D printed three
Speaker 1: D printer in every three D printed home.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. That's the dream.
Speaker 1: I cannot possibly top that dream. So will you deserve
Speaker 1: this trophy for this week?
Speaker 2: And I'm going to hand it to you.
Speaker 3: Look at that, Dylan made a three D printed little
Speaker 3: trophy here.
Speaker 2: You didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1: Oh it, dun's the best. It's actually an eyewash coop
Speaker 1: of us. That is it for today's show, but we
Speaker 1: will be back next week week with another brand new episode.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you can hang out with us on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Blue Sky. Those links are in the show
Speaker 1: description and call us on our new hotline. We are
Speaker 1: waiting to hear from you, but from Dylan, Mary, Gabe,
Speaker 1: Will and myself. Thank you so much for listening. Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongaish Heatikler,
Speaker 1: and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the Ihear
Speaker 1: Art Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.