WEBVTT - TechStuff Prints In 3D (Again) 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.520 Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:13.840 works dot com. Heath and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.880 Jonathan Strickland, and today I'm joined by Joe McCormick, head 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.000 writer of Forward Thinking. Hi everybody. Joe is a guest 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.759 hosting while Laurence out. She will be back soon, so 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.720 no where he's there. Joe and I have worked extensively 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.280 together on Forward Thinking, which is the show all about 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.880 future technology, feature science, what the world is just gonna 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:38.040 be like in twenty to fifty years or beyond in 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.040 some cases. And so one of the things we've talked 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.600 about at length on that show is three D printing. 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.280 So I thought we would have a little full discussion 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.680 called three D Printers. I'm excited to talk about this 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:51.920 because the only other time I've been a guest host 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.680 on tech Stuff, we talked about the anti Kither mechanism, 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.920 one of the oldest machines on Earth yea, or what 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.440 some would call probably the oldest computer. And so that 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.200 was the ancient past of technology. Now I want to 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.480 talk about what's big in the future, and I think 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.920 what's big is three D printing. Yeah, it's it's undoubtedly 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.880 going to be huge and in fact, Joe has some 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.800 interesting firsthand experience he can relate because, as it turns out, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.440 we here at the office have a new three D printer, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.360 and Joe has sort of become the the overseer of it. 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.080 By default, he was the one who sees the opportunity. Yeah, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.400 nobody told me to. We we came in one day 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.480 for a Monday morning meeting and they just wheeled this 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.360 three D printer in and I was very excited, and 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:38.800 they said, well, start playing with it, and nobody else 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.319 started playing with it. So I seized the day. Yep, 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.520 sees the moment he sees the opportunism, sees the three 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.640 D printer, Yeah, and grabbed hold of it, got the instructions, 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.480 installed all the software, and I started printing plastic death, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.720 just monstrosities and Asian failures, rolling up big balls. That 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.360 turns out there's a curve to using this this device, 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.960 and Joe has done a lot of trial and even 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.960 more error to figure out exactly how to use it. 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.240 And I wish you could see the just the beautiful 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:14.200 plastic graveyard. There's some things that like some sort of 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:18.720 plastic spaghetti that has I call them plastic hairballs. Yeah, 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.520 that's probably a better better description. Anyway, this thing looks 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.079 like it's about the size of a large microwave. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.640 maybe a little bit taller. Yeah, and it uh, it 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.680 actually can print in two different colors of plastic at 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.440 the same time, which is pretty awesome. But anyway, we 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:36.720 should probably talk about what a three D printer actually is. 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.040 Kind of give a quick rundown for any of you 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:41.480 who have not listened to the previous Tech Stuff episodes 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:43.639 where we talked about three D printing and you maybe 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:45.360 have heard the term, but you don't really know what 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.400 it is. It's a type of additive manufacturing. Additive as 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:54.000 in the opposite of subtraction, and the same thing as addition, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.120 you're putting on layers. Yes, you are building an object 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.639 layer by layer in some way. Uh, you're topical consumer model. 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.320 Will be using a type of plastic with a binder 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.200 material so that it binds to itself, and the layers 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.120 can be very thin, maybe just a couple of microns 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.720 thick or even less, depending upon Like if you're using 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.840 a state of the art nano three D printer, you're 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.359 talking about layers so thin that they are like it 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:26.480 might as well be one dimensional ours is not our consumer, right, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:28.680 the kind of thing that you could, like an actual 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.960 person could buy, yes, yes, as opposed to those those 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.880 non real people who are able to get those nano printers. Um, yeah, 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:39.440 it's exactly. It's the kind of a consumer could purchase 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:41.880 straight online. In fact, that is the model that we have, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:43.760 is one that you can buy right now, right. The 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.720 idea of additive manufacturing is a cool paradigm. It's different 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.720 than what we're usually used to. When you want to 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.360 create a very specifically tailored three D object, usually you're 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.680 gonna carve, right, You're gonna take some the external material 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.560 until you've got what you need exactly. Um. We talked, uh, 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.760 we were talking about this in terms of like Michelangelo's 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.600 The David. Yes, you would have a giant slab of marble, 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.080 and then you carve away all the stuff that doesn't 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.560 look like David until you're left with David. Right. It's 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.200 so it's kind of a cool metaphor there, because there's 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.880 this idea in the history of art about the sculpture 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:22.279 emerging from the stone and it exists within the stone 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.839 and you've just unleashed it. I guess this would be 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.960 more like if you were to create the David by 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.040 dripping and creating a David stalagmite in a cave right 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.960 until it was fully formed as David. Now that hopefully 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.279 faster than that the right. The additive approach does mean 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.200 that you are not wasting as much material, right because 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.200 you're not taking a large block of something and then 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.440 carving it down until you have the object you want. 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.200 You are instead using pretty much the stuff you need 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.279 to build the thing you want, and and very little 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.800 goes to waste, with the exception of the whatever you 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.080 use making all these dead prototypes that get to work. Right, 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.240 But assuming you get your printer working in chip shape, 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.400 then basically no ways. And uh, typically the consumer models 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.560 are printing in plastic, right, So uh, what is ours 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:13.920 printing right now? Well, ours can do a B S 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.559 or p l A right now, We've got it loaded 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.440 up with p l A. That's sort of a nice 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:24.720 friendly bioplastic polylactic acid. Jonathan A B S. What does 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:28.360 that stand for? All right, Let's let's see rillo nitrial 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.880 beauta dein styrene. I say that without looking it up, 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:33.480 so I could be wrong, but I think it's a 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.200 krylo nitrial beautadeene Styrene. I did a video where I 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.640 was talking about this stuff for something else, and um, yeah, 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.280 I think I finally got it. I'll forget it by 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.240 next week for sure. But the thing about these plastics 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.919 is when they are heated to a certain temperature, they 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.760 become pliable. And that's when you put them through what's 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.520 called extruder. It's what ends up printing these in these 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.360 tiny layers, these thin streams of plastic that can be 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.040 layered on top of one another, and then when it 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.239 cools down, it will set into whatever shape it's been 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.760 put into. So you heat it up, you shape it, 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.160 you let it cool, and then it's set that way. 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:09.720 This is the stuff a b s, by the way, 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:11.839 is the stuff that lego bricks are made up of. 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.000 Oh yeah, so um yeah, if you are able to 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.200 heat it up properly, you put it through this extruder. 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.120 The extruder lays down the layers, the binding agent helps 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.520 it bind to itself, preferably only to itself and not 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.160 to anything else, and then once it cools down, you're 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.640 good to go. You've got your object. Yeah, so that's 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.760 the basic idea, and uh, we already talked about how 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.520 it's less wasteful than other approaches. But one of the 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.919 other big advantages is that you can make prototypes really 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.920 really fast. Right, So this would be, for example, if 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.760 you are some kind of inventor engineer maker. You're the 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.080 person who's trying to put something together in your garage 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.440 and in a lot of cases you're going to need 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.720 a custom made part. Yeah, but how do you get 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.560 that part? How do you get a custom made part? Well, 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.039 I mean you could come up with the design specs 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.280 and you could mail those off to you maybe email 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.159 these days, and send them off to a company that 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.880 does their own fabrication and they'll make it and then 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.480 they'll send it back to you. Man, that is a 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.360 long time to wait, especially if you messed up and 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.840 you need to redesign. There could be there could be 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.480 so many points of failure along that pathway. Right. First 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.120 of all, your design might turn out not to work. Secondly, 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.200 the manufacturing company might end up making it but not 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.000 quite make it to your specifications, which means it still 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.280 doesn't work. Even if you send in the correct stuff, 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.800 you might get something back that's wrong. And either way, 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.120 once you figure out it doesn't work, you have to 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.440 go through that whole process again, and this takes a 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:46.680 lot of time. With a three D printer, you could 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.240 print up your design idea, you know, design it in 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.200 a computer assisted design program a CAD program, print it out, 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.040 and then test it to see if it actually works. 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.000 Assuming that everything printed properly, then you're you can test 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:00.440 it and see if it works. If it doesn't work, 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.040 you can go tweak the design and print a new one, 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.480 which means you go from design to prototype much more quickly. 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:08.920 Of course, i'd imagine in a lot of cases that 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.360 you're not going to be necessarily printing your final version. 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.720 It might be more useful for producing just the prototype 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.600 than for the actual final product, because maybe you're you're 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.600 printing in p L A or A B S or 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.280 some kind of plastic that's not really ideal for what 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:24.960 it is, but you can you can see if it 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.560 fits right. You can have this part well, especially if 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.360 you're doing something like imagine that you're you're designing a 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.200 new type of car and you want to test it 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.280 to find out what kind of drag it's going to 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.520 have when it's at speed, So you're going to put 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.040 it through the model. You're gonna put through a wind tunnel. Well, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.120 it doesn't really matter what it's made out of, assuming 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.560 that the material itself is is nice and smooth. You 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.000 want a high resolution three D printer, that means those 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.480 layers have to be really, really thin. But you can 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.800 put that through a wind tunnel and see if it's 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.439 behaving the way you anticipated, and if it's not, then 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.520 you can go back to the design process, change some things, 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.880 and test it out again without going through this whole 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.280 process of sending it out to a fabricator to build 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.120 the whole thing. Of course, then there's another thing, which 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.880 is customization, customization of designs that already exists, and this 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.600 comes in when you couple the power of a three 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.080 D printer with the power of a three D scanner, 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:20.959 a three D scanner, or or even just a three 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.520 D design program, right, because you can customize whatever you like, 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.599 however you like it. But yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, what 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.600 I had in mind is so you've got a part, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.440 but you want to change it a little bit so 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:34.560 you can scan it with the three D scanner. Things 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.400 like this exist where you can use like lasers or 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.400 even just camera based technology. I've read about ideas on 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.960 how to create three D scanners with a Microsoft connect. Yeah, 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.400 the three six D connect, we should say, just because 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.040 the Xbox one is much more locked down. Yeah, But 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:53.120 so you can scan a physical object, turn that into 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:58.080 a virtual object, make changes to the virtual object, send 0:09:58.120 --> 0:09:59.800 it to the three D printer, and then you've got 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.160 an new real object, new physical object, right right. So, 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.319 if you end up seeing an idea that you think 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.120 is good but you want to improve upon it, which 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.160 is something that is common in say the open source community, 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.600 you know, this idea of people who have ways of 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.880 improving something should be allowed the chance to do so, 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.280 that kind of appeals to that type of person. Of course, 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.560 there's a whole range of intellectual property issues when it 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.120 comes down to three D printing. We're not really going 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:29.840 to touch on that. We talked about that in previous 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.040 episodes of tech Stuff, but it is one of those 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:33.920 things where suddenly we have to worry about how do 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.679 we protect the design of a physical object. Now that 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.280 it's possible, at least depending upon the object, to make 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.320 a duplicate of that, you know, without going to the 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.840 original source, which is that's kind of interesting that we 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.760 live in that world now. But Anyway, the three D 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.119 printing as a whole got started in industries like automotive 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.760 and aerospace, where it was used in prototyping. It wasn't 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.599 even called three D printing originally and had lots of 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.000 different names depending upon the specif offic approach, But now 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.600 we kind of use three D printing as an overall 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.640 term for anything that's using this kind of additive manufacturing 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.760 approach where you're laying down layer by layer. They have 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.480 different implementations, but they're all based on a similar process. 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.480 Of course, i'd imagine once we're talking about industrial uses, 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.760 we're not just talking about plastic. I mean, the consumer 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.200 models are probably going to be printing in plastic, but 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.600 really you can print in pretty much anything that can 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:32.200 be melted and then resolidify in a way that is useful. Yeah, 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.600 you can even do things like, uh, you're not really 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.360 printing in wood, but you can print a material that 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.920 simulates would. So there's all sorts of things that you 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.360 can find in the industrial world. Now, granted, those printers 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.360 are a little pricing. We're talking like thousands of dollars. 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.199 That's why it's out of the consumer range. Yeah, the 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.160 consumer models tend to be between about a thousand and 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.160 five thousand dollars these days. Well, there there are actually 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.559 some really cheap ones. Don't know how much you can 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.160 do with them, but you can get a three D 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:01.719 printer for a few hundred bucks. Yes, I don't know 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.719 how capable it is. But the one we have in 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.360 the office, the dual extruder that can print in two 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.839 different it was which you know, it's not like that's 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:13.960 an insignificant amount of money, but it does put it 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.000 within the realm of the consumer market, which is interesting, 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.400 and I think that's pretty cheap for its size. Yes, yeah, no, 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.559 it really is. Because I've seen maker bots, which maker 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.320 Bot three D printers are great to the one we 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.720 have is as a mono price three D printer. Uh. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:30.719 The maker bot ones are really good too, but they 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.600 are um they also tend to be a little more expensive. 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:37.080 So it's interesting that we're now getting to this point 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.840 where consumers can have this uh this access themselves. And 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.800 we'll talk more about the experience of using those in 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:45.800 a minute, but first I want to kind of look 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:49.800 ahead and say, what are some of the crazy ways 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.280 that three D printers are being used right now? Like, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.120 what are or being proposed for the future. Um and 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.240 actually the ones we're talking about now, they've all been 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.000 used in some form or another. Uh, maybe not to 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:03.840 a point where we can all get our hands on 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.480 the stuff, but it's it's these are actual projects that 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.640 are happening now. Yeah. How about three D printing of buildings? Yeah, 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.160 this actually is not that new of an idea, the 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.160 one that the contour crafting one, which I have actually 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.920 listed second in my notes. Contour Crafting started back in 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:26.840 the mid two thousand's, but the idea has really taken 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.280 off since there's been a you know, this whole slew 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.839 of information about three D printing in general. Well, I mean, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:34.960 depending on how weird you want to get. Didn't like 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.480 Thomas Edison have this idea about pouring concrete into these 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:43.079 molds to create houses. He may have that rings about 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.680 Maybe I'm just maybe that's not true. Well, this kind 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.319 of gun in the news again not too long ago 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.480 when a company called win Soon, a Chinese company, began 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.600 to demonstrate three D printers printing houses. They said they 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.960 could print ten houses in a day using four massive 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.800 three D printers. When I say massive, I'm talking about 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.680 ten ms wide. That's about thirty three ft by six 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.800 point six meters tall, that's twenty two ft. These are 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.319 big printers, and they were using four of them. Now 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.520 they printed the houses and pieces and then they had 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.640 to be put together. Now, these aren't These aren't design 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.360 necessarily like the three D printers you'll see sitting on 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.800 a table somewhere, usually where there's an external rigid structure 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.720 and then you print within it. Right, that doesn't work 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.720 so well with houses. Now these look like giant arms. Now, 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.560 grant again, since these were printing in in pieces, they 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.840 were just sort of printing walls or roofs, that kind 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.920 of thing um, and they would lay down the the 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.840 geometric pattern to kind of give stability for things like 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.000 corners stuff like that. And they're using concrete and other 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.760 recycled construction waste material to try and cut down on 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:55.920 on on materials that need to be used in the 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.880 actual three D process. And if you look at it, 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.040 if you watch the videos, it certainly doesn't look like 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.160 a three D printer of the way I had described earlier, 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.320 where you're adding thin layer to thin layer. It looks 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.320 kind of like a frosting pipe. It like if you're 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.440 piping frosting onto a cake at the big blobs of 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.560 concrete being laid down one after the other, which makes 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.160 sense because if you're building something as large as that 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.600 as a house, you can't be laying down micron thick layers. 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:29.080 You would take forever to finish a project, um, and 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:30.800 you certainly wouldn't be able to build ten in a 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.280 day even using four of these things. So it's the 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.040 layers are much thicker. But it was really interesting to 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.200 see this approach. The houses are pretty modest. They could 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.720 do two stories, but again it was all printed in 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.520 separate pieces that would have to be as symboled later 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.880 by by a crew, so it's not like it was 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.840 printing it from the floor to the ceiling and one piece. 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.280 But it was still pretty interesting, very very simple, like 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.240 you know, front door, back door, no rooms type of thing. 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.040 It was more of a kind of proof of concept, 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.800 the idea that this could be a way to to 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.920 provide housing, either in emergency situations or even as a 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.520 way of you know, if if we're given more funding 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.680 than we can build actual you know, nice houses and 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:20.200 not just a glorified room with a couple of doors. Um. 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.720 But it's not the only one the Contour Crafting company 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.000 I mentioned before that came out of a project from 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.800 the University of Southern California, and it's an even larger 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.920 UH proposed three D printer. There, they've built some that 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.160 were able to build walls very similar to the one 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:40.160 from wind Soon, but the big Daddy would be mounted 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.480 on a rail system, so it could actually roll up 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.880 and down this rail system. You have rails that would 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.160 be on either side of the print site, right, and 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.280 you would be printing in between the rails. The printer 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.400 itself would be kind of like a U shaped and 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.720 upside down you shape on top of this rail system, 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:00.720 and the print head would be able to move all 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.320 uh left and right and and up and down the 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.159 whole build site. You can build an entire house in 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:11.840 one piece, so with multiple rooms and multiple floors. So 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:17.520 it was really an interesting approach. And Hi, Yeah, we'll 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:22.560 talk about adhesion failures at length later, but the it 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:26.120 was really cool seeing how this this would work. And 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.440 again it was one of those things proposed for things 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.439 like a people are displaced after a disaster, like imagine 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.680 something like this after the Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.680 being able to print housing for people so that they're 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:43.720 not all having to stay in a giant stadium in 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:50.920 decreasing conditions, rapidly decreasing conditions. Um, you know, it could 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:55.119 definitely be really useful, and it really brings down the 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.920 cost of fabricating something like that, and also the time, 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.919 Like if you can print a house in twenty four hours, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.400 I mean, I don't know if you've noticed any housing 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.320 projects going up anywhere, but they tend to take some 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.399 time start to finish. If you're able to do that 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.120 in a span of twenty four hours, that's incredible. So 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.000 certainly has its place, So that that was one of 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.679 the the uses we wanted to talk about. So I 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.959 got one that we came across actually when Lauren and 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:26.600 I were doing Forward Thinking episode without you about food replicators. 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.000 You know this, this is interesting to me. So food 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.760 replicators of course, the dream technology from Star Trek where 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:37.760 it's just pulling atoms from anywhere and then building dream 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.160 food on it. Essentially that's sort of the same thing 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.200 as the molecular assembler you've heard about from the Gray 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:48.159 Goose scenario. And we concluded that we don't think that 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.080 this is very likely anytime soon. Um, if it's ever 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.440 going to happen at all. But we also talked about, well, 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:57.959 what are the things that that are sort of in 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.680 that realm, and a lot of people when they saw 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:03.280 that people were using three D printers to create food, 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:07.440 they said, Okay, it's the Star Trek replicator. It's not, 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.640 but it is very interesting. I don't know if I'd 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.560 want to eat any of this food. But who's looking 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.480 into it? Well, actually a NASA was looking into it, 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:18.359 and there's so there's more than one group. There are 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.920 some private companies that are making just consumer food three 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:23.960 D printers for your home to make the you know, 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.520 little desserts and tortellinis and strange things like that in UM. 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.120 But the big one was NASA. So NASA was working 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:37.200 with this company to create three D printing technologies for space. 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.960 And I guess the idea is that it can sort 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.560 of help give astronauts some of the comforts of home. 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.920 So instead of having all of your food decided upon 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.080 in advance, and you may or may not have much 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.040 of us say in it, so you know, in space 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:59.200 you typically are eating from these prepackaged food things little 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.600 bags since be kind of pasteish. Yeah, that they want 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.359 to minimize crumbs and things like that that could float 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:08.840 away and get clogged in instruments, she needs to be 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.840 things that are very easy to glob together and eat 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.679 quickly out of the package. I've read reports that the 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:22.959 astronauts really like the shrimp cocktail, which sounds do I'm suspicious, 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.440 but I'd be willing to try it after after my 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.760 MRI experience, I'm I'm pretty much ready for any of those, 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.480 so I'd give it a go. Well, anyway, so you 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.600 can actually go online and watch videos of this prototype 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.960 right now. They they've filmed early versions of the three 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.720 D printed pizza. And the way this sort of works 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.960 is that it works because you're using foods that can 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:53.479 be easily sort of put into a homogeneous container and 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.000 then extruded in different layers. So if your ingredients are 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:02.280 some kind of starchy dope paste, some kind of tomato 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.439 based paste, and some kind of cheese paste, right, you 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:08.760 can make you can print a pizza, you know. So 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.080 the idea being that if you could get enough basic 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.560 ingredients and then combine them in different ways, you could 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.040 theoretically make a lot of different types of food, or 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.600 at least food that tastes and has different textures from 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.679 each other, which would be important for deep space missions. Right. 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.280