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Adidas uses plastic ocean waste to create a 3D-printed shoe
Back in June, Adidas revealed a shoe made almost entirely from recycled ocean waste. That product marked the beginning of a partnership between the sportswear firm and Parley, an organization trying to combat ocean pollution worldwide. Now, Adidas is taking this one step further: its new design features a 3D-printed midsole created out of recycled polyester and gillnets, a wall of netting typically used to catch fish. The shoe's upper part was manufactured with ocean plastic materials as well, Adidas says, making its concept footwear a complete eco-friendly package.
New Balance unveils its first 3D-printed running shoe
Following in the footsteps of sportswear rival Adidas, New Balance today introduced its own 3D-printed running shoe. Created in collaboration with 3DSystems, a company known for offering 3D printing tech, New Balance's sneaker features a 3D-printed midsole made from a newly developed elastomeric powder and DuraForm Flex TPU. By using said materials, New Balance says, the running shoe's bottom cushion will be able to provide an "optimal" balance of flexibility, durability, strength and weight -- which, in theory, should make them comfortable for runners, and that's important.
Young amputees will soon get 'Iron Man' and 'Star Wars' bionic hands
A heroic set of prosthetic hand designs will soon allow young amputees to transform into their favorite Disney characters. Whether they prefer a red Iron Man gauntlet, one of Queen Elsa's sparkling blue gloves or a hand inspired by Star Wars' iconic lightsabers, they'll be able to take on the world with a prosthetic that finally marries form and function. The three models have been created by Open Bionics, a startup working on cheap, 3D-printed hands for amputees. Joel Gibbard, the company's founder, says they'll cost around $500 and be available in 2016. Another, non-Disneyfied design should be roughly £2,000 ($3,071) -- considerably more, but still a fraction of what many existing prosthetics cost.
Adidas Futurecraft 3D: A running shoe made with 3D-printed materials
While Kanye West is worried about people 3D-printing shoes at home, his contractor Adidas believes the technology will play a major role in the future of footwear. (West designs the Yeezy shoe and clothing line for the Three-Stripes brand.) To show this, Adidas today introduced Futurecraft 3D, a running shoe made with a 3D-printed midsole which can be tailored to your foot -- down to the cushioning needs. While this is a conceptual prototype, the company does emphasize it's still a real statement of intent, noting it has developed proprietary 3D printing tech to deliver the product in the future. "Imagine walking into an Adidas store, running briefly on a treadmill and instantly getting a 3D-printed running shoe," Adidas says, "this is the ambition of the Adidas 3D-printed midsole."
ICYMI: Grippy robot hands, smarten up your dumb car and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-611028{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-611028, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-611028{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-611028").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT developed robotic hands of pliable silicon that are also studded with pressure sensors so it knows how tightly to hold something. A small dashboard camera and advanced computer vision software are being tested in the San Francisco Bay Area to record potential roadway hazards and track the drivers eyes. And a robotic solar-powered mirror light is here to give Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers another option for Vitamin D.
Six incredible 3D-printed buildings
By Cat Distasio, Inhabitat 3D printing has opened up a new frontier for design, and the technology is progressing by leaps and bounds. Whereas the first 3D printers could only produce tiny trinkets and figurines, today's printers can produce entire buildings. Architects and designers are capitalizing on the technology with revolutionary projects ranging from habitable moon bases to elaborate buildings impossible to create using traditional construction methods. Many 3D-printed structures are also made from recycled or reclaimed construction materials, which gives them a low carbon footprint. Read on for a look at the state of the art in 3D-printed architecture.
V-Moda's 3D-printed headphones can cost you up to $40,000
From clothing to food, 3D-printed consumer goods are still hit or miss at this point. Even so, that hasn't stopped companies from trying to capitalize on the novelty of it. The latest to do so is audio outfit V-Moda, which has revealed plans to use new components for customization purposes. Starting today, V-Moda will let users personalize its XS and Crossfade M-100 headphones with 3D-printed shields made of different materials, such as fiber, stainless steel, sterling silver, solid 14 karat gold and platinum.
New coloring technique creates perfect spots on 3D-printed cat
Hydrographic printing looks like a magic trick. You print a pattern on a see-through film, place that sheet on a tub of water and spray it with a chemical potion. When you immerse a bland 3D object in the tub, it bonds with the film and comes back out covered in chosen colors. This technique is hugely popular for transferring patterns on simple surfaces. But, the system lacks precision. Complex textures that are now common with 3D printers, stretch the film, and sometimes even tear it. The final pattern is often distorted. According to Wired, a group of researchers from Zheijiang University and Columbia University have devised a quirky dip-kit that adds computational capabilities to conventional hydrographics.
Cleopatra the tortoise gets a 3D-printed shell
Please don't jump on Cleopatra if you meet her. She isn't a real life red-shelled Koopa Troopa -- she's just wearing a 3D-printed prosthesis. See, Cleo the tortoise suffers from pyramiding, which means her shell has thick, pyramid-like growths due to poor nutrition. It also has holes and broken parts that could be injured and infected, especially since tortoises socialize and mate by climbing on top of each other. That's why Roger Henry, a student from Colorado Technical University, designed a 3D-printed shell for Cleo.
The Big Picture: a 3D-printed castle
Yes, people, this isn't a dream. What you see above is, indeed, a 3D-printed castle. After working on it for a few months, an architect from Minnesota has now finished building a fancy home made out of 3D printing materials. The man behind it, Andrey Rudenko, began his construction adventure back in April, when he decided he wanted to be the one to set a new bar for 3D-printed homes -- there have been some in China, but questions have been raised about the quality of them. "It has been two years since I first began toying with the idea of a 3D printer that was capable of constructing homes," Rudenko told the site 3DPrint. "When I started out, people struggled to believe this project would progress any further." Well, its very real now, and we can only imagine how dazzling it looks in person. [Image credits: 3D Print]
Intel will let you build your own 3D-printed robot later this year
Intel CEO brought a robotic companion named Jimmy with him on stage at Code Conference today. Jimmy is a 3D-printed robot capable of walking, talking, moving his arms, dancing and even tweeting, and it's the key to Intel's vision of the future of robotics. Starting later this year, the company will make an open source robot kit with 3D-printed parts available to consumers for $1,600, with a research version for $16,000. The former will run on Intel Edison, the company's computer-on-a-chip, while the latter will be powered by a Core i5 processor.
Ford engineer builds vibrating shift knob using 3D printer and an Xbox 360 controller (video)
You're not going to find it in the next car you drive off the lot, but a Ford engineer has developed a fairly novel approach to making a manual transmission a bit easier to adjust to: a vibrating shifter knob. As he explains in the video after the break, Zach Nelson first turned to an Xbox 360 controller for the necessary vibrating mechanism, which he then stuffed into a 3D-printed knob along with an Arduino controller and an LED display. When fully assembled, the knob is able to communicate with the vehicle's on-board diagnostic system using Ford's open source OpenXC software platform, and vibrate to let you know when you need to shift gears. As Wired notes, the knob can even be used by more experienced drivers to pinpoint exactly when to shift to get either the most performance or the best fuel economy. We also expect a booming business in custom shifter designs to start any minute now.
Onyx Ashanti's beatjazz music machine does everything, looks good too (video)
Onyx Ashanti has sent us over a demo of his beatjazz controller, and we have to marvel at the direction he's taken with this custom electronic music machine following more modest efforts. Onyx's 3D-printed interface receives inputs from a voice / breath-operated synth in the headgear, while the two handheld controls incorporate accelerometers, joysticks and pressure-sensitive buttons. Using this kit and his own software, Onyx is able to create live digital music with an amount of control you would only expect from desktop-based production software. We've embedded two videos for your attention after the break -- a demo of his latest flashy build complete with lightsaber-like effects, and an earlier live performance that really shows what the beatjazz controller can do.
Researchers use 3D printer, sugar, to create a fake artery network for lab-grown tissue
Printing a chocolate heart is easy enough, but how about an actual organ? There are folks working on it, but it turns out those veins of yours aren't exactly a breeze to replicate. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and MIT may have found a semi-sweet solution -- dissolving a sugar lattice in a batch of living Jell-O. The research team uses a RepRap 3D printer and a custom extruder head to print a filament network composed of sucrose, glucose and dextran which is later encased in a bio-gel containing living cells. Once the confectionery paths are dissolved, they leave a network of artery-like channels in their void. Tissue living in the gel can then receive oxygen and nutrients through the hollow pipes. The research has been promising so far, and has increased the number of functional liver cells the team has been able to maintain in artificial tissues. These results suggest the technique could have future research possibilities in developing lab-grown organs. MIT Professor Sangeeta Bhatia, who helped conduct the effort, hopes to push the group's work further. "More work will be needed to learn how to directly connect these types of vascular networks to natural blood vessels while at the same time investigating fundamental interactions between the liver cells and the patterned vasculature. It's an exciting future ahead." Scientists at other labs could also get their mitts on the sweet templates since they're stable enough to endure shipping. Head past the break for a video of the innard infrastructure.
Chris Fenton follows up scale model Cray-1A with 3D-printed electromechanical computer, of course
Fans of the homebrew electronics scene may well be familiar with the name Chris Fenton, he of the DIY laptop and a working scale model of the Cray-1A supercomputer. Now he's back with yet another ambitious project: he's set out to build a fully functional electromechanical computer using a 3D printer to fabricate all the parts. That's still a ways from being completed, but Fenton has already finished one key component of it: the punch card reader. Head on past the break to see it in all its whizzing and buzzing glory.
3D-printed tail hooks up with Arduino, wags the dog (video)
In the year 3000, surgeons should be able to graft animal body parts onto our willing flesh. But, let's be real, aside from a reanimated Walt Disney (ok, not really), most of us won't live to see that scifi horror-filled day. Filling in, for the time being, is a nifty Arduino hack from the mind of one Artharis that breathes erratic life into a 3D printed tail. Its clumsy flailing is more disturbed-dragon-with-ADHD than aroused puppy, but we'll take what we can get for now. Shame, though, that Halloween's already come and gone, otherwise this would've made for a nice house party icebreaker. Peep the spastic animatronic in motion after the break.
.MGX opens world's first store dedicated to 3D printed goods
Is your Matter Compiler broken? Well, step on down to the local .MGX for all your 3D printed needs! Materialise's .MGX brand has just opened its very own flagship store in Brussels, and it professes to be the first physical store solely dedicated to 3D printed wares. It's primarily high design baubles right now, but we're sure it won't be long before we're chucking our old and busted cutlery into the deke bin and churning out new sets with our at-home M.C. we bought at Target. Right, Neal?
