3D-printing

What Is 3D printing?

3-D printing

Which are the possibilities that 3D printing technology brings from the perspective of the end products?

The possibilities of 3d printing are huge, knowing that there is no limit in those. It is a wrong idea that 3D printing it’s a new idea or technology as they have been used for 30 years already. They haven’t gained the popularity or the awareness until now because they were very expensive and only available for big companies. Since this technology became available to anyone thanks to the open source, now a day we can find it quite cheap. In these moments we can find them in schools, homes, etc...

They are been used to make pieces for computers, cars, aeroplanes and even for parts of the human body. Sky is the limit.

What about the materials for 3D printing? And how selling it to people?

There are plenty of different options for 3d printing materials. The lowest cost ones use plastic to print, and there are also lots of different plastics.

The most common used ones are ABS, (which origin is the petrol) PLA (environmentally friendly, which comes from the corn).

Apart from that we have plastics that are not that common but are still used, and these ones are PVA, (dissolvable in water) ABS mixed with wood, and every other day new materials appear.

For more expensive printers, we can find cement, resin, steel, chocolate, and even mother cells, to make body parts.

The low cost printers can be bought by schools, regular people so they can even have it at home, this is possible because a good quality low cost printer costs around 500 euro. If you want more sophisticated printers which can be used for different materials the costs increase. It’s important to say that the quantity of people that already dispose off their own 3D printer it’s enormous and gets greater as the time goes by.

Knowing this, it won’t surprise anyone that we can buy 3D printers in regular markets.

If we want to talk about how making 3D printers a trend and to spread the idea and necessity of this technology. The fundamental idea is to start giving awareness and using them with the youth. An idea that we came out with for doing this, consists on, start using them in the kindergarten so they learn and live using them as a normal technology like computers are for us.

Doing this we will achieve are goal, we will have the little kids involved in this technology and thrue them we would make their parents join this movement. As the young ones will be used to live with 3D printers, it will became a fundamental piece of our society

By Mikel and Beñat

CREATING A TREND FOR 3D-PRINTING - A SUMMARY ON A WORKING DAY

1. Introduction
   On our working day 14.11.2014, we were given an assignment on 3D-printing by Tomi Kalpio, CEO and founder of 3D Tech Oy. Our task was to come up with ideas on how to create a trend with 3D-printing. Here, I will summarize our thoughts on the assignment and reflect on how our presentation of the ideas went. Our main goal was to think about the trend creation and promoting the concept of 3D-printing  we did not concentrate so much on actual products or services related to 3D-printing.

2. Creating a trend
   Firstly, we thought about what it means to create a trend and what is needed in order to create one. Our main thoughts were that to create a trend, a market is needed – whether an existing or a new one. The market could be either a B2B- or a B2C-market. The idea behind the trend has to be entertaining so that it will attract attention. In today’s world, a trend has to represent sustainability in order for it to be taken seriously. It has to be long-lasting, not a fluke. The process, product, service or idea behind the trend has to be affordable for it to be widely accepted. But most importantly, awareness is the key for the society or a market to adapt a trend. Next, I will take a closer look on these main ideas behind a trend.
   In today’s world, entertainment is important and our main ideas was to combine 3D-printing with entertainment. This could be done through developing new games or phone applications which would attract attention in both young people and older so that by playing a game you would receive information about 3D-printing, you would design your own custom-made product in a fun way and that could be then sent for actual 3D-printing service, if wanted. Phone applications already exist for 3D-printing, but our idea would be to invest in developing these further. Also 3D-companies could organize game events, competitions with attractive prizes to promote 3D-printing and these games and apps. Also slogans on 3D-printing should be used in the media and public billboards. “Express yourself with 3D-printing!, Design your own XX! With 3D-printing, only sky is the limit!”
   Sustainability would be incorporated in 3D-printing eg. by using reusable and recyclable materials in 3D-printing. The material would have to be easily accessible and affordable. The process could be developed in a way that everyday materials, such as plastic bags, could be recycled into material for 3D-printing. In Finland, we could use wood as the main material for most 3D-printing products, whenever possible. Wood could be combined with other materials for it to be more widely used. Furthermore, we would need to promote the fact that with the help of 3D-printers we could all repair broken parts of everyday products at home instead of always buying new products or even bigger spare parts. This reduces waste, promotes sustainability and circular economy.
   Awareness for 3D-printing should be created starting with children. We should organize fun workshops, courses and classes in kindergartens and schools, where children and students would learn how to use the games, applications and develop their own models for 3D-printing and let them also print something useful that they understand the concept. We should make 3D-printers a basic tool in every school and educational institute – just like computers nowadays are everyday reality in all classes. In Finland, we should start more 3D-clubs and get, for example, existing youth centers to get involved in promoting 3D-printing, games and apps. All neighborhoods could buy a common 3D-printer for everyone to use and share the costs. In many countries, clubs and centers exist, but in Finland this is still a quite rare phenomenon.

3. Reflections
   Our group had learned to use three different innovation tools – namely the Osborne checklist or SCAMMPERR, Round Robin and Reverse Brainstorming. In the room where our group was at with the other teams, we proposed that we would start of the session with using the Round Robin option together. It took about 25 minutes altogether to use the tool, we received many good ideas using the tool, but after this the other groups wanted to work by themselves so we continued to develop the ideas further each in our own teams.
   Developing the ideas further, we worked well as a team, we learned quite a bit from each other, since we also had a team member who was quite an expert in modeling for 3D-printing already. All team members contributed in the group work. However, in our presentation, we got stuck in presenting the same ideas. We did not know about the set time limit so the presentation was too long and we did not get a chance to present all of our ideas properly. We should have taken more time to consider what every team member would present to avoid the repetition of the same ideas. But I think we had a good and valuable working day and it was a good start for our team work.

Summary written by Kirsi

What else can be done?

Today, 28.11, we have discussed about what else can be done in order 3-D printing would become a trend. The problem with nowadays 3-D printers is that mostly they are quite expensive and are targeted on B2B audience. In order for them to become a trend they should start being aimed to B2C audience. For B2C consumers 3-D printers should be cheaper and smaller. Another possibility is to have a 3-D center where customers can send electronic or scanned copies of self-designed items that can be 3-D printed at this center and then sent to their homes. Products that customers can be interested in to be made on 3-D printers can be: ultra-bras, self-expression items, accessories for parties and celebrations (such as self-designed dishes, lamps etc.), personalized details for a car, masks of celebrities faces, making self-copies/statues in smaller format, personalized water battles, jewelry, eyeglass frames and lenses, inventory for own houses, cakes and special food. Also talking about combining 3-D trend with sustainability trend we thought about producing vegan food (out of soya and other vegetable ingredients) that looks like non-vegan food (meat, cheese etc.). Another action towards making 3D printing more sustainable is using recyclable materials for printing such as corn stretch instead of plastic.   

by Anna

General info
Here is some general info on 3D-printing and how it will totally change the concept of manufacturing and also our world in the future. The revolution has already started. Now we just have to keep up with it!

By Kirsi