3D Printers, Amazing!!!!!!

3D-printed buckliball opens new class of collapsible 3D structures

A Hoberman sphere is a structure invented by Chuck Hoberman that resembles a geodesic dome, but is capable of folding down to a fraction of its normal size by the scissor-like action of its joints.

Inspired by the Hoberman Twist-O, a group of engineers at MIT and Harvard University created the "buckliball," a 3D-printed hollow and spherical object. Made of soft rubber, the buckliball contains no moving parts but covered with 24 carefully spaced dimples.

When the air in the buckliball is sucked out the spaces between lateral dimples collapse. Actually when the buckliball's thin ligaments buckle, the thicker ligaments move simultaneously - some rotate clockwise, others counterclockwise. When it is closed entirely the buckliball has only about half the size of the original sphere.

The name buckliball comes from its use of buckling and its resemblance to buckyballs, spherical all-carbon molecules whose name was inspired by the geodesic domes created by architect-inventor Buckminster Fuller.

"In civil engineering, buckling is commonly associated with failure that must be avoided. For example, one typically wants to calculate the buckling criterion for columns and apply an additional safety factor, to ensure that a building stands, says Pedro Reis, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at MIT. "We are trying to change this paradigm by turning failure into functionality in soft mechanical structures. For us, the buckliball is the first such object, but there will be many others."

The buckliball is the first morphable structure can be used in engineering design. The awesome part of this design is that the sphere is fully reversible and can revert back to its original exploded state without a degradation in structural integrity. It is possible to use the buckliball for a widespread applications, such as to design large buildings with collapsible roofs or walls, or to make tiny drug-delivery capsules, not to mention many applications to design a new kind of Transformer toy.

Our nature has already used a similar design. Viruses inject their nucleic acids into a host through a reversible structural transformation in which 60 holes open or close based on changes in the acidity of the cell's environment, a different mechanism that achieves a similar reversible collapse at the nanoscale.

"The buckliball not only opens avenues for the design of foldable structures over a wide range of length scales, but may also be used as a building block for creating new materials with unusual properties, capable of dramatic contraction in all directions," says Katia Bertoldi, an assistant professor in applied mechanics at Harvard.

Absolutely stunning cocoon lamp created with multi-material 3D printer

This stunning Cocoon Lamp is inspired by Neri Oxman's "the beast", cocoon is also from the nature - a cocoon is a shell which protects the insect for their metamorphosis. It is created by Patric Günther at the Voxel Studio and 3d printed by Objet Technologies.

With the polyjet technologies from Objet Connex multi-material 3D printer, it is possible to print the Cocoon Lamp with more than just one material.

The Cocoon Lamp consists of 3 materials:

1. The white and hard material "VeroWhite" is used for inner element of the lamp providing rigidity and disseminates and light can be reflected through its surface.

2. TangoBlackPlus is a flexible, rubber-like dark layer that is used for the surfaces of the side of the lamellae, this is for providing the desired color contrast and surface protection.

3. The cocoon is connected to the mounting element through a fitting at its lower end. This special fitting is printed out of "DigitalMaterial" which is the mixture of "VeroWhite" and "TangoBlackPlus" materials made from the PolyJet matrix technology. The result is mixed color - grey and mixed features - not stiff but also not completely flexible.

10 super beautiful 3D printed mathematical sculptures of Henry Segerman

Math, fashion, art, 3D printing, Henry Segerman, do they have connections? yes, mathematician and a mathematical artist Henry Segerman at the University of Melbourne, Australia created these beautiful Mathematical sculptures using 3D printing technology.

Most of the sculptures are made using 3D printing material nylon 12, or PA2200 Selective-Laser-Sintered, which is "White, Strong & Flexible" - it is a strong nylon material and has a good heat resistance. Segerman designed his work in Rhinoceros, a NURBS based modelling tool and produced the sculptures by Shapeways. 3D printing technology make it possible to produce his scupltures very close to mathematically precise geometry.

1. Fractal Graph 3

(Left: A view from 'outside the corner'. Right: Reverse view)

Size: 10.6 w x 10.6 d x 10.6 h

"This is a graph embedded in 3-dimensional space as a subset of the cubic lattice. The graph has a fractal structure, formed by a process of repeated substitution."

2. Hopf Fibration

A 2-fold symmetry axis. Size: 7.8 w x 7.8 d x 3.4 h cm

"Rectangular tube version. One arc's worth of fibers, from pole to pole."

3. Round Klein Bottle

Size: 15.2 w x 15.2 d x 10.9 h cm

"A Klein bottle in 3-dimensional space has to intersect itself, and in this case it intersects itself along a straight line."

4. Torus Autologlyph

Size: 3.5 w x 10.1 d x 10.1 h cm. "A self-referential tessellation of the torus."

5. Knotted Cog

Size: 1.3 w x 3.4 d x 3.8 h cm. "This steampunk style knotted cog was procedurally generated using 3-dimensional spherical geometry, then stereographically projected into our (mostly) Euclidean universe."

This is made from stainless steel infused with bronze.

6. 24-cell

7. Half of a 120-Cell

8. Juggling Club Motion

"This shows (a somewhat idealised version of) the path of a juggling club as it is thrown from the right hand to the left, making a single spin."

9. Archimedean Spire

10. The famous Hilbert Curve: size 4.4 w x 4.4 d x 4.4 h cm

The Hilbert Curve is probably the most practical object from Segerman. It can be used as a bracelet or hair accessory.

Designing and 3D printing a synchro gearbox

3D printing technology helps A. Papadopoulos prove-out his design and it provides a prototype for showing his project. GrabCAD user A. Papadopoulos created a 3d printed synchro gearbox and uploaded online. It is a project made for Technological Educational Institute of Crete. He designed Synchro Gearbox using Skeleton Modeling software and excel, and finally 3D printed with Dimension elite 3D printer. Totally 142 pieces parts are printed out. What a fabulous piece! Do you also like it? A. Papadopoulos shares the stl file at http://grabcad.com/library/3d-printed-synchro-gearbox for everyone to download and print their own gearbox.