additive manufacturing
Prost! In Time For Octoberfest, This Old German Beer Town Is Using 3D-Printed Parts To Brew Up A Storm
3D Printing
A Quantum Leap: This Paralympic Athlete Is Harnessing The Power of Personalized Training Equipment, Built With The Latest 3D-Printing Technology
With surprising cheerfulness, Anna Grimaldi recounts the years of aggravation her weight-training sessions used to cause her. Born without a right hand, Grimaldi couldn’t securely grip a bar with a standard prosthetic, making it impossible to do the same kind of squats and other exercises that track athletes rely on to build leg strength. “It was quite frustrating on my end, because I knew what I needed but I had nowhere to go to get it,” the 22-year-old long jumper says.
3D Printing
Hot Stuff: To Build More Affordable Rocket Engines, NASA Researchers Are Using The Latest 3D Printers — And 1 Ancient Metal
When Christopher Protz and Paul Gradl first started experimenting with building rocket engine components out of copper, the NASA engineers feared they might be wasting their time. Back in 2014, copper had never been used in 3D printing, and it appeared ill-suited to the technology. For one thing, particles of the shiny metal had a nasty habit of directly reflecting the 3D printers’ laser beams, partially melting the copper while frying some very expensive lasers. Early prototypes, recalls Protz, came out looking like “dark-colored blobs.”
3D Printing
Learning In Another Dimension: 3D Printers Are Transforming 1 Million Students Into Designers, Makers And Entrepreneurs
Healthcare
What’s New, Doc? How Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and 3D Printing Are Helping Physicians Deliver Better Care To Patients
The Need For Speed: The Potential Of Additive Manufacturing Is Enormous, And Materializing Now
3D Printing
4 Ways 3D Printing Moves Beyond the Factory Floor
Aerospace
The Woodstock For Pilots: 700,000 People Flock To Oshkosh As The World’s Largest Airshow Turns 50 This Year
Looking back at his illustrious career in aviation, Paul Poberezny said that he “didn’t think there has been a single day since I was five years old when I didn’t say the word ‘airplane.’”
The Future Of Energy
That’s Hot: This Lung-Inspired 3D-Printed Part For Cooling CO2 Could Take Power Generation To The Next Level
When Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine in 1884, it was a monumental advance. More than a century later, engineers are still relying on steam to operate the turbines that generate much of the world’s power. Perhaps it’s about time to take the technology to the next level.
One way to do that is to draw inspiration from the human body. That’s exactly what Peter deBock and his colleagues at GE Research in Niskayuna, New York, did: They devised a heat exchanger — an essential component of the cooling system of a power turbine — that mimics human lungs.
The Vanguard
The 5 Coolest Things On Earth This Week
Gut bacteria that increase the performance of elite athletes, color-changing scorpion venom that’s also toxic to drug-resistant infection, beer labels that appear three-dimensional but are printed with regular ink on a regular printer — it’s a veritable grab bag of wonders in our latest roundup of the coolest discoveries in science and tech. Considered yourself forewarned, though: This week’s installment does include the phrase “hair farm.”