3-D printing

Motherboard reporter Victoria Turk writes that MIT researchers have developed a 3-D printer that can print up to 10 different materials at once. Turk describes how the printer can create “a lens on top of an LED bulb" and other objects. 

Researchers from MIT CSAIL have created a 3-D printer that can print 10 different materials simultaneously, reports Kelsey Atherton for Popular Science. The new printer can also “incorporate other, finished parts directly into the design— all at a fraction of the cost of complex industrial 3D printers.”

Wired reporter James Temperton writes that researchers at MIT have developed a new method for 3-D printing glass. Temperton writes that the process is “better understood as additive manufacturing, with layers of molten glass being slowly drizzled into shape through a nozzle.”

According to The Economist, MIT researchers are using 3-D printing to modernize the coiling method of glass production. The researchers have “already used their device to print a range of objects, including optical prisms and decorative vessels.”

“MIT's Mediated Matter Group has figured out a way to put molten glass through a 3D printer, creating beautiful sculptures,” writes Mary Beth Griggs for Popular Science. The printer lays down individual layers of melted glass, bringing it up to a finished sculpture.

In an article for BetaBoston about 3-D printing, Scott Kirsner highlights the Fab Foundation and Fab Labs, which aim to provide people worldwide with access to digital fabrication tools. “Innovation is a very chaotic, messy process. It doesn’t work in sterile boxes,” says Prof. Neil Gershenfeld. “Globally, these Fab Labs bring bright, inventive people out of the woodwork.”

Pheobe Gavin reports for Slate on self-assembling origami robots developed by Professor Daniela Rus’ team that could one day be refined for use in surgery or other medical applications: “The origami robot can walk, swim, push objects, climb inclines, and carry objects twice its weight.”

Wired reporter Liat Clark writes that researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed a 3-D printed biological wearable that “could theoretically generate drugs, fuel and food when exposed to sunlight.”

MIT researchers have designed a 3D-printed soft material with a modifiable surface texture inspired by the cuttlefish, writes Maria Temming for Scientific American. The team “discovered their modifiable surfaces are not only useful for camouflage but a spectrum of other applications.”

In this video, CNN examines a new printable origami robot developed by MIT researchers that can dissolve in a variety of liquids. CNN explains that the researchers hope that the robot could one day be used to perform medical tasks inside the human body.  

New Scientist reporter Rowan Hooper writes about how MIT researchers have developed a 1.7-centimeter long origami robot that can self-fold, walk and swim. Hooper explains that, “using liquid-soluble materials, different versions of the robot can dissolve in either water or acetone, leaving only the permanent magnet behind.”

BetaBoston reporter Nidhi Subbaraman writes that MIT researchers have developed a small self-folding robot that they hope will one day lead to bio-compatible robots that “could enter the body, perform surgery guided from afar, and dissolve away as harmlessly as surgical stitches.”

MIT researchers have created a tiny, self-assembling, origami robot that they hope could one day be small enough to enter the human body and perform medical tasks, reports Lauren Walker for Newsweek.  “Driven by magnetic fields, the robot can travel on both land and water at the speed of three or four centimeters per second," Walker explains. 

Lauren O’Neil of CBC News reports on a new self-folding origami robot created by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). The robot “could eventually become small enough to fold into the human body, perform medical tasks, and then dissolve itself when finished — all by itself,” O’Neil reports. 

Chris Baraniuk of New Scientist writes that Prof. Neri Oxman has designed a 3-D printed wearable technology inspired by the human gastrointestinal tract. “Oxman is experimenting with the idea of futuristic wearables that can do useful things such as produce consumables or give off scents,” writes Baraniuk.