Lifeboat Foundation

NASA has enlisted a professor from the University of Central Florida (UCF) in order to find a way of 3D printing structures on Mars.

Pegasus Professor Sudipta Seal, interim chair of UCF’s Materials Science and Engineering program is looking at how metals can be extracted from Martian soil. Speaking about the project, Seal said,

It’s essentially using additive-manufacturing techniques to make constructible blocks. UCF is collaborating with NASA to understand the science behind it.

Continue reading “3D printing houses on Mars with NASA and the University of Central Florida” »

We are the first to assemble a mobile 3D printer capable of printing buildings from the inside.

In many ways, the human eye is nothing like a digital camera. Our eyes don’t have a fixed frame rate or resolution; there’s no consistent color reproduction, and we have literal, sizable blind spots. But, these optic inconsistencies — found in every biological eye — are the product of natural selection, and offer a number of benefits which scientists working in digital vision can take advantage of.

Case in point is a new type of 3D-printed lens created by researchers from the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Each lens is made from plastic and is no bigger than a grain of salt. But, their size is only one aspect of their cleverness. The real innovation here is that the lenses mimic the action of the “fovea,” a key physiological feature of the eyes of humans and eagles, that allows for for speedier image processing.

Continue reading “Tiny 3D-printed lenses will help robots see like eagles” »

More on the new bio-robots.

SCIENTISTS have created flesh-like mini-robots that can move when they detect light.

The fleet of walking “bio-bots” are powered using muscle cells and controlled using electrical and optical pulses.

Continue reading “Scientists create fleshy robots with living cells” »

Polish company SatRevolution have announced plans to create a new satellite production plant in Poland and use 3D printing to develop the country’s first satellites. SatRevolution will partner with APWorks to produce a prototype of the Światowid satellite. Airbus subsidiary, APWorks, will provide metal additive manufacturing solutions to the Polish developers.

The Światowid is intended to measure cosmic radiation and electromagnetic interference. To facilitate launching, the design was developed in line with the cube-sat parameters. Measuring 10 × 10 × 20 cm, the satellite will weigh 2 kg.

The project will reportedly require $50 million to complete, with the satellite production facility planned to be built near the Polish city of Wroclaw.

Continue reading “SatRevolution building new satellite plant in Poland with partners APWorks” »

Yep; we know and we can even design them to make their own.

You could now 3D print your own tiny walking “bio-bots” powered by living muscle cells and controlled with electrical and light pulses, thanks to a new gennext robot ‘recipe’ developed by scientists.

This can result in exciting possibilities where these “systems could one day demonstrate complex behaviours including self-assembly, self-organisation, self-healing, and adaptation of composition and functionality to best suit their environment,” researchers said.

“The protocol teaches every step of building a bio-bot, from 3D printing the skeleton to tissue engineering the skeletal muscle actuator, including manufacturers and part numbers for every single thing we use in the lab,” said Ritu Raman, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US.

Continue reading “You can now build your own 3D printed bio-bots” »

I see a Build a Bot Store Coming to replace those bear stores — lol.

Researchers can now create their own bots with a proven framework that uses 3D printing.

Continue reading “DIY-Bot: Scientists Share How to ‘Make Your Own’ New Generation Bio-Bots” »

Thanks to 3D printing, scientists can now recreate any organ in the human body.

Early probes are one thing, but can we build a continuing presence among the stars, human or robotic? An evolutionary treatment of starflight sees it growing from a steadily expanding presence right here in our Solar System, the kind of infrastructure Alex Tolley examines in the essay below. How we get to a system-wide infrastructure is the challenge, one analyzed by a paper that sees artificial intelligence and 3D printing as key drivers leading to a rapidly expanding space economy. The subject is a natural for Tolley, who is co-author (with Brian McConnell) of A Design for a Reusable Water-Based Spacecraft Known as the Spacecoach (Springer, 2016). An ingenious solution to cheap transportation among the planets, the Spacecoach could readily be part of the equation as we bring assets available off-planet into our economy and deploy them for even deeper explorations. Alex is a lecturer in biology at the University of California, and has been a Centauri Dreams regular for as long as I can remember, one whose insights are often a touchstone for my own thinking.

By Alex Tolley