3D Systems partners with Singularity University to develop creative uses of 3D printing
October 24, 2012
ZPrinter 650 professional color 3D printer (credit: 3D Systems)
3D printer leader 3D Systems announced today that it plans to provide Singularity University (SU) with several of its 3D printers.
“We are excited to be part of Singularity’s visionary initiative to democratize access to 3D content-to-print solutions that will enable greater entrepreneurialism and inventiveness,” said Abe Reichental, President and CEO of 3D Systems.
“SU has shown a great deal of foresight and leadership in selecting additive manufacturing as a formal executive program, ensuring that the potential of 3D ideation-to-production is fully understood by a global audience of emerging leaders and technologists, and that its compelling and impactful power is harnessed into tomorrow’s business models today.”
ProJet HD3500Plus professional 3D printer (credit: 3D Systems)
Accepting the gift on behalf of Singularity University, Dan Barry, Chair of SU’s Space and Physical Sciences area of study and Co-Chair of SU’s Artificial Intelligence and Robotics track, said: “Through this new partnership, 3D Systems is significantly enhancing the capability of our students to turn their ideas into reality — to be creative not just through slides, but in 3 dimensions, and express that creativity by producing real physical objects.”
3D Systems spokesperson Cathy Lewis told KurzweilAI that 3D Systems will provide two professional 3D printers — a ZPrinter 650 (full-color) and a ProJet HD3500Plus — and two personal Cube printers.
She said SU “stood out for its interest in additive manufacturing and ability to think about creative solutions.”
3D-printed guitars (credit: 3D Systems)
Cube 3D printer for consumers and hobbyists (credit: 3D Systems)
3D Systems is perhaps most famous for the world’s first 3D-printed guitar, but the company’s printers are also widely used by designers, engineers, marketers, artists, architects, and educators. 3D Systems is also involved in a consortium that is printing 90 parts for F-18 fighter jets and that plans to print 900 parts for F-35 fighter jets, according to Lewis.
3D Systems founded additive manufacturing over 25 years ago with the invention of Stereolithography. Today the company leads the global adoption of 3D printing through continued innovation and democratization.
This agreement with Singularity underscores 3D Systems commitment to place its products, services and knowhow in the hands of thought leaders who are committed to sustainable entrepreneurialism through its disruptive and game changing solutions, the company said.
Comments (11)
by Katherine MacLean (old science fiction writer and research fan
To Gordon Russel. Well said, but political! Too tempting to pick up the thread and veer into politics instead of following up 3D printing 3D! Totally waterproof, building! Ships and ocean floor habitats as well as air leak proof space habitats! Carbon compound spray building, super strong and leakless.
by Katherine MacLean (old science fiction writer and research fan
Hollow art sculpture. Sculptured figures have been too heavy to deal with. when cut or chipped from stone. There are kids born now with the capacity to think in 3 D forms, who could amuse or astound their parants with imaginative hollow light weight sculpture, Think about a sci-fi convention with alien forms for the masked ball. Or Holloween. Or genuine genius, it starts young and usually dies out in kid artists becaise there is no media to work in. There will be some christmas kits! What of fantasy movie producers, with alien animals and what of step-in disguises. Producers have thge budget to iknnovate, and the alien soap operas will have an audience. My older brother showed me how to cast toy chess pieces from melted lead when I was ten and he 17 Wonder the contact with lead did not make us both stupid. He slifd from being an A student to having to retake his courses in summer. If these hollow shapes are not made of toxic materials, it could become a fad and a Christmas rush.. Too late for this year, but soon. How many have bright kids in their families?
by star0
More than anything, what will make 3D printers really take off is when they are able to print clothes made of common fabrics like cotton and silk. 3D printed clothes already exist, but I think so far they are only made of plastic and other non-plant-based fabrics.
If 3D printers are able to print cotton clothes, for instance, an Open Source clothes-printing community will likely emerge very quickly, and then instead of paying $50 for a shirt or pair of pants, you might only need to pay $1 — for the fabric and inks to put in your printer.
True, much of that $50 is the brand-name; but off-brand clothes are generally of pretty crappy quality (as far as things like durability and strength are concerned), or so it seems to me.
by Bri
You should cheap out nanocellulose. All plant fibers are of cellulose. Soon we will be able to print with that medium. Cellulose can be harvested from any plant material. It’s properties are astounding.
by GatorALLin
Love that SU gets some cool 3d printers. But I wish this article clearly would show the MSRP of these big/fancy printers. I understand the cube is only $1,299 and then about $50/cartridge. I think cube however charges Per download after the first 25 so that is not as cool as all the DIY printers that are 100% FREE for downloads and have websites full of free printing items to share (like http://www.thingiverse.com ). I would think that SU would be stronger supporters of open source type technology vs. stuck on the hook for paying for downloads. Yeah a better business model for cubify of course, but as a buyer of 3d printing machines I am more interested in the consumer and how to share ideas faster and for less cost. Regardless of that detail, I love that SU is getting going full speed ahead on 3d printing and all the amazing things that can follow faster due to it (signularity for example).
Can’t wait to see how they allow 3d objects to print circuit boards or electronics inside solid objects in the future. Or print with different materials at the same time from dual or more printheads so you can build for strength or other issues (dissolve away parts). Love that you could also stop the printing process at different times and insert metal screw holes or put in other items inside a plastic 3d housing for example. Love also that keeping the design of 3d printers open source (note this is NOT a current option from cubify) could allow these and other upgrades faster, but their company would not own these advances. What if the print size were to increase 100x or more …so you could print a house in the future, or just print an apartment sized item that later is self assembled by flying robots that build a giant skyscraper of the future? Or fly these 3d printers to the moon or mars and use soil or other easy to find materials and then build 3d prints of buildings years before we figure out how to move humans there in person…. or build spaceships in space instead of here on earth? Possibilities are truly endless… just wish SU would support Open source of the 3d objects and open source of the 3d printers more. Yeah I do appreciate you can create your own 3d items and sell them and get paid by cubify….I do understand how cubify wants to make money off that business model as well…..
by Editor
Good questions. Getting a response from 3D Systems (which also owns Cubify).
by Editor
Here’s a response from 3D Systems Vice President, Global Marketing Cathy L. Lewis:
3D Systems offers an extensive range of professional 3D printer models that are y configurable and pricing will vary based on the application requirements. We also have a large and well trained channel organization that will furnish pricing on request.
Our research and recent experience suggests that there are multiple target markets at the entry level of 3D printing. One is the maker/enthusiast – who wants to tinker and share. We offer a very specific set of affordable 3D printers for that group — with up to three print heads and the largest build volume available — these can be found at bitsfrombytes.com.
There is also the emerging or professional designer or artist who wants to monetize their efforts to justify the investment of time and talent. The far larger audience is the consumer who doesn’t want to learn CAD or spend time tinkering with a printer — but wants to be able to create and make educational and personalized items for their friends and family — along with having the ability to easily print repair parts and items for the home.
This is at the heart of Cubify — and apparent with the jewelry, tags and bugdroid apps where the consumer can drag and drop colors, textures, characters, etc., onto their product — creating a cool, custom, printable file without having any knowledge of 3D Design or CAD software.
We would like to clarify that Cubify is a marketplace for the consumer, artists and designers plus apps developers — allowing each of those audience members to choose or create their own content and decide how it is to be monetized or shared. Today on Cubify we curate our own items, plus invite high-end brands to become members who also wish to sell their merchandise.
Mainly we engage the consumer/individual who can create, make, share and even sell, if they so desire. Yes, we give our members the option to share their designs for free or sell for a profit. We find it validating that so far less than 1% of our members have chosen to share for free, showing that many people are interested in monetizing their work and receiving credit.
One of the other advantages of this approach is that it will encourage large manufacturers to begin to make content available online for a reasonable fee so that the consumer can gain access to simple replacement parts and other items for the home — items that it makes no sense to try to design, as they already exist.
And finally, by curating the content we supply, the consumer has guaranteed printability, which is important for that audience. And, with Cubify there is a cloud printing service so the consumer doesn’t even need a 3D printer — they can create and we will print and ship to their doorstep/
In terms of open source 3D printerd, there are a growing number available, which is may be exciting for the somewhat tech savvy person who has the time and wants to build or tinker with their own printer. Singularity University specifically requested commercially available 3D printers so that the students can spend their time learning the concepts and applications of 3D printing — rather than tinkering, calibrating or building their own.
by Gorden Russell
You always make great comments GatorALLin and this one is tops.
Yes, a single printer and a single robot with a tool kit are all it takes to start a moon colony. With the robot assembling parts as fast as they come off of the printer, even if it takes twelve hours to copy the printer, and another 12 hours to copy the robot and tool kit, then you will double your numbers every 24 hours. Landing them at dawn will get you 16,384 printers and robots with tool kits before nightfall. Start when the sun rises again and by sunset there will be 268,435, 456 printers and robots and tool kits.
After another two weeks of the long Lunar night, they can start printing out panels for pressure domes and excavators. Before it gets dark they can build a city the size of Albuquerque.
Sooner or later they will find enough uranium to build a power source so they can work all night long.
In short order they can build a fleet of ships to go down to near Earth orbit and bring up astronomers and geologists, agronomists and engineers.
In time they will send back cables for the space elevator. That’s when the real rush begins. The miners fortyniners never saw anything like this.
So let’s all go to the moon singing, “My Darling Clementine.”
by Kevin Haskell
Will governments find these dangerous because of what can be done with them, eventually, regarding molecular manipulation of genes, medicines, viruses, etc.? Will large corporations get them restricted for their own use in order to protect their industries or to corner various markets?
by Durabys
@Kevin Haskell
Don’t worry. Like Feudalism and Communism before it, Capitalism, too, will end on the ash heap of history. All in due time. All in due time.
by Gorden Russell
Of course Kevin, the multinationals are running world governments right now, why would they sit on their hands and let all that slip away from them. Look at all the hundreds of millions of dollars they have already put into this election. They want something for all that money and the Congress always delivers. But we will still get these 3D printers, just as long as one multinational wants to sell them. They will sell us the rope to hang them.