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Dezeen Day Recap

Dezeen Day

The first annual Dezeen Day conference, was definitely a sight to see and I will do my best to share my opinions on the day as a whole. I did not know what to expect going into the conference, but it seemed like it would be a fun time so I decided to go. It turned out to be an eye-opening and interesting experience.

Firstly I want it to be known that architects and designers think in such an interesting manner. I say this because you can see and hear the fascination they all have with life and building. They try to answer seemingly impossible questions. They design things through such innovative means. My brain was in pain throughout the day. It was not bad pain. It was the pain you get when learning something that is out of your comfort zone; it hurts now but you will feel amazing later. The way designers think allows them to have no fear of tackling large issues. The focus of this particular conference was on the Circular Economy and sustainability practices within design. In the design community, there is no one way to solve a problem. There are various ways to tackle an issue. Through the panel discussions and keynote speakers, we got a sense of how there are so many people working in different sectors of design to make this happen. I will reflect on a couple of major talks and discussion points from some of the panel conversations.

The first talk of the day was my favorite, and it had a lot of information packed within it. Paola Antonelli, the Senior Curator of the Department of Architecture & Design and the Director of R&D at MOMA, gave an interesting perspective to the audience. Her belief is that the understanding of humans and their likely extinction can lead to better resulting futures. What I deduced from this was that being aware of extinction leads us to be aware of the future generations and people we may be affecting. It is important for us to focus on future scenarios and think about how our actions can hurt others. This begs the question, “What can people do?”. The rest of the conference was aligned toward answering the question of what can people do to make effective change for the future within design. Paola also stated, “We want people to understand the complexity of the systems but not to be scared of them.” Designers are able to readily grasp design thinking and problem solving, but a variety of people outside the field may not be able to implore the same skills. This makes it important for design to help others outside of its community, and Dezeen Day also had a discussion on education reform. The conference was interwoven and facilitated elegantly. Each panel there was able to feed into one another.

Paola Antonelli at Dezeen Day

There was a lot of information packed within this talk so I did my best to summarize a lot of her ideologies and main points of discussion. The talk had a focus on waiting for making things. Within the design community, ideas are a dime a dozen, but which ones are effective? Typically the ones that well mapped out and executed over time. This ties into her discussion about extinction. We are planning towards building better infrastructures to help humanity over time, and this takes a lot of diligence. This reflected the rest of the day in terms of discussions and panel conversations.

Throughout the discussion, Paola was highlighting the various art she curated for her Broken Nature Exhibition and the significance of each piece. Something of interest to me was the scientific lens that most of the pieces were taking. It lead to other discussion panels throughout the day focused on science, design, and architecture.

A final large takeaway of the talk was that anger could be a source of change.

The only way to live well is to be for others or amongst others. Anger could be a better engine to try and improve things in the future.

This mindset is interesting as it shows the raw emotion needed to drive change. Anger is a great motivator for change because when we are lukewarm, complacent and not very engaged with our surroundings, we have no reason to improve.

The rest of the conference was conducted through the lens of the initial talk. The discussion panels held were the following:

  • Panel discussion: post-plastic materials
  • Panel discussion: future cities
  • Keynote: Liam Young
  • Conversation: Designing for the circular economy
  • Panel discussion: entrepreneurs
  • Panel discussion: fixing education
  • Keynote: Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg

Work by Arthur Mamou-Mani

The ideals and conversations at the conference were outlined thoroughly with this introductory talk with Paola. I personally resonated well with the Panel Discussion for Post-Plastic Materials. The conversation was oriented towards the various ways we as humans can be innovative in the materials we are using. I was able to talk to some people from the discussion panel after their talk such as Natsai Audrey Chieza. She is a designer and founder of Faber Futures, and they create biologically inspired materials. After hearing the talk and seeing the work that these individuals are doing it opened me up to a critical lens of understanding with societal material usage. It also inspired me to think big in ways that seemed unfathomable. This was the result of listening to Arthur Mamou-Mani. Arthur is an architect and director of Mamou-Mani Architects. He also specializes in digital fabrication and advanced bioplastics. I was in awe by the extremely large structures he creates with 3D printing and the use of wood. I will be following up on his work later as well.

I also met some other people who helped with the conference. This included Stacie Woolsey who is a design graduate who created her own master’s course. We were able to have a fun chat before her actual panel discussion. She definitely is a great inspiration for young people who want to rid of the typical educational model. I will be discussing this thought process a bit more later.

There were a couple of conversations had about 3D printing and biomaterials that I will be discussing more in-depth because they require some more research. For the overall conference though, it was a good time. The staff was excellent, and the overall programming was extremely engaging. There was no moment without engagement talk wise. I am a reporter who mostly focuses on 3D printing, but after the conference, my eyes have opened up significantly to the importance of design practices. It was awesome to see people who were combining architecture, bioengineering, and design to build interesting things.

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Formlabs Tells Us How to Make Good Looking 3D Printed Dentures

More than 36 million Americans do not have any teeth, and 120 million people in the US are missing at least one tooth. With these numbers expected to grow in the next two decades, the market for 3D printed dentures is expected to grow significantly.

Sam Wainwright, Dental Product Manager at Formlabs, suggested during the company’s latest webinar that he wouldn’t “be surprised to see 40% of dentures in America made with 3D printing,” claiming that it makes sense “at the technology level because there is no loss of material.” The expert delved into some of the techniques that have proven to work for aesthetically better 3D printed dentures. The webinar, titled Can 3D printed dentures look good?, offered dentists, technicians, and anyone interested in using 3D printing to improve dentures, tips on how to cut material costs by up to 80% (compared to traditional denture cards and acrylic); perform fewer steps to attain high-quality results, and overall prevent teeth from looking unnatural. 

“This is an ever expanding market with many options. 3D printed dentures are a very new thing, especially for removable prosthetics (something that has never been digitalized) so it is going to take some time for labs, dentists and patients to become used to it. The material is indicated for long term use but the most rapid adoption of this technology will be immediate conversion and provisional dentures, which have lower risk allowing dental professionals to walk not run into this new technology. We also expect the resins to get better, stronger and more aesthetic in time,” said Wainwright.

In fact, in the last year, Formlabs has already managed to upgrade the resins it sells for medical professionals to make oral prostheses, called Digital Dentures. These new FDA-approved resins not only resemble traditional dentures but they are also cheaper than other options. At $299 for the denture base resin and $399 for the teeth resin, the company estimates that the total resin cost for a maxillary denture is $7.20. Moreover, Formlabs also recently released the new Form 3 printer, which uses light touch supports: meaning post-processing just became much easier. Support removal is going to be quicker on the Form 3 than the Form 2, which translates to fewer materials costs and time.

“We are trying to prevent teeth from looking unnatural, and sometimes with these 3D printed dentures, the aesthetics are really suffering from it. We like to think that dentures should have life-like gingiva, natural cervical margins, individual looking-teeth, and be easy to assemble,” Wainright said.

The general basic workflow proposed by Wainright is to follow the traditional workflow until the final models are poured and articulated with wax rim, that set-up needs to be made digital with a desktop dental 3D scanner allowing for the digital design in any open CAD dental system, followed by 3D printing the base and teeth, and finally post-processing, assembling and finishing the piece. 

“After making so many parts, printing a ton of denture teeth and bases, and assembling them, we’ve come up with three techniques for an aesthetic 3D printed denture. What we want is to avoid some of the outcomes of today’s digital dentures, like products with an opaque base or gingiva, which is a bit of a mess in my opinion. Or you come about a semi transluscent base which leaves the roots exposed, and lastly when you use the splinted tooth workflow you can end up with a bulky interproximal connection. And since the papillae are a really thin printed parts, it’s really easy to see the teeth connecting, looking unnatural.”

The three aesthetic denture techniques suggested by Wainwright include:

  1. Natural gingival connection and cervical margin are based on the CAD output for optimal result
  2. Splinted arch ease of assembly without a bulky interproximal
  3. Life-like gingiva, inspired by “Brazilian Dentures”

Wainright suggests that for his first aesthetic dental technique, users can control the depth of penetration of the tooth as well as the angle it comes in or goes out, by using a new function in the 3Shape Dental System CAD software (version 2018+). The option is called coupling mechanism, and gives the user much more control than before, something which comes in very handy considering that “the more subgingival length the tooth has, the stronger the bond is with the base.” 

“The reason why 3D printed dentures are different than traditionally made dentures is that resins for the base and the teeth are like cousins. When the parts come out of the printer and you wash them, they are almost soft and even sticky, because they are only partially cured, between 25 and 35 percent. But during the final UV curing process, the tooth and the base become one solid part.”

In fact, the dentures specialist indicates that users should cure the combined base and teeth with a handheld UV cure light, moving towards the interior, just to really hold the parts together. Once the user has checked that all the cavities have been filled up and removes any residual base resin, the denture is complete and ready to be submerged for 30 minutes in glycerine at 80 degrees celsius, for a total hour of cure time. At that point, the piece can be finished up with a UV glaze or wheel for a high shine polish.

The second recommended aesthetic denture technique involves a splinted arch ease of assembly without a bulky interproximal.

Wainright explained that he sets up “these cases up in CAD so they are 100% splinted together because it is so much easier to have consistent placement of teeth, instead of doing it one by one which can be labor-intensive. I first export the arch splinted, but the question here is how to make the connection between the teeth interproximally look natural, especially when you have a very thin papilla. So before assembly, during our support removal part of the process, we’ll take a cutting disk and reduce the interproximal connection down from the cervical margin up towards the incisal. This really helps the aesthetics of the denture without worrying about any spaces.”

He also recommends that during the assembly process, users can easily brush in gingiva resin in the spaces to make sure there is no air, gaps or voids, maintaining the strength.

“Keep your eye out for bubbles,” repeated Wainright many times, explaining that “if you do minimal interaction to get the resin in the spaces, it really reduces the bubbles.”

He also added that the key is to “flow in more resin at first, instead of just wetting it, and when it’s squeezed together it will flow into that area. Finally, the overflow can be wiped away with a gloved finger.” 

“It seems quite simple but this are the things we learn over time. I repeated many of these processes a handful of times and got better, today it may take me up to 10 minutes at the most to finish up one denture. Moreover, if you think about the soft touch supports in the Form 3, post processing will be even easier, as anyone will be able to rip them off and add very little finishing to the product.”

For the last aesthetic denture technique, Wainwright suggested following up the “Brazilian dentures” example, which offers an inspiring way to create life-like gingiva. He says he noticed Brazilians have become experts in creating dentures, adding translucent resins in the base that allow for the patient’s own gingiva color to show through. He proposed the LP resin Formlabs resin is also quite translucent, but when tested on a model or patient’s mouth, “it adds a nice depth to the gingiva itself giving a reflection of light useful in aesthetics.”

“When the denture is seated intraorally, the patient’s natural gingiva shows through making the prosthetic come to life.”

Formlabs is known for creating reliable, accessible 3D printing systems for professionals. According to the company, in the last decade, the dental market has become a huge part of the company’s business and that Formlabs is trusted by dental industry leaders across the globe, “offering over 75 support and service staff and more than 150 engineers.” 

It has shipped over 50,000 printers around the world, with tens of thousands of dental professionals using Form 2 to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients. Additionally, using their materials and printers in more than 175,000 surgeries, 35,000 splints and 1,750,000 3D printed dental parts. One of the aims at Formlabs is to expand the access to digital fabrication, so anyone can make anything, this is one of the reasons why the company is making webinars, to help everyone get there.

Wainright also revealed that Formlabs will be releasing two new denture bases, RP (reddish pink) and DP (dark pink), as well as two new denture teeth shapes, A3 and B2, that will complement the already existing A1, A2, A3.5, and B1. 

If you are a big fan of webinars, make sure to check out more at 3DPrint.com’s webinars under the Training section.

Discuss this article and more on 3DPrintBoard.com or comment below to tell us what you think.

[Images: Formlabs]

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LiDar and its Applications Part 4 – Agriculture

We have done a good background analysis on some of the building blocks of LiDar and how it can be applied to our environment so far. I am excited to talk about a field that is beyond my scope of understanding, but is essential to life. Let’s analyze how we use LiDar and 3D data for agricultural purposes.

Old school farming techniques are futile. When you have powerful machinery and technology such as drones and LiDar, a lot of the leg work is done for you. There are a number of major ways in which LiDar affects agriculture. Here are some of those affects:

  • Controlling or predicting Crop Yield
  • Crop Damage Analysis
  • Precision Agriculture
  • Land Mapping
  • Prevention of Soil Erosion
  • Land Segmentation
  • Crop and soil Analysis
  • Field Management

I will not drag you all as users with an in-depth overview of each sub category but I will focus on the following categories:

  • 3D Modeling
  • Precision Agriculture
  • Production Zones

Agriculture Mapping

3D modeling is a given when it comes to LiDar and the data it can capture. LiDar technology is vital for particularly modeling farmlands and it helps us to create accurate maps of natural resources around surrounding areas. This data allows a farmer to understand what type of terrain their farm is on. This allows for one to also understand the water catchment area of the land as well as the flow of erosion. A catchment area is a location in regions where water can collect from a higher area of land into a single body of water. These catchment areas are prone to drain water into other lower basins or into places such as a lake that have a closed body of water structure. This is all thanks to the data we collect from LiDar devices to map 3D terrain. Having these 3D models leads nicely into the next topic of interest.

Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture is the preparation of a farm site with a goal towards improving the overall production capabilities of a site. This can lead to overall yields increasing tenfold within some land sites. Something to consider is the effect that precision agriculture may have on sustainability. If a farmer has knowledge about their land structure and how to best utilize it by building specific crops, one may have higher monetary returns as well as a better impact on the environment because the land is being used properly. Precision agriculture leads into our next topic of discussion, as this is a resultant from analyzing our land well.

LiDar is able to find specific areas of production that can lead to larger crop production and efficient usage of land. These production zones are specific to a piece of land and can be found by analyzing LiDar data. The data collected through this technology can help you select an area in a farm that is likely to flourish in terms of specific crops compared to other parts of the land. This is again a major factor in environmental sustainability and producing higher returns based on the land one has.

Discuss this article and more on the 3DPrintBoard or comment below to tell us what you think.

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What Makes for a Great 3D Printing Webinar?

Tools and insights to help people choose the right 3D printer, materials, or become more knowledgable about how disruptive technologies can benefit the industry, are very important.  This is one of the reasons why a lot of well-established companies and startups are turning to webinars to help users boost their understanding of a 3D printer they already own or to attract new customers. Nevertheless, webinars take up time, usually around an hour or more. On average people spent one-third of their time on work and around five hours a day for leisure (at least in the US), so whether you’re taking time out of a work project, using your much-needed coffee break at the office or staying up late at night, that webinar should be worth it for you to consider it.

Faris Sheikh using Form 3 during a webinar

With so many different types of manufacturing methods available, it’s difficult to decide which one is better suited for your needs, and the overwhelming amount of 3D printers currently on the market makes choosing one challenging, even more so if you need to add software, scanning devices and post-processing machines. 3DPrint.com has been surfing through quite a few webinars; these online sessions are great sources to become more informed about the technology and how to use it. Over the last year, we have tagged along with Faris Sheikh, a growth marketing specialist at Formlabs, to get a glimpse of the company’s new Form 3 printer; witnessed a live demonstration on how Markforged‘s new Blacksmith AI software can help us accurately design 3D printed parts, and learned how to take advantage of high-strength thermoplastics PEEK, PEKK, and ULTEM from specialists at Montreal-based firm AON3D. Balancing so much information is fun, and we learned a lot, yet choosing the right webinar is not easy so we have summarized the top qualities we consider can take your online viewing experience from great to amazing.

Before signing up for your next webinar you might want to read over our six-pointers. We consider a live demonstration to be on the top of our list, followed by experienced public speakers who will address at least one of the challenges when working with the product, as well as allowing for a Q&A session since we have noticed that some of the most interesting tips arise from audience questions; examples of some of the successful experiences are a great way to illustrate what can be achieved with a product, and finally, we give a lot of credit to webinars that stick to the originally scheduled time frame (remember, time is a valuable commodity).

We love powerpoints, they are great visual aids, and extremely useful when speakers need to convey complex terminology and a lot of information. However powerpoints during a 3D printing webinar are ok for a few minutes, but the audience can benefit much more from a live show, watching someone on screen explain a particular process makes the webinar worth your time. We have witnessed almost everything, from scanning and designing parts with CAD software to preparing a machine for printing.

Using Dot3D’s ruggedized tablet, software and RealSense camera for 3D scanning

Last May, 3D scanning enthusiasts were able to tune in to a webinar to witness a live broadcast of DotProduct’s Dot3D during scanning, this is one of the firm’s professional handheld 3D capture solutions which has joined forces with Intel RealSense to better capture real-time 3D data, making both indoor and outdoor 3D capture possible. One of the highlights of the session was a demonstration by company specialist Chris Ahern who performed a live daylight 3D scan of a sample field pipeline, using RealSense’s D415. After capture, Ahern moved onto optimization for cleaning any noise recognized from the data, done within just a few minutes and with ease, showing what it takes to handle the scanning features and post-data analysis. During this webinar, the audience was able to appreciate a walk through all the steps necessary to perform the scan as well as observe how Ahern dealt with one of the more challenging features, needing to manipulate the output a bit to get the acceptable quality required. This is a great example of a company that was able to channel a lot of the qualities we value most.

Some processes like metal printing and machining are not as easy to demonstrate live. In this case, webinars with lots of examples and information supporting the process are very well received by an audience, which is usually more knowledgeable about the specific process and expects to hear about successful cases and know-how. For example, one of Optomec‘s latest webinars proved how useful the company’s laser engineered net shaping (LENS) technology could be when applied on sustainable repairs to some of the most complex machinery around, including plane parts and tank gear repairs. Here, examples were paramount to convey the benefits of the complex machining process.

How Optomec was able to repair broken teeth on a gear thanks to their LENS repair machine

Webinars are one of the most effective online marketing tactics for any business, they usually bring in new customers and help keep users up to date on the latest advances in the technology that they bought. A great way to engage the audience is through a robust Q&A session. Since questions usually come in throughout the presentation, the speaker can choose a few to answer at the end, but we noticed that some of the best webinars have specialists really committed to dealing with unusual and interesting questions. Sauber Motorsport AG (the company operating the Alfa Romeo Sauber Formula 1 Team), went deep into the underlying benefits of SLS additive manufacturing processes during the Q&A of their on-demand webinar, talking about everything from accuracy to printing with different materials. Expert Richard Broad didn’t hold back in the question session proving that this is one of the reasons we really enjoyed their presentation.

Online webinar sessions usually go for an hour tops, so when they extend beyond the allotted time, it can be a bit daunting, the audience usually loses interest and can get easily bored. An average 3D printing webinar should last around 45 minutes, with presentations usually ending after 30 minutes, followed by 10 to 15 minutes for answering questions. However if a speaker will not stop at 30 minutes, presentations can last an hour or more. If companies expect their audience to keep coming back for more online sessions, they need to prove that they can deliver all the necessary information in the promised time.

Web conferences aren’t new, the first ones date from the 1990s and companies have been using them as a tool for years. Today 3D printing webinars are getting better, allowing for audiences around the world to interact, by asking live questions or filling out surveys (which later help the company determine who is tuning in, where from and what industry they work in); having some of the most experienced employees offer technical demonstrations for viewers, and especially trying to prove that their product is worth considering. We’re really looking forward to future webinars, trying to imagine what some of the most innovative minds out there could come up with to engage audiences with their product, such as using virtual reality to help viewers become even more immersed in an interactive webinar experience, or for companies with large room-size machines, a walk through their processes to witness how the systems work would be amazing. But for now, we’ll stick to our six points. What other qualities would make a 3D printing webinar experience worth your viewing time? Join in the discussion.

[Images: 3DPrint.com, Dot3D, Formlabs and Optomec]

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Bionic Arm Advocate Tilly Lockey Speaks at the SingularityU South Africa Summit

Last week Tilly Lockey went on stage at the Kyalami Grand Prix circuit in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the SingularityU South African (SA) Summit, for a one on one with Benji Rosman, Principal Researcher in the Mobile Intelligent Autonomous Systems group at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The no-filter, expert public speaker, activist, and model has been touring the world to talk about her incredible bionic arms. And did we forget to mention she’s only 14 years old? Her triumphant take on life is breathtaking, known for opening up about the illness responsible for the loss of both hands at a very early age, as well as her upbeat and confident attitude. Throughout the last few years, Tilly has been a massive force for children, helping prosthetic companies develop customized products suited for kids. Today she is an ambassador for Open Bionics, a UK-based firm developing low-cost bionic hands, also known as Hero Arms.

Benjamin Rosman and Tilly Lockey at the SingularityU SA Summit (Credit: SingularityU South Africa)

Tilly was one of three speakers of the Summit’s Biotech and Medicine segment, along with Habib Frost, who talked about the future of medicine and technological advancements, and Kim Hulett who discussed designer babies. Showcasing her incredibly sleek bionic arms, Tilly focused on her vision for the human-machine convergence of the future.

According to SingularityU SA, during the segment titled Benjamin Rosman in Conversation with Tilly Lockey: What’s Possible in the Future, the two examined the connection between technology and human beings.

“Think about all the things you do with your hands on a daily basis. These hands help me both physically and mentally,” said Tilly. “All the money used to go to the aesthetics of the hands, how they looked and not how they worked.”

With an estimated five million upper limb amputees globally, companies like Open Bionics are essential to build and develop the next generation of bionic limbs, in what Rosman referred to as “turning disabilities into superpowers.” Technology is not only changing how prosthetics work. Prosthetics can be heavy, which is something to keep in mind when developing bionic arms for kids. Growing up also means that hands need to be recreated and replaced at least yearly. With Open Bionics, things began to change, the company 3D prints the prosthetics from plastic, making them lightweight and more affordable, while the cost lies in the battery and the motors on the inside. A pair of 3D printed bionic arms can often reach around £10,000 (that’s roughly 12,800 dollars), which often means a lot of fundraising is involved.

“Now kids get excited when they see me. My arms look like something out of an action movie, like from Marvel. They give other kids the idea that their disability is their superpower,” suggested Tilly.

Actually, she is not so far off from the cinematic universe. Last January, she received a pair of Alita: Battle Angel bionic arms from director James Cameron. The multi-grip functionality Hero Arms were designed by the team behind the movie, and Cameron invited her to the premiere of the highly awaited sci-fi futuristic action film where she got to show everyone her brand new hands.

The Hero Arm is now available through private prosthetic clinics for people with below-elbow upper limb differences, aged nine and above. They are considered the first medically certified 3D printed bionic arm. They are engineered and manufactured in Bristol, UK, in a lightweight and affordable myoelectric prosthesis, now also available in the US and France for below-elbow amputee adults and children.

Open Bionics ensures that each Hero Arm is custom-built using 3D printing and 3D scanning technologies. They claim the prosthesis is robust, and the socket is comfortable, adjustable and breathable too, which means it’s easy to take on and off. It’s a powered bionic limb controlled by the muscles, with intuitive lifelike precision. Additionally, it consists of a breathable removable socket for enhanced ventilation and easy cleaning, powered by high-performance motors, advanced software and long-lasting batteries. The hand, which comes in three sizes, is the lightest on the market but extremely strong, able to lift up to eight kilograms.

The inspiring Tilly Lockey, who was diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis as a 15-month old baby, lost both of her arms, yet her role as a leader in the development of technology in the field of prosthetics is very important and she has been working with Open Bionics for the past four years, providing input that became fundamental in the right development of bionic limbs. Her presentation draws on her personal experience using two 3D printed, customized arms, and her role as a leader in the development of technology in this field.

Tilly at the SIngularityU South Africa Summit (Image credit: SingularityU South Africa)

Tilly revealed during the presentation that she has added a few personal tweaks to her hands, providing customization (and sometimes crazy feature) feedback, to Open Bionics over the last years. What makes Tilly’s arms different–compared to regular, humanlike prosthetics–is that they have additional modes over and above open and close. All bionic advanced prosthetic arms work differently. What’s more, is that they’re personalized in terms of sensitivity, they work on flexing and releasing muscles.

The teen is very optimistic as to what the company will be able to do in the next five years, perhaps eventually offering features like projectors, a voice assistant, Bluetooth speakers, and even Haptic Touch feedback. Up until now, the company developers have proven that they can create much more than a simple open and close bionic arm, so expectations run high.

Tilly was able to help reimagine what a prosthetic extension could look like, welcoming a future where disabilities don’t hold her back, instead they become “superpowers.” She has a lot of followers and a massive presence among young people, often admitting that she enjoys the questions many kids make about her arms. The young role model suggested that creating new interesting technology is one thing, but it also needs to address gaps in society, moving out of research labs and into everyday lives.

Tilly Lockey at the Alita: Battle Angel premiere wearing her new Hero Arms (Image credit: Open Bionics)

SingularityU SA is the first African Country Partner and seeks to work with established businesses, entrepreneurs, and future innovators to create new opportunities for innovation and impact in the country. The education giant wants to “future proof Africa” by empowering its people to create abundant, sustainable, and holistic ways of living and working.

The World Health Organization states that just one in 10 people with physical disabilities in the developing world have access to technologies that could assist them, and with over ten million amputees around the world, this is certainly an innovation we need to advance. Making prosthetics available quicker, cheaper and better can solve one of Africa and the world’s challenges.

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Dezeen Day October 30th 2019

Ready for Take Off ?

I am beginning my journey of international conferences and events. I will have a nice miniature vacation with my trip to London this week. Outside of this brief respite, I have two conferences on my agenda. The first one will be Dezeen Day in London. I value the way knowledge can expand our knowledge and thought process and mindset. As a journalist, my main form of learning is through research and digging through archives. I was looking for various conferences for design and saw that this was in London. So I bought my ticket for London. Then I contacted some of the lovely staff at Dezeen Day and they arranged for me to attend the event! It is awesome being able to learn through being around others in professional fields. In this article, I will briefly explain what Dezeen Day is and a bit of why I am intrigued about the event.

Dezeen Day

So here is a shameless story about my childhood. Adults ask children this silly question of what do you want to be when you grow up. I, as a child, said I wanted to be an architect. Looking back at that I am far from this, but I do have some skills that would be under an architect’s tool belt. I am an avid drawer and I have a mathematically inclined brain. Design thinking is fun for me, and in general, I like building things. Dezeen Day is an international architecture, interiors, and design conference that will be held in London on October 30th. The conference will be trying to set the agenda for the global design community. This conference focuses on the concept of circular design, new materials, and educational resources. There is an emphasis on highlighting burgeoning talent from around the world. A keynote lecture will be given by Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and British multidisciplinary artist, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. 

BFI Southbank London

Dezeen Day will be held at the newly renovated BFI Southbank in London. This day will also have the Dezeen Awards winners’ party, where award winners from around the world will receive their trophies. Dezeen Awards is an annual awards program, that identifies the world’s best architecture, interiors and design, as well as the studios and the individual architects and designers producing great work. It is a great opportunity to see design and what people are doing in the field internationally.

I am excited to see what the day has in store for me. I’ll be getting a sneak peek of what is to come a couple of days before the actual conference. So be sure to tune into my own reflections and coverage of the event this week.

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3D Printing News Briefs: October 18, 2019

The stories we’re sharing in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs run the gamut from materials to new printers. Altair has launched its new industrial design solution, and Remet opened a metal 3D printing lab in Poland. Innofil3D is sharing lots of material news, and Equispheres has released the test results for a unique 3D printing powder. Finally, Hackaday published a micro 3D printer project.

Altair Launches New Industrial Design and Rendering Solution

The “Geko Ring Collection,” jewelry by Luca Palmini, designed and rendered with Inspire Studio. Image courtesy of Luca Palmini.

Global technology company Altair has launched Inspire Studio, its new 3D design and rendering solution, to help architects, designers, and digital artists create, evaluate, and visualize designs. The solution builds on the functions of Altair Evolve, and includes 3D rendering and animation software Inspire Render, which helps users rapidly generate photorealistic product renderings and animations. Both Inspire Studio and Inspire Render run on MacOS and Windows, and help designers open up their creativity to go beyond traditional CAID tools. The solutions will be introduced next month during a one-day launch event in Italy, and you can also get a free ticket to formnext 2019, where you can learn more about Inspire Studio and Inspire Render at Altair’s booth E11, hall 11.1.

“We are very pleased with these two new solutions for the global industrial design community. Inspire Studio builds on our previous industrial design tool, Evolve, while going beyond Evolve’s capabilities. Inspire Studio will enhance designers’ creativity by letting them drive their designs. It offers an intuitive user interface and a powerful construction history, allowing them to quickly create and explore multiple iterations of their design. Relying on the same modern user experience with powerful interactive, full progressive and raytracing rendering engine, Inspire Render will help designers quickly run photorealistic renderings and walkthrough animations on GPUs and CPUs,” said James Dagg, CTO at Altair.

3D Design and Rendering Software | Altair Inspire Studio

Remet Opens Modern Metal 3D Printing Laboratory

Polish steel structures manufacturer for the oil and gs mining industry, Remet, has launched a metal 3D printing laboratory equipped with a range of high quality machines and devices. The first of these is the DMP Flex 350 by 3D Systems, followed by 3D Systems’ Figure 4, the office-friendly metallic powder atomizer ATO Lab, and plenty of other specialized research equipment. Remet completed the project together with 3D Lab, a top Polish industrial 3D printer distributor and manufacturer of the ATO Lab.

The ATO Lab metal atomizer, which enables testing and fabrication of many powdered metal alloys, was the starting point for this unique laboratory. A new branch of the enterprise, called Remet Metal Labs, is where the company will work on comprehensive additive manufacturing and industrial applications projects. Its goal is to create highly flexible conditions for creating prototypes in the powder production field, and automotive, aviation, and space industry customers are invited to work with Remet to take advantage of the lab. 3D Lab and Remet will present their solutions together at formnext in Frankfurt next month.

Innofil3D Materials and Design Rules Video

This week, Innofil3D, and its parent company BASF, have a lot of news to share. First up, Ultrafuse BVOH, its water-soluble support filament, is now available for purchase, along with its new Ultrafuse 316L metal filament. Designed for easy FFF 3D printing, this is the company’s first metal material – 80% stainless steel with a 20% polymer content.

For users interested in 3D printing their Innofil3D PRO1 filament on a Raise3D printer, you can now join the Raise3D Open Filament Program to take advantage of optimized settings and print profiles. This new program is a collaboration between Raise3D and filament manufacturers, like Innofil3D, to find the top-performing materials for its 3D printers. Finally, Innofil3D has released its second video tutorial for design rules and principles of FFF 3D printing. Check out the video below, and be sure to visit BASF at its large K-Fair exhibit in Hall 5, C21/D21.

Equispheres Releases Test Results for Unique AM Powder

Materials science technology company Equispheres has released the results from its first powder testing phase, completed by a facility that certifies AM materials for applications in aerospace and defense. The results have confirmed that the powder has exceeded expectations, allowing for a 20-30% increase in mechanical performance and a 50% increase in production speeds. In light of this news, Equispheres is launching new equity financing in order to, as the company wrote in a press release, “grow and unlock the vast potential of Additive Manufacturing.”

“The unique properties of our powder, including the high sphericity, narrow particle size distribution and low surface area results in significantly increased packing density.  This allows an increase of powder layer thickness by a factor of 2 which significantly increases build speed. Most importantly, this boost to build speed does not come with a mechanical performance penalty.  Instead, the uniform nature of our powder ensures that parts are produced with reliable and consistent mechanical properties.  The minimal variance in our performance results provides design engineers the statistical confidence to produce stronger, lighter parts,” said Equispheres’ CTO, Dr Martin Conlon.

Hackaday Project: Micro Deltesian 3D Printer

A new Hackaday project by architect Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi was just published – a micro Deltesian 3D printer, which he says offers a quality that’s on par with any Cartesian 3D printer. The printer has a solid aluminum frame, with a standard slider Y axis and a Delta mechanism for the XZ axis. A 3.5″ LCD touchscreen, with a built-in SD card, is fast and easy enough for his young daughter to use, which was his ultimate goal. With an 80 x 100 x 85 mm build volume and a print bed held in place with magnets, the biggest challenge in making the minuscule 3D printer easy to use was the filament loading; Singh Kalsi used a lever-based latch mechanism for this.

“the micro deltesian was born out of the curiosity of building the convoluted deltesian mechanism,” he explained. “Later on it evolved into the idea of building a 3d printer simple enough to be used by my daughter. The deltesian mechanism seem very wierd when i first saw it but eventually i thought maybe i should give it a try and hence this printer was born.”

Watch the video below to see just how easily his daughter uses the micro Deltesian 3D printer:

Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below. 

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Formlabs Focuses on the Advantages of 3D Printing With the New Form 3

During a recent Formlabs Webinar, growth marketing specialist, Faris Sheikh, performed an engaging live demonstration of the new Form 3 Stereolithography (SLA) printer. For the hundreds of viewers that tuned in on September 26th, the performance of the printing system unveiled some of the advantages inherent in its new features. Everything from a significant improvement in print quality over the previous model, the Form 2, to understanding how low-force SLA can deliver better surface quality and help to get a gentle release once the part is done printing. The Form 3: Live Product Demo webinar is a step-by-step presentation on how to set up and print on the Form 3, walking the audience through the making of a speaker prototype.

Faris Sheikh

You probably read a lot about how the Form 3’s new low-force Stereolithography (LFS) technology is used to create parts that are consistently accurate, with amazing detail and surface finish, every single time. But Sheikh took his audience on a dive into the technology behind the Form 3, talking about what makes it special, helping potential users to understand the new print process and learn how to use it to avoid lead times.

Formlabs has been creating reliable, accessible printing systems for professionals for the last decade, ever since Max Lobovsky, CEO and Co-Founder of Formlabs decided it was time to tackle the $80,000 industrial SLA machine industry and turn it into something really affordable, easy to use and desktop-friendly. So Stereolithography has been the company’s forte since 2011, and the Form 3 is already the fourth iteration of the original Form machine. Over 50,000 of the company’s printers are used across the world in so many different brands, from Gilette to Disney, Boeing, New Balance, Amazon, Sony, and Google, just to name a few of the most known ones out there. And they really keep count of the parts being printed with their machines, which up to now its something like 40 million, but they expect that number to go up quickly with the new Form 3 and another version which is bigger, called the Form 3L.

“Our goal with the Form 3 was to reduce the peel force that is common in all SLA technologies and can have some negative consequences on printing processes. So to come up with LFS, this powerful form of SLA technology that decreases the forces of the peel process, we came up with two new features: a flexible tank and a light processing unit,” outlined Sheikh.

The face of the tank is made of a flexible film and reduces print forces to deliver high quality and printer reliability so that when the part comes out it is with a gentle release compared to traditional SLA. Sheikh explained that the company tested the peel forces and determined that there was a ten-time reduction on the Form 3, compared to its predecessor Form 2. That is a significant improvement between printer models. He also suggested that the flexible tank will impact on the surface finish, making it “incredible” as they say, and allow for a faster clean up and finishing after the parts are done the printing. 

Steve Jobs sculpture designed by Sebastian Errazuriz, 3D printed in White Resin powered by the low-force tech of the Form 3

“Incredible surface finish is the result of good layer registration, that is, how accurately each layer is aligned with the previous layer. The more accurately they are aligned, the better surface finishes you will have as well as more translucent and clear parts. The greater sharpness in the edges is ideal for the jewelry industry which usually looks for delicate feature-capability and fine level of detail. While the bio and medical industry can benefit from models that will look so much more representative of what they are trying to do.”

Comparing DNA Helix models printed in Clear Resin in the Form 2 and Form 3 (clear and translucent)

The company suggests that 47% of Form 2 users said removing supports where their biggest pain points, while 62% said Formlabs could improve their machines to make the finishing process easier. So Formlabs developed the LFS which allows for easy support removal thanks to tiny touchpoints, or what Sheikh called “light-touch support” that can easily tear away so that being able to just pop off the part becomes a real improvement for users. 

Light-touch support structures on the Form 3 leave behind four times less support material than supports printed on Form 2

“If you can finish faster and have a faster clean up it means that you have more time to work on the printing process and spend more time on the product. We want to make your life easier so you don’t have to worry about the printing process.”

Sheikh preparing to print on the Form 3

The printing process with the Form 3 is simple, the user picks any of more than 20 material options from Formlabs, then prepares the design (Sheikh did it using the PreForm software, a free tool offered by the company), print the part and then wash and cure it (done on the FormWash and FormCure machines). The printing of the chosen speaker model by Sheikh takes six hours, but the preparation and post-processing can all be done in just over 30 minutes. 

The speaker prototype printed on the Form 3

Sheikh shows how simple it is to use the PreForm software, which has automatic algorithms and helps the user orient the part and generates the supports with just one click. And since the part is going to be printed upside down, it needs supports layer by layer. Then, the print file is sent wirelessly to the printer and it starts printing. Since it takes six hours to print a prototype speaker of 753 layers, the printer will send a text message when it’s ready.

Considering the webinar is less than an hour long, Sheikh shows his audience how easy it is to release the part from the supports once it’s done, with another part that was already done printing.

“Taking off the supports is so simple with LFS, you can easily twist and all the supports come off in one second.”

Formlabs aims to create easy-to-use printers. Sheikh claims that Form 3 is an accessible machine, coming up to $3,500, with an industrial quality that can produce strong parts, making it an ideal successor to Form 2. Formlabs is looking to, not just create a very popular desktop SLA machine, but build a whole culture of innovation, impacting entire teams, enabling anyone to tackle their design, building machines that work remotely so that the printing process is easy and becoming a leading force in many industries.

[Images: Formlabs]

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Children’s Hospital in Argentina Finally Gets 3D Printed Presurgical Models

For the first time, a presurgical technique using 3D printing was used on four children suffering from congenital heart disease (CHD), holding promise for future developments. The idea was proposed by Ignacio Berra, a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon at Garrahan Hospital, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who worked with 3D printed aortic valves of the patients and a 3D printed device of his own creation to carry out tests prior to aortic valve repair surgery. 3D printed medical models are being developed to assist professionals while preparing for complex surgery all over the world. So far they have been quite successful since doctors get to manipulate the model, just like they would do in the actual surgery. Using medical imaging to recreate anatomical models of a patient with any of the different materials available today, leads to accurate and customized models. It’s not the same going into surgery after looking at a 2D formatted image of a child’s heart than actually being able to grasp an exact replica. Berra has been attempting to implement pre-operative planning at the hospital where he works for a few years and just last month he was able to do so, partly thanks to his 3D printing startup, LEW, which developed the four aortic valve reconstructed models for free. In a country where public hospitals have no research institutions associated with them, this is a big step.

Ignacio Berra at Garrahan Hospital

Berra operates on an average of 15 children every week. One-third of complex children heart diseases in the country are resolved at Garrahan Hospital; also children from Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and even the southern cities of Brazil travel there just to get surgical procedures. Berra has worked at Garrahan since 2006, except when he won a scholarship to train together with other researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard School of Medicine four years ago. When he returned, he was eager to use 3D printing for medical devices and so started working on developing presurgical models of the aortic and pulmonary valves in children with severe aortic insufficiency, as well as applying his 3D printed intraoperative test device for aortic valve repair (which he developed during his time in Boston).

The idea–which could also be performed in adults–would benefit 50 children with aortic valve failure every year. According to the specialist, if the aortic valve does not work properly, it can interfere with blood flow and force the heart to work harder to carry blood to the rest of the body, which causes difficulty breathing, fatigue, chest pain, loss of consciousness, arrhythmia and can lead to sudden death from heart attack. Moreover, in an interview, Berra suggested to 3DPrint.com that performing cardiac surgery in a child is far more complex than adults because the anatomy is not always the same. Actually, he says that the anatomical configuration of the aorta changes a lot. So this is why he insists on preparing prior to the surgery by training on a 3D printed aortic valve model that is completely customized. 

“To get the full picture of what I would encounter during the surgery, I had to first print a replica of each of the four children’s aorta from a CT scan, using Matlab. Once the model was done, I then stitched a pericardium valve (pig pericardium is quite common at this stage because it assimilates the human one) to actually simulate the child’s valve. Finally, using a device I designed in 3D to evaluate the repair of the aortic valve, I pressurized the model with a solution to simulate the diastolic pressure the patient will have, and used an endocamera to evaluate the valve and test whether it closes well and would be able to withstand the blood flow post surgery. After the test in the lab was complete, I moved ahead with the actual surgery,” explained Berra.

The 3D printed aortic valve model without the pericardium (left) and with stitched pericardium (right) for testing prior to surgery (after a while, the pericardium dries up)

The customized models help generate personalized medicine and successful surgeries. That was exactly what happened during Berra’s four surgeries, with children achieving complete recovery and going home quicker than they would have otherwise. During surgery, he uses part of the pericardium (the membrane that covers the heart) of the patient to rebuild the valve that is malfunctioning, so it adapts perfectly to the anatomy. So far, other techniques used to reconstruct children’s valves include the Ross procedure (using a diseased aortic valve) or a mechanical prosthesis.

Software modeling of an aortic valve

Berra is currently in talks with Carin van Doorn, Head of Congenital Cardiac Surgery at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, which is part of the UK’s NHS Trust network (the biggest provider of specialist NHS services in England), in the hopes to work together rebuilding valves for children who suffer from a disease that obstructs the right ventricular outflow tract in England. Berra is hoping to first reconstruct the valve using 3D software, before moving to the operating room (OR) where he hopes a prosthesis made with the patient’s own pericardium will last longer (just like he did in Argentina), this significantly reduces the number of times the patient needs to go back into the OR during his lifetime. 

Berra is the first medical specialist in the country to work with 3D printing and encourages others to follow his lead. But it has not been easy. The country is not part of the technological revolution that has evolved quite rapidly in developed nations. With limited financial resources, low levels of learning, limited opportunities for the poor (36% of the population), and chronic conflicts with teachers’ unions, it might take decades to catch up to the rest of the globe.

“To solve problems, the way North America, Europe and Asia are doing, we need education at each and every level, and not just education, technological know-how from the earliest years. That’s one of the things that’s missing and it’s hurting our chances to be a competing force in the region. Every day I struggle to implement 3D printing technology at public hospitals, to help surgeons during procedures, and patients to recover quicker, but it’s no easy task, people are still afraid of change and bureocratic procedures are timely and costly,” he revealed.

The aortic valve model after being printed on Stratasys

Berra’s company LEW produces presurgical models, both for his personal use at Garrahan Hospital and for fellow doctors that are curious about implementing 3D printing technology to their work. Each model made on the company’s Stratasys Objet30 Prime with Stratasys‘ own resins costs around $200, and they are not yet charging fellow doctors and hospitals for them.

At LEW, Berra is currently developing a perfusion system that allows preserving an organ for transplantation in conditions similar to those of the human body and is expected to double the number of interventions in the country, and along with his team, they are developing an artificial heart, also using 3D printing.

The specialist claims his work to help young patients will not stop, no matter how many hurdles he has to tackle in the way. With aspirations to work mainly in Argentina, Berra does not discard moving to the UK or Boston, where his ties with other specialists in the field could help him achieve his goals. Like many in the field, he believes training pediatric surgeons for the future should involve acquiring knowledge on 3D printing technology to aid the work, and with a limited amount of cardiovascular surgeons specializing in children, they can use all the help they can get.

[Images: Ignacio Berra and 3DPrint.com]

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Pediatric Surgeon 3D Prints a Aortic Valve Repair Testing Device

Nations around the world are taking steps to prevent heart disease, with both advice and legislation to promote healthy eating habits, annual check-ups, and even antismoking laws and regulations. But for some patients, it is not about a change in lifestyle, since heart ailments are part of their daily life. For children born with congenital heart disease (CHD), a birth defect in the heart that can be the cause of serious health complications later on in life, pediatric surgeons around the globe are trying to raise awareness about this most common birth defect. According to estimates, one in 1,000 babies is born with the condition every year. This means an annual 1.3 million CHD births. It usually entails an anomaly in the heart walls, valves or blood vessels, ranging in effect from simple defects to life-threatening conditions. In Argentina, pediatric cardiovascular surgeon Ignacio Berra has been searching for solutions to CHD his entire adult life and last year he designed and perfected an intraoperative test device for aortic valve repair using 3D printing.

How the device works

Since 2006, Berra has worked at Garrahan Hospital, in Buenos Aires, but in 2015, he won a scholarship to train together with other researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard’s School of Medicine, where he began working on the device. The technique was presented at the Aortic Symposium held by the Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), and detailed how pediatric surgeons are trying to intraoperatively test and visualize the valve in its diastolic state (part of the cardiac cycle during which the heart refills with blood). The aortic valve pressurization device enables a regurgitant aortic valve to be inspected under typical diastolic conditions at the start of the repair to better understand mechanisms of aortic regurgitation (AR) as well as allowing surgeons to do a postoperatively test the efficacy of repair and the robustness of valve closure.The gadget was printed on a Stratasys Objet30 Prime 3D printer with a super clear biocompatible resin to allow for visual inspection and is described by Berra and fellow researchers as a two-piece cylindrical tube with a length of 26 cm and a working channel with inlet and outlet valves, as well as a pressurization chamber, which has two side ports. On one side they use it to test the pressure, thanks to a sensor, while the other side port can be used to introduce measurement tools, for example, an endoscope to allow visualization of the valve and aortic root.

“One of the key factors when developing this type of innovation is reproducibility. Especially in developing countries, such as Argentina, where we would benefit from generating this type of device, cheaply, for daily use in operations. Our hospitals are solely about care, so they are missing the in-house research facilities that others have in Europe and North America. This means that in order to keep working and improving the device (as well as generating other projects), I had to create my own 3D printing company, called LEW, with a fully equipped operating room for pre-clinical trials, a Stratasys Objet30 Prime, Stratasys own resins, software and industrial engineers and designers who help us develop the ideas,” explained Berra to 3DPrint.com

The aortic valve pressurization device

According to the specialist, in children, surgical repair of the valve is usually preferred over valve replacement. However, aortic valve repair is technically challenging and is currently in transition from surgical improvisation to a reproducible operation and an option for many patients with aortic valve disease. A major challenge for surgeons during aortic valve repair is to intraoperatively assess valve dysfunction before repair and to predict valve competence after repair. Up until now, there has been no similar test in use for the aortic valve, although the concept has been proposed. So the device is ideal for with children with CHD.

“The model was originally designed in the computer and then 3D printed in three parts and used at Boston Children’s Hospital to test the pressure valve. This means that, by pressurizing and using an endoscope, surgeons can see the closed aortic valve during the intraoperative period while the aorta is transacted, and it only takes one minute. To perform the preclinical trials I used pig hearts, but the method has advanced more in the US, since they are soon going to start a clinical study to formally test its validity with the FDA. In Argentina, we are only using it to test a model of the aorta prior to surgery, but we expect to begin using it in children soon,” Berra went on. 

Trying out the technique at the lab

The technique validates, during the surgery, that the operation was successful and ensures that the child will be fit to continue living a normal life. Berra suggested that “without the aortic valve pressurization device it is difficult for a surgeon to intraoperatively predict valve competence after repair solely on the basis of what they see, that is, to know for sure that the valve will not yield, because if it breaks after the surgery, the turbulent blood flow can lead to endocarditis, a serious infection of the valves.”  According to Berra and the researchers behind the device, this new capability could increase the success rate of aortic valve repair, leading to higher repair rates and encouraging less experienced surgeons to attempt it. 

“Although surgeons are heavily trained, surgeries are not all that simple, each case is different, especially in children with CHD. When we have to work with patients that have such complicated pathologies, there is a need to generate new solutions with what we have on hand, and unfortunately in Argentina, availability is not in our dictionary. Doctors fight against an ancient bureaucratic system to translate an idea into a reality with the potential to save lives,” he revealed. 

Berra’s ambition for research and innovation is a family trait. His father is a veterinary and researcher who instilled a desire for knowledge. Both him and his dad are part of LEW, as well as his sister, an immunologist, and brother, an engineer in charge of designing all the devices before they go through the printer. They are also working on perfecting a 3D printed artificial heart which they plan to make commercially available in the country, and which will cost much less than what an imported version costs, usually around $70,000. With this and many more projects in the works, the company could soon become one of the few generating novel ideas in the region.

[Images: Ignacio Berra and 3DPrint.com]

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