In 2017, industry leader Stanley Black & Decker, extended its corporate innovation footprint externally in many ways, including by developing a partnership with Techstars, the Worldwide Network Designed to Help Entrepreneurs Succeed.That partnership, launched the start of a multi-year accelerator program.In 2018, Techstars accepted 10 companies, all of which had a focus on additive manufacturing, into the program.All of the companies received $120,000.00 in funding, and the full lifetime benefits of Techstars participation including over $1M of resources.Many of the companies have gone on to raise additional capital, with the total amounts raised post-program currently exceeding $8M, and four of the companies have made a decision to build a longer term presence in Connecticut.
With the successes, and continued progress of the companies from 2018 in mind, leadership from Techstars and Stanley Black and Decker worked to thoughtfully approach the 2019 program to ensure the results were just as, if not stronger in the second year.
To that end, the aperture for the program was broadened to include companies working under the umbrella of advanced manufacturing, with a focus on additive manufacturing and sustainable solutions for packaging.In 2018, Stanley Black and Decker signed a pledge with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation committing to combat plastic pollution.
The 2019 STANLEY+Techstars class is an inspiring collection of companies with founders focused on transforming industries, and creating sustainable solutions.
The accelerator received applications from over 30 countries and accepted those from Spain, Germany, India, Texas, New York, Boston, and California. As STANLEY+Techstars Managing Director, Claudia Reuter described “ We’re thrilled to share that while in venture investing, statistics indicate that only approximately 3% of funding typically goes to female led companies, this year nearly half of our companies have a female founder. All of the 10 companies we selected are exceptional and have the potential to disrupt industries and change the world for the better.”
You can register here to join and learn more about the companies at the STANLEY+Techstars Demo Day on October 7, 2019 in Hartford, CT.This is an event not to be missed.
We’re taking care of business first in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and then moving on to education. Optomec has announced two new additions to its LENS series, and CRP Technology is introducing a new commercial strategy for its Windform composite materials. HP India is building a new Center of Excellence for 3D Printing, while the South Korean government continues its investment in the technology. The GE Additive Education Program is now accepting applications for 2019-2020, and a Philadelphia-based university and health system has integrated Ultimaker 3D printers into its teaching curriculum. Speaking of health, Sweden is looking into 3D printing food for the elderly.
Optomec’s New LENS Systems
This week, production-grade metal 3D printer supplier Optomec announced that it was releasing two new Directed Energy Deposition (DED) 3D printers in its Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) Classic System Series: the CS 600 and the CS 800 Controlled Atmosphere (CA) DED Systems. Both of the systems are configurable, and are designed to maximize the process build envelope, while at the same time lowering the system footprint and chamber volume. They have CA chambers that make it possible to process both non-reactive and reactive metals, and are both compatible with the company’s latest generation LENS deposition head.
“These new systems come packed with next-generation DED components all born from signature Optomec know-how and built to provide affordable, high-quality metal additive manufacturing capabilities for industry’s most demanding requirements. The LENS CS 600 and CS 800 systems represent the latest in DED processing from precision deposition to cladding applications and extend our product portfolio to continue to provide high-value metal additive manufacturing solutions,” said Tom Cobbs, Optomec’s LENS product manager.
The first customer shipments of the CS 600 and the CS 800 CA systems have already begun this year.
New Commercial Strategy for Windform Materials
CRP Technology has for years made components and also sold its Windform composite materials. Now the company has decided to revise its commercial strategy for the materials: from now on, they will no longer be sold to service bureaus for the toll-manufacturing of 3D printing components. However, the materials will continue to be sold to companies that produce their own components, while CRP Technology and CRP USA will continue to offer support for service and assistance in producing Windform parts.
“The change in the strategy of CRP Technology is because we believe we can ensure the highest quality in the manufacture of 3D printed components; indeed the increase in production capacity -both in Europe and in the United States- will guarantee the volumes necessary to satisfy any request from our customers based all over the world, in compliance with the high standards of service and quality that has always been a distinctive element of CRP Technology and CRP USA’s activities,” CRP Technology told 3DPrint.com in an email.
HP Building Center of Excellence for 3D Printing in India
HP introduced its Jet Fusion 4200 3D Printing solutions to India last year, and is now planning to build a Center of Excellence (CoE) for 3D Printing in Andhra Pradesh, which is the country’s seventh-largest state. This week, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Andhra Pradesh government to build the CoE, which will give small and medium businesses (SMBs) and startups in the state the opportunity to learn more about the benefits of adopting 3D printing. HP India will be the main knowledge provider for the CoE, while the Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society (APIS) will enable accreditations and certifications and provide infrastructure support, and the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB) will encourage and drive public sector enterprises and government departments to use the CoE.
“Manufacturing in Andhra Pradesh has great potential as a lot of demand is slated to come from domestic consumption,” said J. Krishna Kishore, the CEO of APEDB. “Andhra Pradesh’s impetus in automotive, electronics and aerospace makes technologies like 3D printing market-ready.”
South Korea Continues to Invest in 3D Printing
For the last couple of years, the government of South Korea has been investing in 3D printing, and 2019 is no different. The country’s Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it would be spending 59.3 billion won (US $52.7 million) this year – up nearly 17% from its 2018 investment – in order to continue developing 3D printing expertise to help nurture the industry. According to government officials, 27.73 billion of this will be allocated to further development of 3D printing materials technology, and some of the budget will go towards helping the military make 3D printed components, in addition to helping the medical sector make 3D printed rehab devices.
“3D printing is a core sector that can create innovation in manufacturing and new markets. The ministry will support development by working with other related ministries and strengthen the basis of the industry,” said Yong Hong-taek, an ICT ministry official.
GE Additive Education Program Accepting Applications
In 2017, GE Additive announced that it would be investing $10 million in the GE Additive Education Program (AEP), an educational initiative designed to foster and develop students’ skills in additive manufacturing. To date, the global program has donated over 1,400 polymer 3D printers to 1,000 schools in 30 different countries, and announced this week that it is now accepting applications for the 2019-2020 cycle from primary and secondary schools. While in previous years the AEP also awarded metal 3D printers to universities, that’s not the case this time around.
“This year’s education program will focus only on primary and secondary schools,” said Jason Oliver, President & CEO of GE Additive. “The original purpose of our program is to accelerate awareness and education of 3D printing among students – building a pipeline of talent that understands 3D design and printing when they enter the workplace. We already enjoy some wonderful working relationships with universities and colleges, so this year we have decided to focus our efforts on younger students.”
The deadline for online AEP applications is Monday, April 1st, 2019. Packages include a Polar Cloud premium account, a Polar Cloud enabled 3D printer from either Dremel, Flashforge, or Monoprice, rolls of filament, and – new this round – learning and Tinkercad software resources from Autodesk. Check out the video below to learn about GE Additive’s ‘Anything Factory’ brand campaign, the heart of which was formed by a young student who had just discovered 3D printing and what it’s capable of creating…this is, of course, the purpose behind AEP.
Ultimaker 3D Printers Integrated into Medical Teaching Curriculum
Dr. Robert Pugliese and Dr. Bon Ku of Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health wanted to better prepare their students for real-world hospital challenges, and so decided to integrate Ultimaker 3D printers into the system’s Health Design Lab. The Lab is used for multiple medical and educational applications, from ultrasound training and cardiology to ENT surgery and high-risk obstetrics, and students are able to work with radiologists on real patient cases by helping to produce accurate anatomic models. The Lab houses a total of 14 Ultimaker 3D printers, including the Ultimaker 2+ Extended, the Ultimaker 3, and the Ultimaker S5, and the models 3D printed there help enhance patient care and improve surgical planning, as well as teach students how to segment critical features and interpret medical scan data.
“When we introduce these models to the patients their eyes get big and they ask a lot of questions, it helps them to understand what the complexity of their case really is. It’s just so much better to have the patient on the same page and these models really help bring that reality to them,” said Dr. Amy Mackey, Vice Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Jefferson’s Abington Hospital.
3D Printing Food for the Elderly in Sweden
Swedish care homes hope to make pureéd chicken indistinguishable from a drumstick [Image: EYEEM]
If you’ve attended a meal at a nursing home, or care home, then you know the food that’s served is not overly appetizing. This is because elderly people can also just have a more difficult time eating regular food. Roughly 8% of adults in Sweden have trouble chewing or swallowing their food, which can easily cause them to become malnourished. That’s why the Halmstad municipality on the country’s west coast wants to use 3D printing to stimulate these residents’ appetites, which will be accomplished by reconstituting soft, puréed food like chicken and broccoli to make it look more realistic.
Richard Asplund, a former head chef at the luxury Falkenbergs Strandbad hotel who’s now the head of Halmstad’s catering department, said, “When you find it hard to chew and swallow, the food that exists today doesn’t look very appetising.
“So the idea is to make something more aesthetic to look at, to make it look good to eat by recreating the original form of the food.”
The state innovation body Rise is coordinating the project, which is currently in the pre-study phase and plans to serve the first 3D printed meals in Halmstad and Helsingborg by the end of this year.
Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.
We’ve got plenty of business news for you in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and a little scientific research as well. Kelyniam Global has acquired new 3D printing technology, while Rostec makes an investment in technology. One of the earliest SpaceX employees is now an advisor for another aerospace company, the Youngstown Business Incubator has received a federal grant, and SAE International recently hosted a 3D printing webinar. Auburn University has been chosen as the site of a new National Center of Additive Manufacturing Excellence, and a new study discusses 4D printed elastic ceramics.
Kelyniam Global Adds New 3D Printing Capabilities
Using medical models for surgical pre-planning is almost a clinical standard these days. In an effort to increase its current medical modeling skills, custom 3D printed cranial implant manufacturer Kelyniam Global, which works with health systems and surgeons to improve cost-of-care and clinical outcomes, announced that it has expanded its 3D printing capabilities with the acquisition of new technology. This new technology aligns with the company’s reputation as a premium supplier of cranial implants requiring excellence in design and quick turnaround times.
“This state-of-the-art equipment will enable Kelyniam to produce certain medical models on the same 24-hour turnaround schedule we offer for cranial implants. The ability to rapidly print ultrahigh resolution models with high accuracy across our entire platform is a significant differentiator in our industry,” said Kelyniam COO Chris Breault.
Rostec Investing in Industrial 3D Printing Development
Russia’s state technologies corporation Rostec (also Rostek and Rostekh), which develops products for high-tech and communication systems, has invested nearly 3 billion rubles to create a specialized center for industrial 3D printing. The Center for Additive Technologies (CAC), with a goal of reducing the amount of time and money it takes to launch new products, will offer customers a full range of services and advanced 3D printers. The CAC’s main task will be introducing industrial 3D printing to high-tech industries that could really use it.
“Industrial 3D printing is becoming one of the indispensable attributes of modern industry. We see the high potential of this technology and introduce it into our production practice,” said Anatoly Serdyukov, the Industrial Director of the aviation cluster at Rostekh State Corporation. “For example, in the JDC today, about three tons of parts per year are produced by the additive technology method. The holding plans to widely use them in the serial production of promising Russian gas turbine engines, which will be certified in 2025 – 2030. The creation of a specialized center will expand the scope of this technology and produce parts for such industries as aircraft building, space, high technology medicine, automotive industry.”
Project participants calculate that the CAC’s first pilot batch of parts will be manufactured there sometime in 2019.
Former SpaceX Employee Becomes Advisor to Relativity Space
Jordan Noone, Relativity Space Co-Founder, said “When I was at SpaceX, Tim’s stellar reputation for breadth and depth of engineering and operations was legendary in the industry.”
Buzza spent 12 years helping to develop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft and will advise Relativity Space on organizing the company structure, launch site selection and trades, rocket architecture, structures and avionics, and more.
Federal Grant Awarded to Youngstown Business Incubator
The Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI) is about to receive some new 3D printing software and hardware, thanks to a federal grant. Recently, the Appalachian Regional Commission awarded $185,000 in federal funding to YBI. The new 3D printers and 3D printing software that the grant will fund, in addition to being a boon for YBI, will also help to strengthen its frequent area partners Youngstown State University (YSU) and America Makes.
“Each additional piece of equipment further strengthen us as a national and international leader in additive manufacturing technology and this is a key part of that process,” said Michael Hripko, YSU’s Associative Vice President for Research.
SAE International Recently Held Additive Manufacturing Webinar
Topics covered during SAE International’s webinar last week included novel AM methods that translate to automotive and aerospace applications, the risks involved in introducing 3D printed, flight-critical parts, and the anticipated timeline for general acceptance of 3D printed parts by aerospace customers.
Auburn University Site of New National Center of AM Excellence
“The Center of Excellence is going to facilitate us bringing together the best technical experts in industry, government, and academia, and that’s going to help us develop the very best standards for this emerging technology,” said Katharine Morgan, the President of ASTM International.
New Study On 4D Printed Elastic Ceramics
3D printing EDCs. (A) 3D printed large-scale elastomeric honeycomb. (B) 3D printed microlattices and (C) honeycombs of PDMS NCs and first EDCs and second EDCs.
Shape-morphing assembly is a great technology for applications in 4D printing, biomaterials, life sciences, and robotics, and multiple materials like ceramics, silicone, and polymers are used. But, we’ve not yet seen much in the way of ceramic structures derived from soft precursors that allow for elastic deformation. Polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) have some excellent properties, such as high thermal stability and chemical resistance to oxidation and corrosion, and their microstructures can be fine-tuned through tailored polymer systems.
While we’re seeing a lot in the way of 3D printing soft materials, current ceramic precursors are not flexible and stretchable. Guo Liu, Yan Zhao, Ge Wu, and Jian Lu with the City University of Hong Kong published a paper, titled “Origami and 4D printing of elastomer-derived ceramic structures,” that explains how they developed silicone rubber matrix nanocomposites (NCs) that can be 3D printed and deformed into elastomer structures with complex shapes and transformed into mechanically strong EDCs.
The abstract reads, “Four-dimensional (4D) printing involves conventional 3D printing followed by a shape-morphing step. It enables more complex shapes to be created than is possible with conventional 3D printing. However, 3D-printed ceramic precursors are usually difficult to be deformed, hindering the development of 4D printing for ceramics. To overcome this limitation, we developed elastomeric poly(dimethylsiloxane) matrix nanocomposites (NCs) that can be printed, deformed, and then transformed into silicon oxycarbide matrix NCs, making the growth of complex ceramic origami and 4D-printed ceramic structures possible. In addition, the printed ceramic precursors are soft and can be stretched beyond three times their initial length. Hierarchical elastomer-derived ceramics (EDCs) could be achieved with programmable architectures spanning three orders of magnitude, from 200 μm to 10 cm. A compressive strength of 547 MPa is achieved on the microlattice at 1.6 g cm−3. This work starts a new chapter of printing high-resolution complex and mechanically robust ceramics, and this origami and 4D printing of ceramics is cost-efficient in terms of time due to geometrical flexibility of precursors. With the versatile shape-morphing capability of elastomers, this work on origami and 4D printing of EDCs could lead to structural applications of autonomous morphing structures, aerospace propulsion components, space exploration, electronic devices, and high-temperature microelectromechanical systems.”
Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.
