Open source Spaghetti Detective AI software detects failed prints through webcam

With the majority of the world home-bound due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the open source community seems to be alive and kicking with its latest gift to 3D printing: an AI software that automatically pauses failed prints. The Spaghetti Detective (TSD) utilizes the webcam of a printer or home computer to detect when a print […]

How many Open-Source Prusa 3D printers are there? #OHM2019 #oshwa @ohsummit #opensource #opensourcehardware @opensourceorg @prusa3d @josefprusa

Started this post on the 15th of October about total open-source 3D printers, but after some news about LulzBot, decided to just make it about Prusa.

The Road to 100,000 Original Prusa 3D printers (video). That was June of 2019.

Prusa’s Manufacturing Capacity Is Incredible – Fabbaloo, November 2018.

…we were told they were producing an incredible 3,000 units per month. At that time the number was far larger than any other manufacturer we were aware of. To put this in perspective, MakerBot’s first 3D printer, the venerable CupCake, likely sold fewer than 2,000 units in total. Prusa now made that many machines in only a couple of weeks.

We were told Prusa now produces about 450 units per day.

If they’re running a seven-day-a-week operation, this is equivalent to 3,150 units per week, 13,500 units per month, or a staggering 164,250 units per year.

And from Forbes 30 under 30 European Technology List

In the last five years, Josef Prusa has grown his eponymous company from a bootstrapped enterprise to one of the largest 3D printer companies in the world. With Conan O’Brien and Wil Wheaton as fans, Prusa has shipped tens of thousands of printers to over 130 countries. In 2017, the company expects to do over €33M in revenue and Forbes Czech Republic estimated its valuation to be €236 million in 2016. Not only are his 3D printers one of the best-sellers around the world, they’re also “self-replicating”. Inside what Prusa calls “The Farm”, more than 300 printers are busy printing parts to construct new printers.

From the Prusa3d about page

Now, there are more than 300 people working in Prusa Research and we ship over 6000 printers worldwide directly from our HQ in Prague every month! We have become the no.1 fastest growing tech company in Central Europe (Deloitte 2018) with the growth rate of 17,118 % over the last four years!

In a May 31, 2019 post Prusa reported shipping 20,000 packages in one month. And in June of 2019 Prusa reported they have shipped over 130,000 printers.

So the number is probably at least up to 150,000 to 180,000 printers at this time October 2019 AND a new printer was released last week.

We will email a link to this article to Prusa and see if we can get an official number during open-source hardware month.


Open source hardware month @ Adafruit:


Ohm

October is open-source hardware month! Every single day in October we’ll be posting up some open-source stories from the last decade (and more!) about open-source hardware, open-source software, and beyond!

Have an open-source hardware (or software) success story? A person, company, or project to celebrate? An open-source challenge? Post up here in the comments or email opensource@adafruit.com, we’ll be looking for, and using the tag #OHM2019 online as well! Check out all the events going on here!

The RepRap Project Self-Replicating Open-Source 3D Printing #reprap @reprapltd @AdrianBowyer #OHM2019 #oshwa @ohsummit #opensource #opensourcehardware @opensourceorg

Reprap

In March of 2005, the first entry on the RepRap blog was posted. There’s something about March of 2005, there were a lot of open-source hardware efforts kicking off that month and that year. There was one project in particular that helped start all the open-source 3D printers, and that was the RepRap project.

What is the RepRap project? From Wikipedia.

The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators world wide. RepRap is short for replicating rapid prototyper.

As an open design, all of the designs produced by the project are released under a free software license, the GNU General Public License.

Due to the ability of the machine to make some of its own parts, authors envisioned the possibility of cheap RepRap units, enabling the manufacture of complex products without the need for extensive industrial infrastructure. They intended for the RepRap to demonstrate evolution in this process as well as for it to increase in number exponentially. A preliminary study claimed that using RepRaps to print common products results in economic savings.

RepRap was founded in 2005 by Dr Adrian Bowyer, a Senior Lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in England. Funding was obtained from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Reprap1Page

There is a RepRap wiki and about page with even more details… And a one pager’ PDF (mirror).

Who is Dr Adrian Bowyer MBE? From the Dr’s about page

I did a first degree in mechanical engineering at Imperial College in 1973, and then did a PhD in tribology there.

In 1977 I moved to Bath University’s Department of Mathematical Sciences to do research in stochastic computational geometry.

I then spent several years as the head of Bath’s Microprocessor Unit in what is now Bath University Computing Services.

In 1984 I took up a lectureship in manufacturing in Bath’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and was subsequently promoted to senior lecturer. I retired in 2012 to concentrate on the RepRap Project and my company RepRap Ltd.

My main areas of research are geometric modelling and geometric computing in general (I am one of the creators of the Bowyer-Watson algorithm for Voronoi diagrams), the application of computers to manufacturing, the creation of smart hydrophilic-polymer gels using affinity interactions, and the engineering use of biology, called Biomimetics.  In Biomimetics I work on self-copying and self-assembly in engineering.

I am the originator of the worldwide RepRap Project – a project that has created humanity’s first general purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine. It works using 3D printing. I am also a founder and director of RepRap Ltd – a company formed to do research and development in self-replicating open-source 3D Printing.

In May 2017 I received the 3D Printing Industry Outstanding Contribution to 3D Printing Award.

In September 2017 I was inducted into the 3D Printing Hall of Fame.

In the New Year’s Honours List for 2019 Her Majesty the Queen kindly awarded me an MBE for services to 3D printing.

Here is a time lapse of Dr Adrian Bowyer assembling the first RepRap “Darwin” 11 years ago… There’s also a Wikipedia entry, GitHub, and personal site.

Talk: “Manufacturing For The Masses” by Dr. Adrian Bowyer (2017) – YouTube.

Since the RepRap project has a lot of contributors and history, I tried to find a complete detailed history of the project from Dr Adrian Bowyer, and it turns out there is one on ALL3DP “The Official History of the RepRap Project”. MakerBot, LulzBot, Prusa, and more… All got their starts with the RepRap project –

2 February 2004
RepRap invented.

23 March 2005
The RepRap blog is started and research begins.

Summer 2005
Funding for initial development at the University of Bath of £20,000 is obtained from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

13 September 2006
The RepRap 0.2 prototype successfully prints the first part of itself, which is subsequently used to replace an identical part originally created by a commercial 3D printer.

9 February 2008
RepRap 1.0 “Darwin” successfully makes at least one instance of over half its total rapid-prototyped parts.

14 April 2008
Possibly the first end-user item is made by a RepRap: a clamp to hold an iPod securely to the dashboard of a Ford Fiesta.

29 May 2008
Within a few minutes of being assembled, the first completed “child” machine makes the first part for a “grandchild” at the University of Bath, UK.

23 September 2008
It is reported that at least 100 copies have been produced in various countries. The exact number of RepRaps in circulation at that time is unknown.

30 November 2008
First documented “in the wild” replication occurs. Replication is completed by Wade Bortz, the first user outside of the developers’ team to produce a complete set for another person.

2 October 2009
The second generation design, called “Mendel”, prints its first part. The Mendel’s shape resembles a triangular prism rather than a cube.

January 2009
MakerBot Industries is founded by RepRap volunteers and others to sell 3D printers based on RepRap that are open-source, but are not self-replicating. MakerBot was the first company based on RepRap.

13 October 2009
RepRap 2.0 “Mendel” is completed.

27 January 2010
The Foresight Institute announces the “Kartik M. Gada Humanitarian Innovation Prize” for the design and construction of an improved RepRap. The administration of the prize is later transferred to Humanity+.

31 August 2010
The third generation design, “Huxley”, is officially named. Development is based on a miniaturized version of the Mendel hardware with 30% of the original print volume.

January 2011
Aleph Objects founded to produce open-source LulzBot 3D printers based on RepRap. The number of RepRap-based companies making 3D-printers grows.

2011/2012
RepRap and RepStrap building and usage are increasing within the technology, gadget, and engineering communities. RepRaps or commercial derivatives have been featured in many mainstream media sources, and are on the permanent watch lists of such technology media as Wired and some influential engineering-professionals’ news media.

Late 2012
The first Delta RepRap design, Rostock, is in development. Delta machines use a non-Cartesian axis design.

July 2013
The Gada Prize is awarded to RepRap Morgan, designed by Quentin Harley.

12 May 2015
The Dollo self-replicating 3D printer with a very high proportion of self-replicated parts is introduced by Ben and Benjamin Engel.

8 September 2015
RepRap Snappy is introduced by Revar Desmera of the Bay Area RepRap User Group. Like the Dollo it has a very high proportion of self-printed parts (73%) and assembly is achieved by clipping those parts together as opposed to using nuts and bolts.

January 2016
RepRapPro (one of many commercial RepRap companies, but one founded by Adrian Bowyer and others) announced on their website that they were to cease trading. The reason given was congestion of the market for low-cost 3D printers derived from the RepRap Project and the inability to expand in that market.

800Px-Mulbot

The latest addition to this list I’ll add here continues on the self-replication vibe that started it all, in March 2019, the Mulbot, a RepRap, an open source Mostly Printed 3D printer was published (video).


Open source hardware month @ Adafruit:


Ohm

October is open-source hardware month! Every single day in October we’ll be posting up some open-source stories from the last decade (and more!) about open-source hardware, open-source software, and beyond!

Have an open-source hardware (or software) success story? A person, company, or project to celebrate? An open-source challenge? Post up here in the comments or email opensource@adafruit.com, we’ll be looking for, and using the tag #OHM2019 online as well! Check out all the events going on here!

3D Printing News Briefs: October 14, 2019

In today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, everything is new, new, new! Carbon is announcing a new RPU 130 material, and STERNE Elastomere introduces its antimicrobial silicone 3D printing. Protolabs launches a new polypropylene 3D printing service in Europe, and Hydra Research has officially released its flagship Nautilus 3D printer.

Carbon Introduces RPU 130 Material

At this week’s International K Trade Fair in Dusseldorf, Carbon will debut its new RPU 130 resin, a rigid polyurethane that’s rigid, tough, impact resistant, and stands up under high temperatures, making it a perfect choice for the automotive industry in applications such as brake caliper covers. Made exclusively for Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis, the dual-cure engineering resin is comparable to unfilled thermoplastics, and Carbon also partnered with DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products to make RPU 130 out of sustainable Susterra propanediol, a 100% bio-based material that uses 46% less nonrenewable energy from cradle-to-gate and produces 48% less greenhouse gas emissions as well.

“We are focused on ways to incorporate more sustainable approaches to developing materials, and our partnership with DuPont Tate & Lyle emphasizes that commitment,” stated Jason Rolland, SVP of Materials at Carbon. “We believe that sustainability can go hand-in-hand with improved performance. In the case of RPU 130, we believe it will make the material even more appealing for our customers, as it makes it possible to create better quality products that are also ultimately better for the environment.”

You can learn more about Carbon’s new RPU 130 at its K-Show booth, H7.2, F12 from October 16-23.

Antimicrobial Silicone 3D Printing by STERNE

French silicone 3D printing specialist STERNE will also be attending K 2019 this month. Three years ago, the company unveiled its silicone 3D printer at K 2016, and its SiO-shaping 3D silicone printing technology makes it possible to fabricate very small pieces, according to standard ISO 3302-01 :2014 (M2) tolerances, at hardness from 30 to 60 Shores A. The printer also offers a full panel of colors in opaque, phosphorescent, and translucent.

The company is now combining 3D printing with antimicrobial silicone, in order to keep the silicone odor-free, avoid bacteria developing, improve the hygiene of a 3D printed object, and strengthen its immune barrier as well. You can learn more about this antimicrobial silicone 3D printing at STERNE’s Stand E23, Hall 8A, at K 2019.

Protolabs Offering Polypropylene 3D Printing in Europe

For the first time, digital manufacturing company Protolabs is offering polypropylene 3D printing, with the launch of a new service in Europe. The company has invested a lot in developing the material to be used with selective laser sintering (SLS) technology, on an SPro 60 system. SLS 3D printing with polypropylene plastic allows design engineers to rapidly develop and test prototypes, and fabricate complex designs as well, like internal channels and honeycomb structures.

“Polypropylene is one of the most used plastics available to modern manufacturers and is widely used for a number of applications. Polypropylene is one of the most used plastics available to modern manufacturers and is widely used for a number of applications. Now that we can produce a prototype in polypropylene, design engineers can develop and test it in an application using the same material that it will be manufactured from. The product design can then be quickly reiterated and retested until they have the perfect solution, before committing to tooling. This breakthrough takes product development to the next level using the most versatile of plastics, ” said Andrea Landoni, 3D printing product manager for Protolabs.

“Before, if you wanted to use polypropylene then you were limited in what you could design by the manufacturing technology available to you. Now the only limitation is your imagination.”

Hydra Research Releases Flagship 3D Printer

Oregon company Hydra Research, which began in a closet three years ago as a peer-to-peer print service, has announced the release of it flagship 3D printer, the Nautilus. The fully enclosed, industrial-grade desktop system – assembled in Portland – features a quick-change Tool Cartridge system that integrates E3D’s V6 hotend for fast nozzle switching, in addition to an integrated software solution. It also supports a variety of materials, provides Cura profiles for easy slicing, has a small footprint in a sleek frame, and offers customizable HydraCare support and consulting packages

“As a company, our primary goal is producing world-class hardware on an open source platform,” explained John Kray, the Founder and CEO of Hydra Research. “Manufacturers like E3D, Duet3D, and Fillamentum combine these values perfectly.”

You can now purchase Hydra’s Nautilus 3D printer on the company’s website, in addition to spare parts, accessories, and filament.

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

The post 3D Printing News Briefs: October 14, 2019 appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

LulzBot Releases It’s First Bioprinter

Bioprinting is revolutionizing the way 3D printed tissues can be used to mimic in vivo conditions. The fields of regenerative medicine, pharmaceutical development, and cosmetic testing are benefiting from this technological disruption, enabling researchers and companies to better predict efficacy and toxicology of potential drugs early on in the drug discovery process. But it’s no wonder this technology is so enticing, since bringing a new drug to market, with current methods, could cost $350 million dollars and can take more than a decade from start to finish. On the North American front, Colorado-based manufacturer Aleph Objects, the developer behind the LulzBot 3D Printers, announced today a new open-source bioprinter: the LulzBot Bio.

After almost ten years of manufacturing 3D printers, LulzBot finally decided to move into the bioprinting market. The new machine, which is now available for pre-order on the site and will begin shipping in November, enables 3D printing with materials such as unmodified collagen, bioinks, and other soft materials, and is the company’s first-ever Fluid Deposition Fabrication (FDF) 3D printer. FDF is a newfangled name for the FRESH process which we wrote about here and here.  According to LulzBot, unlike its pneumatic counterparts, the Bio’s syringe pump system allows for precise stopping and retraction, preventing unintentional extrusion and stringing while printing intricate models, like vasculature.

The new LulzBot Bio

The printer has a Free Software design that removes proprietary restrictions, providing, what the company considers, a versatile platform for innovation that grows with everchanging discoveries and advancements. LulzBot reports a commitment to freedom of design in general, developing machines that come with freely licensed designs, and specifications, allowing for modifications and improvements to both software and hardware. In this respect, they have partnered with organizations, such as the Open Source Hardware Association, Free Software, and Libre Innovation. The Bio’s free software and open hardware design give researchers the ability to innovate together, letting the machine be easily adjusted for new materials and processes.

“For researchers, you don’t know what materials or processes you’ll be using in six months, let alone one year from now, so you need hardware that can be adjusted quickly and easily, without proprietary restrictions,” said Grant Flaharty, CEO and President of Aleph Objects.

The LulzBot Bio touchscreen for easy control

The LulzBot Bio comes with nearly everything needed to start bioprinting right away, including extensively tested, preconfigured material profiles in Cura LulzBot Edition, the recommended software for the LulzBot printers; Petri dishes; Life Support gel (by FluidForm); alginate, and tools. It also enables printing with unmodified collagen, something that has proven extremely difficult and is considered one of the most promising materials for bioprinting applications, since it is the human body’s major structural protein and is prominent in biological structures.

Actually, printing with unmodified collagen is currently done using the FRESH method, short for Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels, which was developed and refined by the Regenerative Biomaterials and Therapeutics Group at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. The LulzBot Bio is actually FRESH-certified, which means it uses thermoreversible support gels to hold soft materials during printing. Then, the temporary support gel is then dissolved, leaving the print intact.

“Other bioprinting techniques often require materials to be chemically altered or mixed with other materials to make them 3D printable,” explained Steven Abadie, CTO of Aleph Objects. “Because of the excellent biocompatibility of collagen, being able to 3D print with it in its original form brings us that much closer to recreating models that mimic human physiology.”

As stated by the company, the LulzBot Bio has already been instrumental in 3D printing some of the first-ever fully functional human heart tissue. This was achieved by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon, led by Adam Feinberg, that used the new device to 3D print heart tissue containing collagen and producing parts of the heart at various scales, from capillaries to the full organ.

“What we’ve shown is that we can print pieces of the heart out of cells and collagen into parts that truly function, like a heart valve or a small beating ventricle. By using MRI data of a human heart, we were able to accurately reproduce patient-specific anatomical structure and 3D bioprint collagen and human heart cells,” inidcated Adam Feinberg, principal investigator of the Regenerative Biomaterials and Therapeutics Group at Carnegie Mellon and co-founder of FluidForm.

FluidForm, powered by Carnegie’s research, has been working on the science behind the FRESH technology for quite some time. Now, Aleph Objects has taken the concept straight to the hardware, manufacturing this new machine, which they expect will be the first step to open up bioprinting to the broader market for exponential innovation.

Last June, LulzBot had already announced its collaboration with FluidForm, to combine their expertise and offer new bioprinting solutions. The LulzBot Bio has also been used by Newell Washburn, professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Carnegie, and a team of his colleagues to demonstrate how a new machine-learning algorithm could optimize high quality, soft material 3D prints.

According to company execs, the LulzBot Bio will satisfy the needs of many industries, for example, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, medical devices, and life sciences. It could be ideal for producing bioprinted tissue for pre-clinical testing or used to recreate physiology to study diseases. It certainly seems like a great start to a new printer and perhaps the beginning of the company’s immersion in the bioprinting world.

[Images: LulzBot]

The post LulzBot Releases It’s First Bioprinter appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

TelescopePrime is an Open Source #3dPrinted Telescope #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

DIY telescope TelescopePrime Poland

Stellar project by Aleksy Chwedczuk and Jakub Bochinski on TelescopePrime.pl via 3DPrint:

We decided to start the TelescopePrime project to change that and provide an open-source platform, which can be easily modified and expanded upon to suit every buddying astronomer’s needs while staying below 400$.

Read more


3055 06Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

Open Source DIY Telescope Prime Features Raspberry Pi and 3D Printed Parts

PiKon telescope

While the majority of us are not astronauts, there is a tool that can be used in your home to make you feel like you’re just a little bit closer to the stars – the telescope. Five years ago, a group of UK researchers from the University of Sheffield, including physicist Mark Wrigley, were inspired by NASA’s Juno spacecraft to create their own DIY telescope, the PiKon, using 3D printing and a Raspberry Pi. Now, a pair of Polish scientists have followed in their footsteps with their own parametric, open source, DIY telescope with 3D printed parts.

Aleksy Chwedczuk and Jakub Bochiński wanted to help popularize astronomy by making their own semi-professional, yet affordable, telescope model for at-home use, for which people can then download the files and create on their own. Chwedczuk and Bochiński call their creation the Telescope Prime, and created the first prototype in just eight hours. The initial prototype was then used to take pictures of the moon, and the final version was finished in less than three months.

The look from the inside of the Telescope Prime

Polish 3D printing company Sygnis New Technologies offered to help the scientists create their DIY telescope by sharing their equipment.

“As Sygnis New Technologies, we are proud to say that we have participated in the Telescope Prime project by adjusting 3D models of parts of the telescope and printing them for the science duo,” Marek Kamiński, the Head of Social Media for Sygnis New Technologies, told 3DPrint.com.

Telescopes have been helping people observe outer space since the 17th century, though at that time it was reserved only for the elite citizens who could purchase the equipment. But even though there is much more variety available today, it’s still not something that is widely available – the device has many complex, interacting elements. That’s why Chwedczuk and Bochiński wanted to use 3D printing to help create a more affordable, open source version.

In a piece by Sygnis, the two scientists said, “We wanted to initiate the development of an open-project telescope that could be easily modified and expanded…

“At the same time, it should be a digital telescope – adapted to our 21st century online lifestyle, where the habit of sharing one’s experiences on the Internet is the new norm.”


The telescope model, which all together costs less than $400 to put together, is made of three main parts: the 20 cm diameter parabolic mirror (with a recommended focal length of 1 m), a Raspberry Pi microcomputer with a camera and touch display, and 3D printed parts that are used to fix the camera and the mirror. To help keep costs down, “readily available materials,” like wood, screws, and a paper tube, are used to build the Telescope Prime.

Aleksy Chwedczuk with the first prototype of the telescope

In a further effort to keep the telescope fabrication as inexpensive as possible, it does not have lenses. Light is focused in a single spot, and stops on the mirror. A boarding tube makes up the body of the device, and plywood parts are then added. The telescope can use its build-in camera to take images of the night sky, and transmit them online in real-time using the touchscreen of a computer, projector, or tablet. Additionally, you can easily increase and reduce the size of the telescope – just enter the mirror’s size into the program, and all of its dimensions will be automatically converted.

“The creators had to take into account the realities of the 21st century, modern issues of the popularization of astronomy, also among the youngest amateurs of the starry sky, as well as the availability of materials for the construction of the telescope,” Sygnis wrote. “Telescope Prime is an innovative idea that reflects the needs and possibilities of an astronomer enthusiast of the second decade of the 21st century.”

The open source models for the telescope parts, which are available for download on the Telescope Prime website, were prepared in advance for 3D printing, so they didn’t need any corrections later. These elements were 3D printed on FlashForge 3D printers out of Orbi-Tech PLA material, and it took a total of 156 hours of printing to create the 17 telescope parts.

The final version of the Telescope Prime

Kamiński told 3DPrint.com that the two scientists are currently “promoting the project on Polish universities, schools and science institutes.” This makes sense, as the Telescope Prime website explains that the project was “initiated and fully carried out” on the grounds of the Akademeia High School in Warsaw.

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

[Source/Images: Sygnis New Technologies]

The post Open Source DIY Telescope Prime Features Raspberry Pi and 3D Printed Parts appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

Wikifactory’s Docubot Challenge Creates a Hardware Solution for Documentation

International startup Wikifactory, established in Hong Kong last June, is a social platform for collaborative product development. Co-founded by four makers and counting 3DPrint.com Editor-in-Chief Joris Peels until recently as a member of its advisory board, Wikifactory also has locations in Madrid and Shenzhen, and is dedicated to makers and DIY projects. It’s an all-in-one workspace designed for open source communities to help connect product developers to useful tools, such as 3D printing.

Recently, the platform launched the Docubot Challenge to help inaugurate the first Distributed Hardware Hackathon in the world. The global open source community was charged with finding a hardware solution for an issue that every maker faces – documentation.

This is a very prevalent issue in the maker community in terms of open knowledge for the purposes of digital fabrication. Documentation makes it possible for community members to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to further contribute to an ever-growing base of information. But just because it’s useful doesn’t mean it’s easy – while documenting fabrication methods may be a necessary evil, it can be a painstaking and tedious process that can slip through the cracks if you’re not meticulous about updating your work.

“Every product developer faces the task of having to document their work, but it’s a painful process. When your hands are full with what you are doing, it’s hard to take a step back and jot down the steps. That’s why documentation is often written after the process has already been completed, so there will always be missing photos or information,” the challenge states.

“We should strive to make the process of documentation easier, because Documentation in itself is an amazing thing. As a resource, it helps a broader community learn the skills and acquire the knowledge to contribute to a growing open source knowledge base.”

The Wikifactory team really wanted to turn the first edition of its Docubot Challenge into a distributed event; it is, after all, tagged as being “designed for makers, by makers.” Due to support from makerspaces around the world – specifically Pumping Station One in Chicago, Makerspace Madrid, and TroubleMaker in Shenzhen, China – this hope became a reality. Wikifactory is a great tool when organizing maker community events like workshops and hackathons, as it makes it simple to bring teams together online so they can contribute before, and even after, the event.

The goal of the challenge was to, according to WikiFactory, “accelerate a solution to a common problem faced by product developers” by collaboratively building a real-time documentation assistant that will take photos and videos on command, and could even convert speech to text. As someone who spends plenty of time transcribing recorded interviews, I want to know when this documentation assistant will be commercially available!

“With a hardware solution, doing documentation can be made into a more interactive, assisted process which can help accelerate engagement and collaboration in open source design and hardware,” the challenge stated.

The Docubot Challenge was originally instigated by Wikifactory members Gianluca Pugliese and Kevin Cheng. The participants were connected through Wikifactory to host project events in their own cities, engage with other teams around the world, and accept feedback and advice from other problem solvers. While it was definitely a learning experience, Docubot is now officially an open source hardware initiative, and great progress has already been made.


The Shenzhen Team developed an app that converts speech to text, the Madrid Team created a fun game that helps makers beat laziness and get documenting, and the Chicago Team created a button that signals a phone to start recording voice messages as well as pictures,” Wikifactory wrote.

The worldwide maker community is invited to get involved and contribute to the Docubot initiative. Whether you’re working on design ideas, developing the app and OS, or the hardware integration, the collaborative project needs your help in further extending the ideas by the team members who originally started it.

“With interactive and intercity sessions, participants will get to build relationships with creative problem solvers from around the world. It is an opportunity to apply skills in digital fabrication machines like 3D printing, hardware, electronics, programming and robotics for a relevant cause.”

Learn more about the Docubot Challenge here.

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

[Images: Wikifactory]

The post Wikifactory’s Docubot Challenge Creates a Hardware Solution for Documentation appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

3D Printed Syringe Bracket Reduces Chances for Bacterial Contamination

If you have ever experienced a major illness or serious injury, most likely you were extremely thankful for the medical professionals who helped you get your life back; however, it can be both distressing and frustrating—not to mention life-threatening—when doctors or nurses make mistakes that could have grave consequences. US researchers want to make even greater strides to improve safety mechanisms in both storing and preparing of anesthetic medications, outlined in the recently published ‘Anesthesia Workspace Cleanliness and Safety: Implementation of a Novel Syringe Bracket Using 3D Printing Techniques.’

There may be standards in place, and processes for avoiding syringe contamination and medication swaps, but as the authors point out, ‘wide variability’ persists. This is concerning—and dangerous for patients with all too common errors like:

  • Delayed responses to critical changes in patient status
  • Syringe swaps
  • Environmental contamination of syringes
  • Cross-contamination of syringes between patients

Even with new standardizations like prefilled syringes and automated labeling, there are errors—enough to present ‘widespread challenges.’ The problem is so bad that data shows one in fifteen syringes to be contaminated with ‘potentially pathogenic bacteria.’

Prototype syringe bracket with removable support structures printed with a desktop stereolithography 3D printer

“A growing body of evidence had linked postoperative healthcare-associated infections to such microorganisms within the anesthesia workspace, prompting the recent release of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America’s first infection prevention guidelines for the anesthesia work area,” state the researchers.

In seeking solutions for a better quality of care for patients, the research team considered ways to improve the following:

  • Handling
  • Availability
  • Standardization of key medications in the anesthesia workspace

After studying common causes of such mishaps, the research team came to a very important conclusion: rather than just delivering mandates to medical personnel regarding their need to change their behaviors, the whole system needs to be re-engineered—with better tools and better organization to prevent errors.

The project, a ‘quality improvement initiative,’ was completed at Massachusetts General Hospital, as the researchers assessed a baseline in terms of routine practices, developed a device for better organization, and then evaluated provider practices. They used 3D printing to create an organizational device for better safety and efficiency overall. So far, the researchers have tested and used the new 3D printed device in 60 operating rooms at one medical facility with ongoing postintervention surveys and workspace audits a year later.

Serial syringe bracket designs based on iterative prototyping and user feedback: (a) initial prototype, (b) elevation of main surface to provide further clearance from anesthesia machine display, (c) alternative slot configuration using flange to hold syringe and allow front loading and unloading, (d) corner-mounted design including holders for unopened medication vials and a bougie, (e) anterior extension of the main surface to provide further clearance from machines with mounted depth of anesthesia monitors, (f ) final design with wider support clip for increased stability. A detailed review of the rationale and utility of each of these design features is provided in Supplementary Table 2.

Their 3D printable syringe bracket system is open-source, operating as a cognitive aid and a way to prevent contamination. Prototypes were created on a Formlabs Form 2, in a series of customized brackets meant to be attached to the anesthesia machine. The goal is for the syringe bracket to reduce ‘transmission events’ by preventing environmental contamination—and offering a way to clearly distinguish emergency medications from those already accessed for another patient. The researchers also developed a ‘one-way’ system for syringes to be accessed only one time and then never placed back in the bracket.

Surveys indicated ‘significantly higher levels of confidence’ in knowing there was a more secure process in place; in fact, 76.2 percent of respondents reported more than 95 percent confidence in knowing where medications where ‘during supervision or handoffs,’ as opposed to the original baseline of 43.7 percent.

“One year after deployment, 94% of users reported that they found the device to be helpful, 96.3% expressed a desire to have the brackets expanded to nonoperating room anesthetizing locations, and 96.2% would like to have them in other hospitals where they may work at present or in the future,” concluded the researchers.

“Measures of practitioner adoption and satisfaction with the device one year after implementation suggest that this intervention resulted in a high-value, meaningful culture change and may yield similar improvements outside of our own institution.”

While 3D printing has made huge impacts within bioprinting and the creation of devices and implants directly affecting patients—offering a better quality of life—this technology has also been responsible for a variety of different models and mechanisms that allow for improved, more efficient processes in hospitals. Find out more about the new syringe bracket here. What do you think of this news? Let us know your thoughts! Join the discussion of this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com.

Final selective laser-sintering 3D-printed bracket and accompanying bougie holder in use. ‘e bracket clips securely to the corner of the anesthesia machine and accepts five 10–20 mL BD syringes (standard setup including phenylephrine, ephedrine, glycopyrrolate, succinylcholine, and propofol shown).

[Source / Images: ‘Anesthesia Workspace Cleanliness and Safety: Implementation of a Novel Syringe Bracket Using 3D Printing Techniques’]

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Collaborative Research Team Develops Density-Graded Structure for Extrusion 3D Printing of Functionally Graded Materials

Microscopic photos of top and side views of printing results with a 0.38 mm wide extrusion path: (a) without versus (b) with overlapping by 0.36 mm respectively. Overlapping extrusion paths exhibit over-extrusion of material at the overlapping region, which results in unwanted blobs on the surface of the print.

Plenty of research has been completed in regards to FDM (extrusion) 3D printing, such as how to improve part quality and how to reliably fabricate functionally graded materials (FGM). The latter is what a collaborative team of researchers from Ultimaker, the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), and the Chinese University of Hong Kong are focusing on in their new research project.

The team – made up of researchers Tim KuipersJun Wu Charlie, and C.L. Wang – recently published a paper, titled “CrossFill: Foam Structures with Graded Density for Continuous Material Extrusion,” which will be presented at this year’s Symposium for Solid and Physical Modeling.

“In our latest paper we present a type of microstructure which can be printed using continuous extrusion so that we can generate infill structures which follow a user specified density field to be printed reliably by standard desktop FDM printers,” Kuipers, a Software Engineer and Researcher for Ultimaker, wrote in an email.

“This is the first algorithm in the world which is able to generate spatially graded microstructures while adhering to continuous extrusion in order to ensure printing reliability.”

Because 3D printing offers such flexible fabrication, many people want to design structures with spatially graded material properties. But, it’s hard to achieve good print quality when using FDM technology to 3D print FGM, since these sorts of infill structures feature complex geometry. In terms of making foam structures with graded density using FDM, the researchers knew they needed to develop a method to generate “infill structures according to a user-specific density distribution.”

The abstract reads, “In this paper, we propose a new type of density graded structure that is particularly designed for 3D printing systems based on filament extrusion. In order to ensure high-quality fabrication results, extrusion-based 3D printing requires not only that the structures are self-supporting, but also that extrusion toolpaths are continuous and free of self-overlap. The structure proposed in this paper, called CrossFill, complies with these requirements. In particular, CrossFill is a self-supporting foam structure, for which each layer is fabricated by a single, continuous and overlap-free path of material extrusion. Our method for generating CrossFill is based on a space-filling surface that employs spatially varying subdivision levels. Dithering of the subdivision levels is performed to accurately reproduce a prescribed density distribution.”

Their method – a novel type of FDM printable foam structure – offers a way to refine the structure to match a prescribed density distribution, and provides a novel self-supporting, space-filling surface to support spatially graded density, as well as an algorithm that can merge an infill structure’s toolpath with the model’s boundary for continuity. This space-filling infill surface is called CrossFill, as the toolpath resembles crosses.

“Each layer of CrossFill is a space-filling curve that can be continuously extruded along a single overlap-free toolpath,” the researchers wrote. “The space-filling surface consists of surface patches which are embedded in prism-shaped cells, which can be adaptively subdivided to match the user-specified density distribution. The adaptive subdivision level results in graded mechanical properties throughout the foam structure. Our method consists of a step to determine a lower bound for the subdivision levels at each location and a dithering step to refine the local average densities, so that we can generate CrossFill that closely matches the required density distribution. A simple and effective algorithm is developed to merge a space-filling curve of CrossFill of a layer into the closed polygonal areas sliced from the input model. Physical printing tests have been conducted to verify the performance of the CrossFill structures.”

The researchers say that the user prescribes density distribution, and can use CrossFill and its space-filling surfaces, with continuous cross sections, to “reliably reproduce the distribution using extrusion-based printing.” CrossFill surfaces are built by using subdivision rules on prism-shaped cells, each of which contains a surface patch that’s “sliced into a line segment on each layer to be a segment” of the toolpath, which will be made with a constant width; cell size determines the density.

“By adaptively applying the subdivision rules to the prism cells, we create a subdivision structure of cells with a density distribution that closely matches a user-specified input,” the team wrote. “Continuity of the space-filling surface across adjacent cells with different subdivision levels – both horizontally and vertically – is ensured by the subdivision rules and by post-processing of the surface patches in neighboring cells.”

The subdivision system distinguishes an H-prism, which is built by cutting a cube in half vertically along a diagonal of the horizontal faces, and a Q-prism, generated by spitting a cube into quarters along the faces’ diagonals. To learn more about this system and the team’s algorithms, check out the paper in its entirety.

Schematic overview of our method. The top row shows a 2D analogue of our method for clear visualization. The prism-shaped cells in the bottom row are visualized as semi-opaque solids to keep the visualization uncluttered. Red lines in the bottom row highlight the local subdivisions performed in the dithering phase.

The researchers also explained the method’s toolpath generation in their paper, starting with how to slice the infill structure into a continuous 2D polygonal curve for each layer of the object, which is followed by fitting a layer’s curve “into the region of an input 3D model.”

Experiments measuring features like accuracy, computation time, and elastic behavior were completed on an Intel Core i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70 GHz, using test structures 3D printed out of white TPU 95A on Ultimaker 3 systems with the default Cura 4.0 profile of 0.1 mm layer thickness. The team also discussed various applications for CrossFill, such as imaging phantoms for the medical field or cushions and packaging.

“The study of experimental tests shows that CrossFill acts very much like a foam although future work needs to be conducted to further explore the mapping between density and other material properties,” the researchers concluded. “Another line of research is to further enhance the dithering technique, e.g. changing the weighing scheme of error diffusion.”

CrossFill applications. (a) Bicycle saddle with a density specification. A weight of 33 N is added on various locations to show the different response of different density infill. (b) Teddy bear with a density specification. (c) Shoe sole with densities based on a pressure map of a foot. (d) Stanford bunny painted with a density specification. (e) Medical phantom with an example density distribution for calibrating an MRI scanning procedure.

The team’s open source implementation is available here on GitHub. To learn more, check out their video below:

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