The Seven Samurais Of 3D Printing

The Seven Samurais Of 3D Printing

- Tanmay Shah

Out of all the futuristic technologies that have caught the masses’ imagination, 3D printing perhaps takes the top spot as the most popular (remember Replicator from Star Wars? Or Tom Cruise’s face masks in Mission Impossible series?), along with time travel and teleportation. One major difference though, unlike time travel or teleportation, 3D printing is real and is happening right now!

What is 3D printing? A Beginners Guide 

The technology is taking over manufacturing sectors around the globe by storm. But surprisingly enough, a large number of people are still oblivious to 3D printing, and unaware of the presence it has in their day to day lives. For example, did you know that almost every hearing aid that you see is 3D printed? Or that most cars that launched in the market are first prototyped using 3D printing?

We’ve got you covered. Here are 7 interesting trivia on 3D printing that you can impress your friends with the next time you discuss technology:

1. Virtually anything can be 3D printed 

You read that right, anything. From jewellery to car engines to entire houses to even edibles like pizza and pasta, you name it and it can be 3D printed. As an advanced manufacturing technology, 3D printing is only limited by a man’s imagination. And science backs that claim with sound logic.

You see, 3D printing as a process works by taking digital designs as input and then converting them into physical objects. Thanks to this, artefacts like ‘ball inside a ball inside a ball’ that were deemed nigh impossible to make under traditional manufacturing process, are now being 3D printed with relative ease. Theoretically, anything that can be created in the digital space with the aid of the human mind, can be translated to 3 solid dimensions by a 3D printer large enough to accommodate it.