3D Printing News Briefs, March 20, 2021: Loop & SAFEEars, AMufacture & Jellypipe, SME

In 3D Printing News Briefs today, we’ve got some business stories to tell you about, and then news on a 3D printing challenge. Loop, of 3D printed ear plug fame, is donating to SAFFEars, while AMufacture is the latest to join the Jellypipe 3D printing ecosystem. Finally, SME has extended the deadline for its Digital Manufacturing Challenge.

Loop Donating Portion of Sales in March

In 2018, a company called Loop came on the scene with its stylish, cylindrical 3D printed ear plugs, which allow sound waves to enter and pass through a hollow, acoustic chamber that protects the eardrum, but doesn’t distort sounds, like speech and music. The company wanted to break the taboo that ear plugs were ugly and boring, while also raising awareness about hearing loss prevention, and it’s continuing this initiative still today. During the month of March, Loop will donate $1 from each sale of a set of its ear plugs to an organization called SAFEEars, which also works to raise awareness about hearing loss and how to prevent it through education and support.

“SAFEEars motivate individuals of all ages to take action against noise-induced hearing loss by understanding the cause and the solutions and prevent lifelong hearing damage for good.”

Prices for a pair of Loop ear plugs range from $14.95 to $34.95, and you can also choose to donate to SAFEEars without purchasing a pair of the 3D printed ear plugs.

AMufacture Joins Jellypipe 3D Printing Ecosystem

The latest addition to Jellypipe, which is working to democratize 3D printing use through its international 3D printing online ecosystem, is UK company AMufacture, a 3D printing services company that also offers injection molding, generative design, and CNC technologies. Jellypipe users have access to a massive resource of advices, consultation, and knowledge to ensure that they’re making the best 3D printing decisions in terms of method, materials, and post-processing. The ecosystem has been working hard to increase its European reach to include the Ireland and UK market, and AMufacture’s global technology network and in-house capabilities, and belief that AM’s flexibility makes it possible for users to make their production cycles easier, make it a good fit for the growing Jellypipe platform.

“We already have a framework and platform that we like to consider is plug-and-play in terms of ease-of-use for our clients. However, we are always looking to extend that reach and integrating with the Jellypipe AM ecosystem enables us to leverage into a new sphere of clients and delivering a service that will grow as we do,” explained Will Howden, the COO of AMufacture. “This is an exciting time for AM, and to be on the ground floor with Jellypipe in the UK we view as a huge opportunity. Jellypipe focuses on best pricing for their clients meaning being part of their ecosystem ensures competitiveness whilst at the same time building an understanding of AM for users on both sides. This will lead to a more efficient and transparent AM market moving forward.”

SME Extends Deadline for Digital Manufacturing Challenge

As we’ve all seen and experienced over the past many months, the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a multitude of public health difficulties around the world, and the economic consequences of the crisis are immense, but 3D printing has definitely helped numerous times. This fast, focused digital manufacturing response was important on a number of levels, such as rapid deployment, part count and weight reduction, short product lifecycles, and more, and SME is highlighting these capabilities in its 2021 3D Digital Manufacturing Challenge, “Digital Manufacturing for Rapid Medical Response.” The deadline for student engineers and designers to submit proposals for this contest has been extended until June 1st, 2021, so there’s still time to sign up. Participants are asked to leverage their creativity and the full power of digital manufacturing—not just 3D printing, but also design, optimization, and analysis—to show how it can add value during a disruptive event, like the pandemic.

“The imperatives of exponential growth exhibited by the coronavirus pandemic challenge us to think beyond reactive and proactive to execute predictively by employing system-level tools such as big data and infrastructure modeling to anticipate and coordinate in real time with and among all involved and affected communities,” the challenge description states. “Given the lessons continuing to be learned, the 2021 Digital Manufacturing Challenge is a call for action to inspire the next generation of engineers to re-think ways to design, create, and utilize infrastructure-level systems that deploy engineering design and manufacturing solutions to strengthen infrastructure in the response, mitigation and/or prevention of such disruptive and devastating events and envision an optimistic view of healthy, robust, sustainable, smart, agile, peaceful communities.”

You can submit your proposals for SME’s 2021 3D Digital Manufacturing Challenge here.