Portugal RepRapAlgarve Workshop Group Makes Fully 3D Printed Body To Scale

He’s here….(cue in the creepy Halloween music)…that’s right, folks–the moment we’ve been waiting for with excitement, anticipation, and even fear, has finally arrived. He’s a fully 3D printed body fabricated to scale. And while he may not actually be able to fog a mirror, help you clean up the house, or even walk on his own, he’s impressive for sure–and you can bet the team from Raw Botics was quite pleased with their results as well, completed during a RepRapAlgarve workshop.

After 500 hours of work, a very impressive group of makers in Portugal were able to put their finishing touches on a complete 3D printed replica of one of their members, Luis Sousa, and the likeness is eerie indeed–similar to the figure we saw last month of Kecheng Lu of 3DP Unlimited.

This 3D printed human model is composed of 88 individual pieces.

The team made a meticulous 3D scan of the body. Using four Prusa i3 printers, with build areas of 18 x 18 x 18 cm, they divided the parts up for 3D printing, with the end result being a model standing 1.8 meters high, which the group then had to put together.

“After printing, all 88 pieces were glued together and [we] built the model as a puzzle. We proceeded then with post-print processing applying putty, sanded with fine sandpaper, applied epoxy resin and finally it was hand-painted to offer as much realism as possible,” Luis Carlos of the 3D printing team told 3DPrint.com. “In total, this project has more than 600 hours of work, creating one of the largest 3D printed parts any time made with a regular printer.”

The RepRapAlgarve 3D printing assembly workshops, conducted at the University of Algarve, promote the open-source concept in an effort to train new student designers and participants, stimulate the technology, and accelerate innovation in the hopes of creating ‘new sources of global wealth.’ They offer an environment where anyone, regardless of previous knowledge or training, can ‘build and carry a fully functional 3D printer.’

The university offers weekend workshops, often running around 18 hours in total, where those who are new to 3D printing can learn about everything from the basic introduction to 3D printing to the actual building of and operation of the machines. With no prior knowledge necessary, attendees learn how to build a 3D printer, install the electronics, calibrate it, and how to install the software. Afterward, the groups of five to ten people each advance to learning about 3D printing and actually making an item.

Obviously this group had some pretty good instruction as well as more advanced 3D printing experience by the time they got around to construction to the 3D printed likeness of Luis. Their next workshop dates are October 31st and November 1st 2015, with registration ending on October 26^th. The general cost per workshop is €399.

What are your thoughts on this story?  Discuss in the 3D Printed to scale human body forum thread on 3DPB.com