open source

Researchers Combine 3D Printing, Microcomputers, and Simple Electronics to Make Small, Inexpensive Laboratory System

We’ve heard of open source 3D printer filament, open source software, open source designs, and of course, open source 3D printers. But what about open labware? Researchers from the University of…

3D Printing News Briefs: July 18, 2017

We’re diving headfirst into some 3D printing legal and business news for today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and then moving on to an additive manufacturing competition and a new additive…

Girl Missing Three Fingers Wants to Throw Out the First Pitch at Every Major League Baseball Park, and 3D Printing Stepped Up to the Plate

While 3D printed prosthetics are good at helping people complete simple tasks like holding a pen or opening a door, we’ve also seen some special 3D printed prostheses for use…

UC Santa Barbara Scientist Receives Prestigious $3M DoD Fellowship to Fund Research in Developing 3D Printing Platform for Extreme-Use Materials

Scientist Tresa Pollock, the chair of the Materials Department at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), doesn’t work in the extreme conditions of outer space herself, but rather works…

Sound Designer Develops 3D Printed Modular Synthesizer: All Open Source, Open Hardware

Musician and sound designer José Luis González Castro has a lot of experience with video game sound effects and creation, which paved the way for his current project. Castro is working to…

Dark Chip Industrial 3D Printer Series Features Closed Loop Control and Open Source Software

Over the years, we’ve seen Kickstarter campaigns for many 3D printers: some of them have been extremely successful, like Stacker’s S2 industrial 3D printer and the Snapmaker. Others, like the NIX… from…

IC3D and Aleph Objects Announce Availability of First-Ever Open Source 3D Printer Filament

Open source fans, which include much of the 3D printing community, rejoiced in March when Aleph Objects, maker of the beloved open source LulzBot 3D printers, announced that they had…

Should Desktop 3D Printing Be Open Source or Closed Source?

Open source development has brought a lot of advantages to desktop 3D printing. Is our flirtation with open source a youthful indiscretion that will soon be discarded? Or is open…

Autodesk Discontinues Manufacture of Open Source Ember 3D Printer

A big upheaval happened at Autodesk in February when CEO Carl Bass announced his resignation, as did board members Scott Ferguson and Jeff Clarke. This week, Autodesk users need to…

Open Source 3D Printing: LulzBot and IC3D Team Up for First-Ever Open Source 3D Printer Filament

Open source is an ideology important to much of the 3D printing community; the ethos is at the foundation of many companies involved in the scene from the beginning, and…

Open-Source Ultimaker Files Its First Patent – But Don’t Panic, the 3D Printer Manufacturer Says

The popularity of Ultimaker is for a number of reasons. Yes, the company does produce reliable, high-quality 3D printers that consistently makes the top of “best 3D printers” lists, but one of the…

The OpenFlexure Microscope: A Lifesaving Water-Testing Device You Can 3D Print at Home

I remember looking at some really interesting things through a microscope when I was in grade school, and wishing that I had my own. Eventually I did, but it was…

Michigan Tech’s Dr. Joshua Pearce Reveals the High Overall Return on Investment for At-Home 3D Printing Use

What originally began as a school to train mining engineers in the late 1880s has grown into a leading tech university, where 3D printing has been on the curriculum for…

RIT Student Combines HoloLens Glasses with HTC Vive System to Make New Shared Reality App

Whether you’re reaching out and grabbing items in a game using the Dexma Exoskeleton, or taking an up close and personal look at the human brain, what’s not to love about…

Italy’s WitLab Creates 3D Printed ArcheoRov, Ready for Underwater Archaeological Expeditions

I really enjoy learning, and writing, about drones. There are a lot of applications for drone technology, ranging from the more mundane (but fun!) pizza delivery to cutting-edge drones being used…

3D Printed Models Aid in Sex Education for Visually Impaired Students

My sixth-grader just went through a round of sex education at his middle school. The first thing I learned from him is that he had no idea that I knew…

KLAKS 3D: University Students in Ghana Build 3D Printer from Electronic Waste in Two Weeks

In February, we told you about the East African Buni Hub maker lab, and the Tanzanian students who built Africa’s first e-waste 3D printer. Following in their footsteps, a 22-year-old from…

Design Company HUSH Creates Web-Based Tool ‘TopoTopo,’ Users Can Create and Print 3D Topographical Puzzles

Yesterday was my ninth wedding anniversary, which means that nine years ago today, my husband and I were flying to Florida, hoping we’d make it to our honeymoon cruise on…

Addressing Planned Obsolescence with 3D Printing

Imagine that you had invented a thingamajig that was widely recognized to be of high quality and very useful. Soon, everyone was buying one and your hard-earned investment was paying…

EngiMake’s Fully Customizable, 3D Printable QuadBot Hits Kickstarter

C-3PO, WALL-E, Robbie, Bishop, the T-800…there are so many robots out there, and everyone has their favorite. Personally, I’m a big fan of R2-D2. But he may have just been dethroned,…

Makefast Workshop Offers Material Hacks for 3D Printing

The team at Makefast Workshop is made up of the dynamic and brilliant Maura Atwater and Adam Kumpf, who bill themselves as Navigator and Melder, respectively. With their impressive resumes,…

Licensing with Open Source and Creative Commons: Not as Simple as it Seems

The culture of sharing is deeply embedded in the 3D printing community. This doesn’t mean that it is universal, but rather that it is more of a choice not to…

3D Printed Scaffold for Artistic Cell Culture

At the juncture between creative exploration and scientific technology lies the work of Amy Karle, who is the current Artist in Residence at Autodesk. The idea behind her work was…

Zizzy the Robot Uses 3D Printed Artificial Muscles to Assist Those Lacking Mobility

One area that 3D printing technology and robotics have successfully intertwined with one another is the production of assistive devices. Whether it’s a 3D printed robotic arm that helps with…