3D Printing News Unpeeled: Masks for Babies, Planters and AirLogic

HB3D 3D prints planters, pots and more from consumer waste for dECOdrops. This medium format 3D printing application using TRANSMARE´s material r-UltraMarathon leads to commercially available planters using 3D printing from $180 to $1200. Meanwhile a team in Madrid lead by Antonio Martín-Gónzález at the Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre have made custom nasal masks for premature babies. Small children, especially those who weigh less than a Kilo often can not use regular child nasal masks to give them oxygen. This means that they have to be intubated, often for long periods. This has negative health effects for them. Due to this the team have used a scan to create a custom face mask to help them breathe. Lovely idea although I would council against the team using stereolithography as they have done here. Valkyrie Savage from the University of Copenhagen has together with a group of researchers developed AirLogic. AirLogic is a series of ¨logic gates¨ made in pneumatics. Circuits of 3D printed channels can respond to inputs. This could be a kind of alphabet for soft robotics or a completely new way to make things.