Remember 3-D printing?
It was the next big thing a couple of years ago, with visions of a world where we could print out most of our worldly goods on demand, and then it faded out of view. Two companies that jumped into the home 3-D printing market have jumped back out due to poor sales, and the hype disappeared.
Yet the technology didn’t. It continues to evolve and its uses continue to expand in homes and, more importantly, in businesses.
Which is why Science Cafe Concord is going to discuss 3-D printing tonight at 6 p.m. in our usual watering hole, The Draft Sports Bar, 67 S. Main St.
As always, the gathering is free and open to all – show up with your questions for our three panelists.
One panelists will be from SolidScape, a Merrimack firm that makes and sells 3-D printers for industry, especially dentists and jewelers; one will be from Technology Education Concepts in Concord, which uses the printers for education, and one will be from Manchester Makerspace, where 3-D printers are part of the fun.
“We have three,” said Steve Korzyniowski, a cofounder of that Queen City group. “One is a Makerbot (a popular brand), we have a homemade one, and we have one that was precut by a laser-cutter and manufactured (in the state).”
A makerspace or hackerspace, as you may know, is a organization that provides room and machinery for its members to use as they wish – the best description I’ve heard is that it’s a gym for geeks. New Hampshire has several of them, and they tend to reflect the personalities of their communities: In Portsmouth the scene is arts heavy while in Nashua, home of the state’s first makerspace, the emphasis is on engineering and pre-startup.
The Manchester Makerspace just opened in May, “adjacent to Club Manchvegas Bar and Grill,” said Korzyniowski, and has about 40 members. Proximity to the tech firms in the Manchester Millyard is likely to shape its personality.
Which leads to a question: Why doesn’t Concord have a public makerspace, huh? How about it, NHTI or St. Paul’s School or Concord School District – surely you’ve got room!
But I digress.
Most home 3-D printers melt types of plastic, usually dispensed via reels of filament, and squirt it down in thin layer upon thin layer, building up an object based on a computer-aided design, or CAD, file. It’s very cool, and this kind of “additive manufacturing” (you slowly add bits until it’s finished) allows structures to be built in ways that can’t be done via “subtractive manufacturing,” the traditional process in which you start with a piece of wood, stone or metal and carve away the bits you don’t need.
Businesses most often use these printers for rapid prototyping – quickly creating an example of a new design so it can be tested. Increasingly, however, they’re used to create specialized products from small widgets to most of a jet engine.
“They are actually investing in 3-D printers that print in metal. That has tremendous advantages because you can make the same products much lighter, because they can be printed with less but still have structural integrity. That’s a critical element in manufacturing right now,” said Korzyniowski.
Korzyniowski, like many people, thinks 3-D printers can help bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
“I sell (motors by remote-controlled trucks) on Ebay and I import them from China,” he said. “I’m working on seeing if I can just manufacture them here.”
Interesting stuff. But then, the discussion is always interesting at a Science Cafe. See you there!
Incidentally, if that strikes your fancy you might want to subscribe to my free newsletter – get a bit more Granite Geek in your week. There’s a signup form at bit.ly/monitornewsletters.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
Science Cafe Concord, free discussion about 3-D printing.
Tuesday, Nov. 14, at 6 p.m.
The Draft Sports Bar, 67 S. Main St.
For more information, check www.ScienceCafeNH.org
