Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

3-D Printer Creates Buildings From Dust and Glue

Posted by timothy on from the one-layer-at-a-time dept.

An anonymous reader writes "D-Shape, an innovative new 3-D printer, builds solid structures like sculptures, furniture, even buildings from the ground up. The device relies on sand and magnesium glue to actually build structures layer by layer from solid stone. The designer, Enrico Dini, is even talking with various organizations about making the printer compatible with moon dust, paving the way for an instant moonbase!"

3 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Sand and Magnesium as resources... by Dilligent · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...sounds like a great choice as resources to use. As Sand is basically silicon and readily available, magnesium is also the 7th most abundant in th earths crust. It seems like this thing could go a long way towards very cheap mass production of all sorts of solid things very cheaply. There is also the RepRap project but they use plastics which I'm afraid are quite expensive as resource, although they kind of target a different area. I'm excited by this, I've been following these ideas for a while and it seems to be going somewhere, I guess we're getting closer to general purpose building machines.

  2. Re:Moondust-From Wikipedia by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can you say bad Idea?

    Fiberglass particulate is just as nasty and it's in your home right now! *ominous look upwards* Oh, wait... it's sealed behind a wall. Nevermind. Same principle apples to "space dust". Build the structure, then coat the insides or attach walls to make it a happy fun place for all.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  3. The summary links to a blog quoting a blog ... by IMustBeNewHere · · Score: 5, Informative

    The original story is longer, with more pictures...