3D Printers For Peace Contest

First time accepted submitter Bas_Wijnen writes "3D printing is being condemned in the media because of the potential for printing guns. Engineers at Michigan Tech believe there is far more potential for 3D printers to make our lives better rather than killing one another. To encourage thinking about constructive uses of 3D printing technology Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab and Type A Machines sponsor the first 3-D Printers for Peace Contest. Designers are encouraged to consider: If Mother Theresa of Ghandi had access to 3D printing what would they print? What kind of designs could help reduce military spending and conflict while making us all safer and more secure? Anyone in the United States may enter and there is no cost."

Comments

Armor?

[Nidi62]

3D print kevlar body armor, or maybe a ceramic ballistic plate?

Mother Theresa is an unfortunate choice

[Richard_J_N]

I think Mother Theresa would choose not to print anything.
She was a friend of poverty, not of the poor, and considered suffering to be a state of grace.
She was a rather nasty piece of work, who kept the poor in poverty, and prevented many dying people from getting access to medicine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60

Some of these things are not like the others

[Dave Emami]

I really, really want to be for this. Not because I have anything against 3D-printed guns, I'm all for those, but because some of the things on their list are good ideas and make sense. Some of the other stuff is pure nonsense, however.

"Low-cost medical devices." Excellent idea. "Tools to help people out of poverty." Also excellent. Lots of potential in both of these to improve, and in many cases save, people's lives.

But then we get to "Designs that can reduce racial conflict." Err, what? Someone is waaay overestimating how effective their "Coexist" bumper sticker is. It would be nice if 3D printers could produce some sort of object for people to brandish at racists like crucifixes at vampires, but it's not going to happen. "Tools that would reduce military conflict and spending while making us all safer and more secure." Look, I'm for reducing conflict and increasing safety and security, too, but if an object to do that hasn't been created using more-mundane fabrication methods, a 3D printer won't be able to make it, either -- and there aren't any such objects, unless (like me and apparently unlike the folks sponsoring this) you think that being armed makes you more secure.

This is being run by Michigan Tech's Department of of Material Science and Engineering, but it looks like someone from one of the squishy majors snuck in and added items to the list. I hope there are a lot medical and tool ideas submitted (pity they don't have a way to donate money to increase the prize), but I really wish they hadn't included the silly, groan-inducing stuff.

Re:Just wanna say

[Artifakt]

1. Stopping an attacker more quickly is often the important consideration to designers. Modern firearms achieve that 'more quickly' by increasing lethality. Hollow point rounds, Glazier slugs, and high capacity magazines are generally all methods of stopping more people faster, but the 'stopping' part converts pretty directly to killing more often, or in larger numbers, and trying to make a semantic distinction there is psychobabble. 'Stopping' by deterence is far from all 'stopping', and if we are talking logically here, show me one perp who has ever claimed he would have continued with his attack except he realized the pistol he faced had 17 rounds and not just 6. Yes, I'll freely concede that deterrance sometimes works. Hell, I've used it myself. Now what about all that other stopping?

2. I'm a former enlisted soldier who eventually took a comission as a military officer, and who has actually trained people with things the professionals call guns (up to 120 mm MBT pieces) and not just those silly pistols and rifles and such. I can't count the number of times I have disagreed with someone on the NRA right and recieved that lecture that starts with "Guns don't kill people...", as though anyone who disagrees with any point in their playbook must be that totally ignorant. I've had my claim to service challenged, by people who admit they have never served, but can't believe anyone who disagrees with them over any point at all might have given more to the USA than they did. I've had people tell me that only people who were wounded count as real patriots, or that Desert Shield/Storm didn't count as real combat or even real service, because I disagreed with an NRA talking point. I've had self professed NRA spokesmen accuse me of war crimes, saying without any evidence what-so-ever that if I really served at all, I was probably the kind of bad soldier who shot unarmed civilians and ran from real combat. Your post is more of the same - defending verbal tricks by insulting everybody who disagrees with you.
          You don't know me. You probably didn't mean any of your remarks about illogical libtards and such to apply to me. But I have met enough of the people on your side that stoop to that that I do hold you responsible for standing alongside them. Please don't ever thank me for my service, it would sound too much like you spitting on it.