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3D Printing a 'Terminator' Arm ... Or a Whole Body
Nerval's Lobster writes "One of the 600 3D-printed objects on display at a new London Science Museum exhibit is a Terminator-lookalike prosthetic arm designed by a 3D printing research group at the University of Nottingham, to demonstrate how printers can create both strong structural pieces, multi-directional joints and electronics to power touch sensors as part of a single process. "It's a mock-up but it shows circuits that sense temperature, feel objects and control the arm's movement," according to Richard Hague, director of the university's Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Research Group. The design is a step up in complexity from Robohand, an open-source engineering project launched in 2011 to design printable prostheses for those who have lost fingers or hands. The project posted many of its designs, including a full set of anatomically driven mechanical fingers, online for free download. Other manufacturers are exploring how robotics can best intersect with the human body and its need for replacement parts: pieces from 17 manufacturers went into "The Incredible Bionic Man," a full-body robotic prostheses assembled from artificial organs, limbs and other parts to demonstrate the current state-of-the-art for a Smithsonian Channel documentary due to air Oct. 20. The robot is 6'7, and able to stand and take a step with assistance; it contains a functioning heart, kidney, arms, legs, eyes and other parts. It also has a prosthetic, mobile face designed as a replacement for people who have lost noses or other features to accidents or disease."
The problem with web design is the really talented artists have no technical skills and the technical designers have little artistic ability. Welcome to 3D design of prosthetic limbs like noses and fingers, as the article mentioned. You think a doctor can sculpt a realistic nose in a 3D design software. Hell no! You think a graphics artist can make it medically perfect and attach it? Hell no. So this is not nearly as smooth as the article makes it seem.
i would like a robotic gorilla and be locked in the cage wearing a gorilla suit and at one moment i will gasp and my eyes will freeze wide open
this will continue until i am tired and my gorilla friend is satisfied
Damn toy autocorrect!
It's a nerdy looking robot, and does Terminator look nerdy?
I think not!
a Republic with liberty and justice for all? There's a nation under God over here that could use some replacement parts.
Cant find them...
Have we had enough of these stories already?
OK, designs can be shared and manufactured anywhere you have a printer which is a good thing, but apart frpm avaliability and cost I don't see how this is so amazingly different from things such as computer controlled lathes and welding which have been around for decades.
Oh, second link has them. Wow, called it.
Fab@Home's approach makes more sense to me: have multiple attachments that can extrude a variety of materials. So you have one set of nozzles that print the circuits and another that prints the structural components. Layer-by-layer deposition that's used now would probably not survive because of the different amounts of contraction as different materials cool, or the possibility that the deposition of a metallic material would re-melt structural material and distort it.
Rate of printing is also a limiting factor now, but at least one of the models I saw at the Maker Faire in NYC a couple weeks ago was addressing that problem by having multiple nozzles. But give it time. We're in the very, very early days yet. 6 years ago Bre Pettis, the founder of MakerBot, was teaching public school in Brooklyn. We're only a couple years past when the first model hit the market, and with the rate of evolution we've seen so far it won't be long at all before the whole world has changed.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I'd argue that missing a brain is missing an effing whole lot more than just 30-40% of what makes us human.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Let's see, eat... sleep... shit... fuck... I guess that covers most of what humans do, and this thing doesn't do any of it.
I for one welcome our 3d printed overlords.
the Smithsonian Channel original documentary, "The Incredible Bionic Man."
Not original at all. If you want to see the what's likely the entire program before it airs on Smithsonian, it's almost certainly a dubbed over and slightly recut version of the Channel 4 documentary How to Build a Bionic Man. Same presenter, same robot, aired back in February. UK viewers (or those with a UK proxy) can watch it on 4od, those outside the UK can likely fine a torrent with ease.
if a biological structure, the work is done by nature
Nature makes mistakes.
It cannot foresee every complication.
Prosthetics have to be both aesthetically and functionally part of your patient's body, meeting its unique requirements.
Damaged organs affect the performance of other organs --- you need to look at the system as a whole and find solutions that nature doesn't provide.