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Is 3D Printing the Future of Disaster Relief?
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Advocates for the technology say that it's only a matter of time before we're shipping raw materials and 3D printers instead of medical supplies to the site of a disaster. 3D printers are already being used in the medical field to create customized tracheal valves, umbilical cord clamps, splints, and even blood vessels. A group in Haiti is already using the umbilical cord clamps to show locals the potential for the technology. And it's only a matter of time before they get deployed in a disaster scenario, according to Thomas Campbell, a Virginia Tech professor and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council."
Listen to yourselves. This is so delusional I don't even have the energy to explain it to you.
To me it seems crazy to spend so much on a 3-D printing costs when there are cheaper, easier solutions. The umbilical chord clamp: Teach people they can just leave the baby attached to the placenta till it dries out, or tie it of with string or anything else they have at hand before cutting the chord.
Why not? If it is disaster you just want to rip open a bag and have the item you want right there and then.
Not have to depend on a 3D printer that may or may not have been damaged, materials that may or may not have been contaminated, electricity supply that may or may not work and operator who may or may not be available. You just want to grab a sealed bag and use its contents straight away.
Furthermore, Haiti only needs to print these clamps because its entire social structure is so corrupt that money that was send to buy these clamps did not arrive and any medical supplies get stolen. How long do you think it will be before 3d printers go missing same as emergency generators have gone missing? The Haiti disaster is NOT the earth quake anymore it is the total corruption of its society and funneling in expensive toys will not fix it.
Ten to one within a month this 3d printer will have sprouted legs and walked out of the building.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What's the point printing food with food?
BS
http://www.psfk.com/2013/10/3d-printed-bread-pasta.html
Takes a day to "print" food in unmentioned quantities, social media enabled, input is already food. Not sure how this will be better than emergency rations that can be made available in large volume in minutes.
http://3dprintingindustry.com/2012/11/18/video-3d-printing-chocolate/
That is revolutionary, it produces chocolate turtles from molten chocolate, the worlds hunger problems are solved /sarcasm
Neither of these inventions actually produce food in a way that would help in a disaster unless your disaster fits into /r/firstworldproblems.
It doesn't print food. It prints with food. If your kitchen printer can make a printed chocolate bar, you already had edible chocolate. If you can print pasta, you already had flour and water and could have made a passable flatbread with nothing more than a mixing bowl and a hot skillet.
In a disaster zone, the shape of the food is not the priority. Just having calories and vitamins, in any form, will do.
Regarding your first example, it is a machine that makes bread (I guess in various shapes) out of dough, but if you have the dough, a regular bread machine would be more efficient, and a regular oven would be even more efficient as long as you have a human available to kneed the dough. And many kinds of ovens work without electricity.
Regarding the second example, it is a machine that makes shaped chocolates, which will be poorly tempered compared to molded chocolates, and once again, you have to have the chocolate as an input. Setting aside for a moment the question of weather chocolate is an appropriate thing to spend disaster resources on; if you are in a disaster area, who cares if the chocolate candies are shaped like turtles? I know this is just an example, and your argument is intended to imply that the state of the art of 3D printed food is constantly advancing, it still faces the fundamental limitation that you have to have the food already, there is no forthcoming breakthrough that will synthesize food from constituent chemical elements. You know, other than regular old agriculture.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
While the idea behind utilizing the additive manufacturing technology in helping out emergency medical cases right inside the disaster area sounds probable, the title of TFA ( " Is 3D Printing the Future of Disaster Relief? " )is totally bonker.
Whoever wrote TFA had never worked in disaster relief --- else the writer would know that the logistic requirement in association with the additive manufacturing (clean room, electricity supply, et cetera) is hard to come by in a true disaster scenario.
That is why most of the seriously injured vitims were routinely been transported OUT of the disaster area because much better conditions exists outside rather than inside the disaster area.
Plus, do not ever forget that additive manufacturing technology as what we have right now is SUPER SLOW.
To print out a simple gadget takes hours.
That is, you already have the configuration file ready.
In an emergency situation, where can you find people who can produce the base file to make an implantable medical device ?
And ...
There are a lot nano-size DUST left over in the additive manufacturing process. That in itself creates another logistical headache for the disaster relief operation.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It would take a fair bit of work to get current printers to the point where they'd be useful in that situation, though. You don't necessarily have access to power or a laptop on the ground, so the whole package they'd have to drop would need to be self-contained and have a built-in list of shapes it could print. It would also have to print reasonably quickly and with reasonably good precision.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Sure, we can make edible food with just flour and water even blindfold,
If it's edible, we survive the disaster. Isn't that the point here?
but automated manufacturing systems (3D printers are just one, and will evolve)
It's a disaster. Exactly how many "automated manufacturing systems" are you planning to magically have available (with the power to run them)?
With flour, water, some fire source, and a flat surface that can survive heating, I can make flatbread in a matter of minutes. Your solution depends on complex technology being available and power to run it.
can in principle create vastly more complex products using large numbers of ingredients or components and with microscopic precision.
Umm, again, it's a freakin' disaster. Does anyone really give a crap about doing anything with "microscopic precision"? We're looking to survive, not do a lab experiment.
This would be totally beyond the capability of humans to reproduce in any reasonable span of time.
Anything that's "beyond the capability of humans to reproduce in any reasonable span of time" is probably not needed in a disaster scenario.
There's a disaster and people are only concerned with profits? Despicable!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...by stating the obvious. Who doesn't realize it's better to bring MREs and what have you at this date and time.. But this is being misunderstood on many levels. 1) COST. 3d printing is the future, and most of you know it. If it's as ubiquitous as the microwave, you can bet the machines themselves will be damn cheap, but that's the small point. The big point is related to : 2) SUPPLY. Do you bring a cake to a disaster site, or would it actually be CHEAPER to bring the supplies and 'bake it one site cheaply'? You bring flour and concentrated eggs. What's more expensive, set up a kitchen, or a printer? Don't tell me you bring MREs and feed people for WEEKS on these things. Does FEMA do this now? Of course not. 3) FLEXIBILITY: How many bandaids do you need? need a broken pipe fixed immediately with a special hard to find part? 3d printers will be EVERYWHERE, especially in NICHE markets where you may need anything on a moments notice, or where you can't predict supply, it'll be cheaper than overshipping, and better than not shipping enough. Since you can use, and will be able to use more, a variety of materials in multiple ways. You need pipes, pliers, medical tools? Bring a couple chunks of metal in perfect squares that stack neatly and can be printed in a million ways. 4) THE OBVIOUS IS NOT YOUR OBVIOUS: Who cares if it's the future, it's definitely not the "far" future. People are thinking about ways in which the technology will truly be beneficial. FEMA already deploys tons of it's own power.. What's wrong with a generator and solar cells? They are already shipped en masse. Do you all know anything about disaster relief? Just felt like being opinionated on it? The negative sentiment misses the points of everything entirely..
-Ultimate Stickman Game Developer Infinite World Puzzler