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3D-Printed Car Takes Its First Test Drive
An anonymous reader points out this advancement in 3D printing. This week, at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago, Arizona-based automobile manufacturer Local Motors stole the show. Over the six day span of the IMTS, the company managed to 3D print and assemble an entire automobile, called the "Strati," live in front of spectators. Although the Strati is not the first ever car to be 3D printed, the advancements made by Local Motors with help from Cincinnati Inc, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have produced a vehicle in days rather than months.
No, "does it drive" is well down the list of questions I would ask. I want to know whether all the parts were printed, material costs, labor costs, whether it's street legal, safety, durability and/or ease of repair... In short I want to know whether there's a logical rational to saying anything but "meh". Considering they dodged every one of those questions the answers are probably down Meh road, past Slashvertisement junction, left at Hype street and first notachanceinhell on your left.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
They made the car extra small to print it quicker.
Can someone tell me why the roll bar is significantly below the heads of both people sitting inside? What's the point? So you're slightly less dead when the car rolls over?
They forgot the front roll bar too, around the windscreen. It's just a piece of glass or plastic.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...
No one said you couldn't. But no one has previous printed such a large piece, so precise, and so fast. Its an engineering milestone, not the discovery of radioactivity.
If todays geeks were alive to see the first model t the'd be bitching about how much better other cars were, and how it was nothing new. The new-ness is how it was made and how cheaply it was made.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.