3D Printing: Now and the Future

Somewhere, over a mountain range, a failing airplane part needs to be replaced. What if, instead of waiting for someone to discover the problem during a routine safety check, the part could signal for its own replacement, create a record of its flaws and set into motion an evolution of its own stronger, future predecessor? Upon landing, the improved part, printed while the flight was still in the air, could be installed.

Is this is a fantasy, or a realistic picture of the future? Will flexible, one piece machines make today’s assemblages of rigid parts look like antiques? It’s one thing to imagine machines evolving, but what about people? The way we see ourselves and the world might soon seem ancient as well. As manufacturing and fabrication methods continue to evolve, inspired by biology itself, in an ever-closer relationship between the physical and digital, the distant future of what it means to be human might look as radically different as the distant past--only faster. What kind of world will this be when hermit crabs resembling famous landmarks are the new normal?

What Innovation Looks Like

The future seems less far away and more bespoke every day. And it will be filled with new characters, like these from the Bold Machines project, an animated film called Margo.

As with most advances that end up radically changing the world, 3D printing might seem like silly fun to those who haven’t been closely following the industry. Technology is improving at a rapid clip, however, and new methods for improving manufacturing techniques are constantly being announced.

Many of the jobs of the future don’t exist yet, but the Department of Energy is already focused on creating the skills that will fill the need with a program to train workers. Already, there are robots made entirely of 3D printed parts. The FDA recently approved 3D printing for facial implants, an economical way to create options for patients in developing nations or those with specific needs that can be best met with a customized prosthesis, and a 12-year-old Chinese boy with bone cancer has a 3D printed spine, which will enable him to walk again after spending two months lying flat in a hospital bed.

Random Mutations

Jordan Husney, Strategy Director at Undercurrent, does things like explore biorobotics through the creation of remote controlled Venus Flytraps and work on this pen for a transformative museum visitor experience. He was instrumental in one of GE’s first forays into 3D printing, a Grabcad contest facilitated by Undercurrent that offered the engineers and others who use the site a chance to optimize, through what is known as “additive manufacturing,” a heavy bracket similar to those in a jet engine. A winner was chosen from 659 entries. GE has continued to develop its capacity for 3D printing engine parts. Husney’s conclusion? Hardware is beginning to act like software.

Husney told me something about one of the contest entries that grabbed my imagination. The bracket design came paired with an algorithm that generated random genetic mutations so the part could evolve in response to environmental pressures.

In Episode 2 of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s spectacular new Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, genetic mutations and natural selection are explored in a way that brings the process to life. In addition to the random mutation that happens without our intervention, humans have long selected traits in order to guide transformation in animals and plants. The examples are many. We turned wolves into dogs, for example, and we’ve been genetically modifying agricultural products since the Sumerians and Babylonians. The creation of algorithms and machines capable of directing their own evolution is a radical new dimension unique to this period in human history. The earliest stage of genetic manufacturing, the creation of material that can assemble itself from a genetic blueprint, is underway.

“When things become digital, the pace of evolution rapidly increases,” Husney said. “Feedback loops become much tighter. As the pace increases, a much broader diversity of experimentation takes place.”

Additive manufacturing, he said, will rock your retail base.

The Arrival of a Mini-Me

Earlier this year, a box arrived at Science House with a very tiny version of me inside. Small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, the sandstone statue wore the lilac colored scarf, black boots and jeans I’d been wearing the day I was scanned by Shapeways at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) to generate the 3D file that would be used to print a copy.

In the future, however, a replica won’t just be made of gypsum powder, dye and superglue, like the 5,000 tiny statues of people who attended the exhibit at MAD. We may get new organs printed, manufactured in a variety of ways, perhaps including dissolvable blood vessel networks printed in sugar to help those organs function.

Currently, 3D printers only create objects using a single material at a time. The world of 3D printing is going to change radically, Shapeways evangelist Duann Scott said, when machines can print using multiple materials simultaneously, enabling people to take ideas and turn them into products with time being the creators’ only investment. I use Shapeways to create my Treasure of the Sirens amphorae in precious metals including bronze, gold and platinum. The amphorae were pulled up from the sea. Ancient shipwrecks surround my ancestral island, where the mythological sirens once perched on black volcanic rocks to sing their songs about the future. Are the sirens real? Judge for yourself. I know for sure that the amphorae are, thanks to technology mixed with imagination.

Shapeways participated in the launch of Google’s #MadeWithCode project, during which girls heard from Mindy Kaling and Chelsea Clinton about coding and then created their own customized 3D printed bracelets. The company also just announced a partnership with Hasbro for printing copyrighted characters. Here’s hoping that this glimpse of the future will create an army of children who want to create the world they can imagine. Some of them are already well on their way.

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Rita J King is the EVP for Business Development at Science House, a cathedral of the imagination in Manhattan focused on the art and science of doing business. She is a strategist who specializes in the development of collaborative culture by making organizational culture visible so it can be measured and transformed. She is a senior advisor to The Culture Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and a Fellow at the Salzburg Global Forum. She makes Mystery Jars, writes about the future for Fast Company and invents story architecture, characters and novel technologies for film and TV as a futurist for the Science and Entertainment Exchange. Follow@RitaJKing on Twitter.