July 15, 2025 • 32 mins
Today Will and Mango are exploring the world of 3D printing, from the 1940s sci-fi writer who anticipated its invention to some of its strangest modern uses, like rescuing turtles, making snacks, and solving the housing crisis. Plus: can a 3D printer 3D print a 3D printer?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what Will? What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So I was reading about three D printing this week
and I realized I've been thinking of it as a
new technology when really it's been around for nearly half
a century.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh wow, I actually had no idea I went back
that far. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So, the Japanese researcher Hideo Kodoma submitted the world's first
patent for a three D printer in nineteen eighty one,
and two years later, American inventor Chuck Hall created the
first working prototype. And before you ask, yes, we do
know what the first object you prayed was. It was
a little plastic eyewash cup. You know, I don't know
what I was expecting you to say, but that definitely
(00:59):
was not it. And what even is an eye wash cup?
It is a tiny cup with a curved rim to
fit around an eyeball, so if you get a piece
of dust in your eye, you can fill the cup
with water and flush it out.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Like, was this a recurring problem for Hull?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah? His eyes were notoriously dirty dirty.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
No, I'm actually not sure why he chose an eye
wash cup, And I know it sounds like a random
thing to make as the first three D printed object,
but to be fair, that would probably be the case no.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Matter what he picked.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
You know, it's still impressive that he was three D
printing over forty years ago. Like, I feel like I
only heard about.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
This in the last I don't know, at least within
the last decade, right.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, So it took a lot of years of fine
tuning to make three D printers affordable and simple enough
for the consumer market. But now that we have, it's
easy to see what guys like Codoma and Hall knew
the whole time, which is that three D printing is
truly revolutionary. It's transforming almost anything you can think of,
from construction to food prep to aerospace engineering. And of
(01:56):
course there's an incredible creative community that's developed around it too.
And the reason we're thinking about all of this is
that one of our listeners asked us to do an
episode about three D printing, and we love an intriguing request,
and we really wanted to know how people make things
out of thin air or thin plastics.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Hey, their podcast listeners welcome to part time genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangeshot Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass printing out the same sheet of paper for
what must be the hundredth time now, not exaggerating. He
just keeps printing. That's our friends and producer Dylan Fagan.
He just keeps loading and reloading the same sheet. He's
(02:56):
wasting a fortune on ink. But do you know what's
going on with this mango?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, he said he felt left out about not having
a three D printer, so he's using a two D
printer to print out a picture of a three D printer.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I guess the idea is if he prints it on
the same page enough times, eventually the ink would build
up and the picture will be three dimensional.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You know, that's an interesting idea.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I'm not sure that'll work, but you've got to admire
this guy's ingenuity always. And weirdly enough, that is basically
how a three D printer works. Like following instructions from
a digital file, the printer gradually builds an object by
adding one layer of material on top of another on
top of another, and the problem here is that you
need to use something a bit sturdier than liquid ink,
(03:37):
and most.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
People make three D printed objects out of plastic, right.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, but plastic is really just the tip of the iceberg.
So industrial three D printers can handle all kinds of
multiple materials, including ceramic, wood, fiber, paper, glass, even edible proteins.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Actually, oh, that's right, edible proteins. So will When was
the first time you heard about three D printers?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
You know, I feel like this probably goes back to
the days when we were working a little bit more
closely with the house Stuff Works team.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Even thinking back to.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
You know, Marshall Brain who founded so many years ago,
and remembering him talking about this, it might have been
a little more than a decade ago. It was probably
like fourteen fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
How about you.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I think about the same.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I remember.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Around twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen. The first time I
heard something interesting with three D printers was before this party.
They had all these attendees send in photos and then
as a party favor, they were handed a three D
printed pez dispenser of their own face.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Oh no, cool. I remember thinking that was just really
weird and fun.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
At the time. But the thing that really blew me
away was when they started talking about those three D
printed foods like pizzas and cookies, Like if you could
print a meal at home, that just seems so futuristic
to me.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
The London pop up you're talking about was called food Inc.
And even though it was only open for three days
back in twenty sixteen, it made an impression because it
was many people's introduction to the idea of printable meals. Now,
in the years since, lots of other companies have tinkered
with similar concepts, including a finished research center that's developing
vending machines that print snacks huh. And this Israeli food
(05:15):
tech company called Stakeholder Foods that's specializing in three D
printed meat, which sounds so weird.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
How do you print meat?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It's you know, you can load just about anything into
a three D printing syringe if it's a smooth consistency.
So Research as a Columbia did it with chicken puree
and ran it through a system that cooked it while
it was printing. But in the case of Stakeholder Foods,
the three D printed meat is actually plant based. They
make three D printed whitefish filets and steak using a
(05:46):
mixture of water, soy and pea protein, also oil and
a few other ingredients in there. And so these faux
meats have different textures, so the outside gets crisp when
you cook it, and the steaks even come with lines
of three D printed fat.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
That sounds so bizarre, but I guess it's fine as
long as it tastes good, right, So.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
The bad news about that. There was a Wired journalist
named Matt Reynolds and he did this taste test last
year and he described the Stakeholder meats as being quote
technically food, but ad they quote had all the joy
of licking a catering catalog. So you know, delicious food
might be an area where three D printing still has
a long way to go.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So you know, you mentioned that London restaurant and how
it was many people's first introduction to three D printed foods,
but Gabe tipped me off that Star Trek had a
machine called the Replicator that could produce anything on demand,
so basically a three D printer, and the crew mostly
used it to make food and drinks, which is pretty cool,
But I guess, as you were describing, we're not quite
(06:48):
there yet no.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
But I am glad you brought up the connection between
three D printing and science fiction, because this idea has
been a recurring theme in sci fi stories for some
time now, and some actually predate Charles Hol's Big Brain
break through in the early eighties. In fact, the earliest
known reference to three D printing was in a short
story by American novelist Murray Leinster. It was called Things
(07:09):
Passed By. It was published in nineteen forty five, about
four decades before hle printed his Eye wash Cup, and
it describes a machine that uses plastic to create three
dimensional objects from two dimensional drawings.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And I'm sure he described printing an eye wash cup.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I kind of wish.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
But now in this story, the tech is used to
build spaceships, and the process is incredibly similar to how
three D printers would eventually work. So Linser describes the
liquid plastic flowing through a hose connected to this moving
arm that gradually deposits blobs of plastic in shapes determined
by the drawing. Now, he likened it to an insect
spinning a cocoon, which I kind of actually love that description, and.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It's kind of accurate, right, Like, so Obviously this stuff
is rooted in sci fi. But walk me through some
of the real world applications of three D printing, Like
why were so many people excited about it?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
The since people are so enamored with three D printing
is because of its ability to help us prototype. Take
jewelry for instance, Like, Historically, it's been a very time
consuming process. So after coming up with an idea for
a piece of jewelry, the designer had to hand carve
a model from clay kind of sculpt out the details there.
Then they'd use that model to create a mold, and
(08:20):
then finally pour molten metal into the mold to create
this finished piece. That could take days or weeks or
even longer depending on how sophisticated it was. But now
jewelers can actually design new pieces digitally using CAD software
and three D print them as wax or like a
resin model, and then they can go from design to
prototype or even a finished product in just a few hours.
(08:42):
These days, about ninety percent of all jewelry sold in
the US has been made with some degree of three
D printing.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So what definitely do you mean by some degree?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, in addition to prototyping, designers can skip the mold
making stage and just print metal jewelry directly. This has
done through a process called laser centering, which also kind
of sounds like something they'd have in Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, star Trek, the next generation of jewelers, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, well, let me tell you what centering actually is.
So you spread this thin layer of metal powder on
a bed and then a laser fuses it together. Then
you spread a thin layer of powder on top of that,
and then laser it again, building layer by layer, and
after each sweep of the laser you add a fresh
layer of powder on top, and it keeps building until
(09:25):
the object's finished.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That's obviously incredible. But are we just using this for
jewelry or are there other applications?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
No, it's just jewelry.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
People have not figured out anything but jewelry now. Definitely
other applications, like all kinds of industries are using laser centering.
For example, car manufacturers use it to prototype hardware. It's
even used for some finished products like aerospace components, medical hardware, electronics,
like it's pretty long list.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Well, speaking of medical hardware, one thing that blew me
away is that almost every hearing aid on the market
these days is three D printed.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, people use have a hard time finding hearing aids
that match the contours of their ear canals, and that's
because hearing aids only came in a few standard sizes,
so if one of them didn't fit, you just had
to make do with something that was too loose or
too snug. But now with three D printing, audiologists can
take a digital scan of a patient's ear and create
a perfectly customized hearing aid just for them. And you
(10:22):
can find these advances all over the medical field, like
whether it's with three D printed surgical tools, implants, or
even artificial limbs.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
That is really so cool. We've come a long way
from that one little eye wash cup.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And I think the coolest fact about this technology is
that it's not just limited to stuff like making a
custom phone case or improving an industrial production process. It's
actually improving and saving lives every day in ways that
most of us don't even realize.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Indeed, and you know, we have some really fascinating examples
of that coming up. But first, let's take a quick break.
(11:10):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the world of three D printing. All right, mego, so
tell me more about how this technology is actually saving
lives these days.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, it's not just saving any lives, it's saving turtle lives.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Okay, I'm intrigued, tell me more so.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Back in twenty sixteen, a group of animal rescuers in
Brazil came across a tortoise that had lost eighty five
percent of its shell in a brush fire. The tortoise,
which the team named Freddy, didn't have a high chance
of survival without a shell, so after treating the little
guy for his burns, they decided to build him a
new one. First, they built a three D model of
a shell based on pictures of Freddy and other tortoises.
(11:47):
Then they printed out in four interlocking pieces, and the
all white plastic shell was assembled in gluten place around
Freddy's body, and as a final touch, the team hand
painted it to make sure it looked like his old shell.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's heartwarming and pretty amazing science. Yeah yeah, I love
the story. And it's not just Freddy. Other turtles have
been saved with three D printing as well. For example,
in places like Arizona and Florida, hundreds of turtles a
year are injured by cars and left with broken shells,
and a turtle with a hole in its shell is
highly vulnerable to infection and even spinal damage. In the past,
(12:24):
custom prosthesis for this type of injury could cost hundreds
of dollars or more. But now it's actually possible to
scan the broken pieces of a turtle shell, create a
three D model, and print out new ones for as
little as I don't know, like twenty bucks, oh wow.
And similar techniques have been used to restore bird bills,
reattach alligator tails, and replace the missing limbs of cats, dogs,
(12:47):
and other species including humans.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It really is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
And actually, you know, you talked about how three D
printing has brought the cost of animal prosthesis down, and
that's actually also true for humans. So high end bionic
arms canst upwards of one hundred thousand dollars, which means
that less than one percent of the adult amputee population
can actually afford to buy one.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I can't even imagine. But is that because the components
are so expensive or why is not?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I mean, that's part of it, But the other issue
is that the production process is just super complicated like,
different components get made in separate factories by different companies,
then yet another company assembles them. So all these manufacturing
costs and markups get factored into that final price. But
three D printing can streamline this process by cutting out
the middleman. Now a company can scan print and as
(13:34):
symbol a bionic arm with a single facility.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And so how much cheaper does that actually become?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
You know, there's some variables here, like the size and
complexity of the arm, and of course what kind of
insurance you have. But if you look at the two
leading companies in the field, you've got Unlimited Tomorrow and
Open Bionics. Their prosthetic arms cost five to ten times
less than a traditional manufactured one. And this is especially
important when you consider the difficulty for young amputees because
(14:01):
kids outgrow these prosthesis and you know, they need bigger
ones as they get older.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
You know, I never actually thought about that, Like I
feel like I get stressed out watching how fast my
kids outgrow their shoes. Yeah, you can't even imagine for amputees.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
No, it's very true, and the lower cost isn't actually
the only advantage here, because when all the components are
three D printed. There's also more opportunity for customization. For instance,
open i Biotics calls their limb the Hero Arm, and
it has all these cool magnetic panels that you can
pop off and on. They come in different colors and textures.
You can coordinate them with your outfits. They even make
(14:35):
these panel sets based on licensed characters, so you can
trick out your arm to look like like Iron Man's
Gauntlet or Adroid from Star Wars.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Like, there's so many cool possibilities.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I'm sure that is great for kids, but I bet
there are plenty of adults who would also love a superhero,
are right.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I mean it's so cool you get to cosplay at
work and nobody can complain because like, that's just.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Your arm, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And I know that decorating your arm might sound frivolous,
but I actually found this quote from one of open
Bionics founders, Samantha Pain, and she pointed out that having
a prosthetic limb that purposefully looks artificial is kind of
subversive and fun. So, as she puts it, quote, a
generation ago, as a society, we valued conformity. Everyone wanted
to look the same, and that's why you saw a
(15:17):
lot of prosthetic arms that tried to blend in that
tried to look human, but as engineers, we couldn't quite
get the look right. So it's really cool that as
time moved on, we began to celebrate individualism and self expression.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, that feels really liberating. Of course, while getting creative
seems smart for three D printing for your prosthetic arms,
when it comes to three D printing internal organs, it
helps to get as close to the real deal as possible.
And that's why bioinc is so important, because while your
body might not accept a bladder made of artificial material
like plastic or carbon fiber, if you print one using bioinc,
(15:52):
the chances are it'll get along just fine with your interiors.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So what is bioinc.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It is basically a mixture of a special kind of
eletin and the cultured cells needed to create living tissue.
And this gets a little technical here, but let's say
someone's missing an ear and their doctor wants to print
a functional replacement, which is a thing they can actually do.
The first step is to harvest stem cells from the patient.
These are undifferentiated cells, meaning they don't have a specific
(16:19):
purpose yet, and they can turn into other types of
cells like tissue or bone. You can kind of think
of them like a blank template of the human body.
So the doctors would manipulate the genes in these stem
cells so they develop into cells that do have a
specific purpose. In this case, that would be functions related
to hearing and balance. Then you mix them with gelatin
and some other high end biomaterials to create something called
(16:41):
bioinc and you load that into a three D printer
and voila instant ear. And the best part is, since
it's made from the patient's own cells, the odds of
the body rejecting it are much much lower compared to
a donor transplant. This actually might blow your mind, but
the first three D printed organ was transplanted into human
way back in nineteen ninety nine, which is the same
(17:04):
year a few other important things happened like SpongeBob SquarePants
debuted and Napster launched.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So three equally important advanced mess.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
But that's also the year that scientists at the wake
Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine created a new bladder using
cells from a patient, and they successfully implanted it in
the same person without any complications. The procedure has actually
been repeated about a dozen times since then, and all
of those three D printed bladders, even the ones from
a couple decades back, are still fully functioning today. Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
You know, I'm thinking, as you're talking about this, about
all the people waiting on transplant lists for organs, So
can we do this for any organ.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So as the technology stands, it's easiest to bioprint flat
or hollow organs. So you think about bladders, things like skin, ears,
wind pipes, right, these are things that have been successfully
transplanted already, but anything more complex and that is still
off the table. So scientists have made some headway in
recent years by printing small scale, functional replicas of hearts, kidneys,
(18:08):
even brains, and the hope is that in the next
few decades they'll be able to make them full size.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
You know, maybe I think we've proven conclusively that three
D printing can can really help humans and animals, especially
tortoises with the story you were telling there, And that's
all great, But like any technology, it's a tool that
can also do harm unfortunately, So we probably should take
a moment to recognize what may be the darkest side
of three D printing, and that is ghost guns.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
So I know this is the thing that people have
been worried about, that you can make three D printed
guns that can actually fire real bullets. But why exactly
are they called ghost guns.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
It's actually because they.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Don't have serial numbers like all real guns do, and
this makes them virtually untraceable. So the first three D
printed gun was created in twenty thirteen by a Texas
firearms activist named Cody Wilson. Now, it wasn't exactly the
same as a real gun. It only fired one bullet
at a time, and it was prone to breaking, but
Wilson released his design as an open source project that
(19:04):
anyone could download or modify, and over the next few years,
he and others kept tinkering. They figured out how to
make fully functional guns from three D printed kits and
some basic metal parts, and some of these homemade guns
were used in actual crimes. So, as you can imagine,
this became a concern for law enforcement and for public
health and safety groups gun control activists. Now, obviously there
(19:26):
are strict rules that govern gun manufacturing in the US,
from licensing to requiring those serial numbers. We also have
laws that prohibit people convicted of felonies from owning guns,
and three D printing sort of bypasses all of that.
So what can governments actually do about this? Well, in
the past few years, several states have passed laws regulating
three D printed guns, specifically requiring them to have traceable
(19:49):
serial numbers, so that's a step and just as pass bringing.
The Supreme Court upheld a twenty twenty two rule that
requires serial numbers and background checks for certain three D
printed gun kits now, but that decision focused narrowly on
some administrative details, so companies that make these kits could
potentially get around it, and Cody Wilson has actually asked
the Texas Court for an injunction that would prevent enforcement
(20:11):
of that twenty twenty two rules. So it's really not
clear how all this is going to shake out.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
That feels a little depressing.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Actually, all right, well that may be the case, But
after the break, I'm going to make it up to
you by telling you how three D printing could help
solve the housing crisis that I'm intoe.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. If you're enjoying the show,
please be sure to subscribe and leave us a nice rating.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And review. It absolutely makes our day.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And if you have a question you'd like us to
answer or topic you'd like us to explore, you can
email us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com or
call our brand new hotline, which we have a link
to in our show notes.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
That's right, and as you mentioned at the top of
the show, the idea for today's episode came from one
of our listeners who goes by the handle Aurora Borealis,
and I love this comment so much I want to
read it in its entirety. It says, quote Will and Mango,
please do one on three D printing. You can three
D print anything from chocolate to houses. It's true, you
can use concrete.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Google it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I like that this had google it because they assume
we wouldn't believe them, and then we google it.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So our listeners never lie and we trust you guys completely,
but we also fact check. So yes, I did google it,
and it turns out that Aurora was absolutely right. There
are companies out there that specialize in three D printing
full scale houses, and their material of choice is indeed concrete. Now,
this begin in Europe in twenty eighteen, and there are
now companies in the US and Mexico that are using
(21:53):
the process for major development projects.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
And to be clear, we're not talking about three D
printing cinderblocks and stacking them into a house, right right,
Like this is actually printing out all the walls of
a house layer by layer.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
That is exactly right.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Like you set up an enormous eleven foot tall robotic
printer on a build site and you input a three
D model of the floor plan, and then the printer's
mobile nozzle goes to work squeezing out rounded lines of
concrete one on top of the other. And it's kind
of like this giant soft served concrete machine. That's fascinating
and tasty. So I love that it is fully automated.
(22:26):
Do you need humans to work machines? You do need humans,
but not as many as you might find on a
normal construction site. You really only need two or three
people to oversee the build of this, and the whole
system can be controlled by a tablet or a smartphone.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
That is so cool.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And since the printer does most of the actual physical labor,
the system can operate around the clock.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So to compare, it.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Can take two to six months to build a like
a fifteen hundred square foot home the old fashioned way,
but you can three D print the same size house
in two weeks. Now, if you're willing to go smaller,
you can print a five hundred square foot house and
less than twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
That is bonkers, and they really print every part of
the house.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Typically, the only parts of a three D printed house
that aren't three D printed are the floor, the roof,
and the finishing things like you know, doors and windows.
But all of the exterior and interior walls are one
hundred percent printed concrete. And it's easy to tell too,
because you can see the different layers there. So some
people say it makes the walls look like wide whale
corduroy or like the bristles on a toothbrush.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I feel like that could take some getting used to,
Like I imagine it's a pain to hang things in
a house like that, Like you've got to drill through
solid concrete just to put up I don't know, paintings
or a curtain run. You know.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I thought the same thing, but I actually read an
interview with someone who owns a three D printed house
and they said that the concrete is actually easier for
hanging things because you don't have to worry about running
into studs all the time. And another cool thing is
that the printer can account for things like electrical and
plumbing outlets, so it'll automatically build those gaps into the walls,
which means no one has to cut through the concrete
(23:58):
to build them later. Plus, because the concrete is highly
energy efficient, three D homeowners tend to have lower utility bills,
plus less street noise, and best of all, it is fire,
wind and insect resistant. So for someone who lives in
an area prone to wildfires or hurricanes or plagues of locusts,
like whatever it may be, these three D printed concrete
houses could actually be a lifesaver.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
That's pretty incredible. And I'm guessing they're a lot cheaper
than normal house too, right, Well, you.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Would think so, but no, not really, at least not
yet so at the time of the recording. The world's
largest three D printed housing development is woolf Ranch in Georgetown, Texas. Now,
the homes there come in two and three bedroom models
and they started just under four hundred thousand dollars, which
is comparable to a similar size regular home in the area.
Now that said, the three D printed real estate market
(24:47):
is just emerging. As it scales up and becomes more efficient,
those prices could come down, or you'd expect them to
come down. And I really hope that's the case, because
three D printed homes could go such a long way
toward alleviating the worldwide housing short.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You know, this whole time you were talking about three
D printed concrete houses, I've been thinking about our old pal,
Thomas Edison and how he would build houses by pouring
concrete into a giant house sized mole.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
And he was just pouring the walls of the house
or was it more elaborate than that?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Definitely more elaborate. According to Edison's nineteen seventeen patent, all
of the building's parts included the sides, roofs, partitions, bathtubs, floors,
et cetera. It would be quote formed of an integral
mass of a cement mixture. In theory, the molds could
be used over and over again, and Edison hoped the
technique would build low income housing in crowded cities. If
(25:39):
you look online, you can actually find some of these
houses and they're actually beautiful, like the moldings and things
like that. The only problem was that it wasn't exactly practical.
His molds were enormous and composed of more than two
thousand pieces, which of course made them super expensive to assemble. Now,
Edison had a hard time convincing builders to make that
initial investment, and even though he offered up the building
(26:00):
plans for free, the only concrete houses to ever use
his method were part of a small test batch made
by his own company.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah, I bet he'd be glad to know that we
finally found this work around with three D printing, and
that his idea is now reality more than a century later.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Three D printing has been the kind of the wave
of the future for the past eighty years, going all
the way back to the story I mentioned from the
nineteen forties, but now here we are actually catching up
to it in the present. It's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, definitely. Well, before we sign off, let's do a
little fact off. Three D printing has made its mark
on restaurants, operating rooms, factories, construction sites, and also on
fashion runways. It turns out designers love the tech for
its ability to create complex organic structures and intricate patterns
(26:50):
with ease, and the result has been this slew of
visually striking, wearable art pieces inspired by everything from sacred
geometry to the iridescent feathers of hummingbird. There's even been
crossover with the movie industry, where three D printing has
been used to create props and costumes, for example, the
elaborate headpiece worn by Angela Bassett's Queen in the Black
(27:10):
Panther movies with three D printed and if hote couture
isn't your thing and you're not a Hollywood star, do
not wear you can still wear pree D printed gear.
Some designers have started using it to make everyday wearables
like handbags, glasses, frames, and even sneakers. Right, well, here's
a fun one I've found. So the Smithsonian website has
(27:31):
an online three D digitization portal where you can download
free print ready three D models of about one hundred
different artifacts that are in their collection. Users can print
the models themselves or simply upload the files of their
choice to one of the many on demand printing services
out there, such as shape ways or craft Cloud. And
that means you can print out things like a t
(27:51):
rex skull, a Native American cat sculpture, Amelia Earhart's flight
suit and not one, but two life mask of Abraham Link.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That's amazing. You can't have just one.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
The artifacts make great decorations, gifts, learning aids, and the
program supports the Smithsonian's mission to increase access to their
collection for those who can't visit in person.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
That is incredible.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Okay, so I brought up Thomas Edison earlier, so it's
only fair that I give equal time to Albert Einstein,
which is a rule on our show. And thankfully there
is a really cool point of overlap between Einstein and
three D printing, which is that you can now print
free three D replicas of the toy blocks he played
with as a child. The printing kit is available on
(28:33):
a site called Open Einstein, and it was made through
a partnership between the Lego Foundation, Unilever, Ikea, and National Geographic,
which is a wonderful and surprising collective of companies. Anyway,
the kit provides models for thirty six building blocks of
different sizes and shapes, all of which were scanned directly
from the set of wooden blocks that Einstein used when
(28:54):
he was a kid. The original blocks were made by
this German company, anchor Stein Baluchistan and These must have
been popular because they were actually used by a whole
group of budding geniuses. Frank Lloyd Wright had them as
a kid, and Buckminster Fuller also had a set of
his own. So results may vary with your own kids,
(29:14):
but you know, if you're trying to raise a genius,
it might be worth a shot, all right.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
So we've covered a bunch of things that three D
printers can make, but one thing that's still beyond their means,
at least for now, is other three D printers. It
kind of reminds me of when you were a kid
and people are like, if you had one wish and
you can't.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Wish for lots more wishes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
So it would be a neat little trick because even
though the cost of three D printers has come down
in the last decade, they are still quite pricey. But
if new three D printers could be assembled using low
cost printed materials, the technology would become accessible to just
about everyone. The problem is there are over one hundred
different components in each device, and while many of them
(29:52):
are simple enough to be reproduced by a single plastic
printing unit, other parts.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Aren't printable at all. You think about things.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Like motors bearing circuit boards, but that hasn't stopped makers
from trying so. The most famous example is the long
running project called rep Rap, and they spent over a
decade trying to develop the world's first self replicating three
D printer. They went through multiple itterations, made a lot
of headway, but the most recent build was still only
able to produce about seventy percent of the parts. Now
(30:21):
the project has been installed for a few years now,
but with three D printers getting more and more capable
by the day, the dream of having one in every
home could eventually come true.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
I love the idea of a three D printed three
D printer in every three D printed home.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Right exactly. That's the dream.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
I cannot possibly top that dream. So will you deserve
this trophy for this week?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
And I'm going to hand it to you.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Look at that, Dylan made a three D printed little
trophy here.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
You didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh it, dun's the best. It's actually an eyewash coop
of us. That is it for today's show, but we
will be back next week week with another brand new episode.
In the meantime, you can hang out with us on
Instagram and Blue Sky. Those links are in the show
description and call us on our new hotline. We are
waiting to hear from you, but from Dylan, Mary, Gabe,
(31:12):
Will and myself. Thank you so much for listening. Part
Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongaish Heatikler,
(31:36):
and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
media support from Sasha Gay trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the Ihear
(32:00):
Art Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what Will? What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So I was reading about three D printing this week
and I realized I've been thinking of it as a
new technology when really it's been around for nearly half
a century.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh wow, I actually had no idea I went back
that far. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So, the Japanese researcher Hideo Kodoma submitted the world's first
patent for a three D printer in nineteen eighty one,
and two years later, American inventor Chuck Hall created the
first working prototype. And before you ask, yes, we do
know what the first object you prayed was. It was
a little plastic eyewash cup. You know, I don't know
what I was expecting you to say, but that definitely
(00:59):
was not it. And what even is an eye wash cup?
It is a tiny cup with a curved rim to
fit around an eyeball, so if you get a piece
of dust in your eye, you can fill the cup
with water and flush it out.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Like, was this a recurring problem for Hull?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah? His eyes were notoriously dirty dirty.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
No, I'm actually not sure why he chose an eye
wash cup, And I know it sounds like a random
thing to make as the first three D printed object,
but to be fair, that would probably be the case no.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Matter what he picked.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
You know, it's still impressive that he was three D
printing over forty years ago. Like, I feel like I
only heard about.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
This in the last I don't know, at least within
the last decade, right.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, So it took a lot of years of fine
tuning to make three D printers affordable and simple enough
for the consumer market. But now that we have, it's
easy to see what guys like Codoma and Hall knew
the whole time, which is that three D printing is
truly revolutionary. It's transforming almost anything you can think of,
from construction to food prep to aerospace engineering. And of
(01:56):
course there's an incredible creative community that's developed around it too.
And the reason we're thinking about all of this is
that one of our listeners asked us to do an
episode about three D printing, and we love an intriguing request,
and we really wanted to know how people make things
out of thin air or thin plastics.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Hey, their podcast listeners welcome to part time genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangeshot Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass printing out the same sheet of paper for
what must be the hundredth time now, not exaggerating. He
just keeps printing. That's our friends and producer Dylan Fagan.
He just keeps loading and reloading the same sheet. He's
(02:56):
wasting a fortune on ink. But do you know what's
going on with this mango?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, he said he felt left out about not having
a three D printer, so he's using a two D
printer to print out a picture of a three D printer.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I guess the idea is if he prints it on
the same page enough times, eventually the ink would build
up and the picture will be three dimensional.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You know, that's an interesting idea.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I'm not sure that'll work, but you've got to admire
this guy's ingenuity always. And weirdly enough, that is basically
how a three D printer works. Like following instructions from
a digital file, the printer gradually builds an object by
adding one layer of material on top of another on
top of another, and the problem here is that you
need to use something a bit sturdier than liquid ink,
(03:37):
and most.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
People make three D printed objects out of plastic, right.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, but plastic is really just the tip of the iceberg.
So industrial three D printers can handle all kinds of
multiple materials, including ceramic, wood, fiber, paper, glass, even edible proteins.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Actually, oh, that's right, edible proteins. So will When was
the first time you heard about three D printers?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
You know, I feel like this probably goes back to
the days when we were working a little bit more
closely with the house Stuff Works team.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Even thinking back to.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
You know, Marshall Brain who founded so many years ago,
and remembering him talking about this, it might have been
a little more than a decade ago. It was probably
like fourteen fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
How about you.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I think about the same.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I remember.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Around twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen. The first time I
heard something interesting with three D printers was before this party.
They had all these attendees send in photos and then
as a party favor, they were handed a three D
printed pez dispenser of their own face.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Oh no, cool. I remember thinking that was just really
weird and fun.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
At the time. But the thing that really blew me
away was when they started talking about those three D
printed foods like pizzas and cookies, Like if you could
print a meal at home, that just seems so futuristic
to me.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
The London pop up you're talking about was called food Inc.
And even though it was only open for three days
back in twenty sixteen, it made an impression because it
was many people's introduction to the idea of printable meals. Now,
in the years since, lots of other companies have tinkered
with similar concepts, including a finished research center that's developing
vending machines that print snacks huh. And this Israeli food
(05:15):
tech company called Stakeholder Foods that's specializing in three D
printed meat, which sounds so weird.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
How do you print meat?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It's you know, you can load just about anything into
a three D printing syringe if it's a smooth consistency.
So Research as a Columbia did it with chicken puree
and ran it through a system that cooked it while
it was printing. But in the case of Stakeholder Foods,
the three D printed meat is actually plant based. They
make three D printed whitefish filets and steak using a
(05:46):
mixture of water, soy and pea protein, also oil and
a few other ingredients in there. And so these faux
meats have different textures, so the outside gets crisp when
you cook it, and the steaks even come with lines
of three D printed fat.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
That sounds so bizarre, but I guess it's fine as
long as it tastes good, right, So.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
The bad news about that. There was a Wired journalist
named Matt Reynolds and he did this taste test last
year and he described the Stakeholder meats as being quote
technically food, but ad they quote had all the joy
of licking a catering catalog. So you know, delicious food
might be an area where three D printing still has
a long way to go.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So you know, you mentioned that London restaurant and how
it was many people's first introduction to three D printed foods,
but Gabe tipped me off that Star Trek had a
machine called the Replicator that could produce anything on demand,
so basically a three D printer, and the crew mostly
used it to make food and drinks, which is pretty cool,
But I guess, as you were describing, we're not quite
(06:48):
there yet no.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
But I am glad you brought up the connection between
three D printing and science fiction, because this idea has
been a recurring theme in sci fi stories for some
time now, and some actually predate Charles Hol's Big Brain
break through in the early eighties. In fact, the earliest
known reference to three D printing was in a short
story by American novelist Murray Leinster. It was called Things
(07:09):
Passed By. It was published in nineteen forty five, about
four decades before hle printed his Eye wash Cup, and
it describes a machine that uses plastic to create three
dimensional objects from two dimensional drawings.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And I'm sure he described printing an eye wash cup.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I kind of wish.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
But now in this story, the tech is used to
build spaceships, and the process is incredibly similar to how
three D printers would eventually work. So Linser describes the
liquid plastic flowing through a hose connected to this moving
arm that gradually deposits blobs of plastic in shapes determined
by the drawing. Now, he likened it to an insect
spinning a cocoon, which I kind of actually love that description, and.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It's kind of accurate, right, Like, so Obviously this stuff
is rooted in sci fi. But walk me through some
of the real world applications of three D printing, Like
why were so many people excited about it?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
The since people are so enamored with three D printing
is because of its ability to help us prototype. Take
jewelry for instance, Like, Historically, it's been a very time
consuming process. So after coming up with an idea for
a piece of jewelry, the designer had to hand carve
a model from clay kind of sculpt out the details there.
Then they'd use that model to create a mold, and
(08:20):
then finally pour molten metal into the mold to create
this finished piece. That could take days or weeks or
even longer depending on how sophisticated it was. But now
jewelers can actually design new pieces digitally using CAD software
and three D print them as wax or like a
resin model, and then they can go from design to
prototype or even a finished product in just a few hours.
(08:42):
These days, about ninety percent of all jewelry sold in
the US has been made with some degree of three
D printing.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So what definitely do you mean by some degree?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, in addition to prototyping, designers can skip the mold
making stage and just print metal jewelry directly. This has
done through a process called laser centering, which also kind
of sounds like something they'd have in Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, star Trek, the next generation of jewelers, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, well, let me tell you what centering actually is.
So you spread this thin layer of metal powder on
a bed and then a laser fuses it together. Then
you spread a thin layer of powder on top of that,
and then laser it again, building layer by layer, and
after each sweep of the laser you add a fresh
layer of powder on top, and it keeps building until
(09:25):
the object's finished.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That's obviously incredible. But are we just using this for
jewelry or are there other applications?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
No, it's just jewelry.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
People have not figured out anything but jewelry now. Definitely
other applications, like all kinds of industries are using laser centering.
For example, car manufacturers use it to prototype hardware. It's
even used for some finished products like aerospace components, medical hardware, electronics,
like it's pretty long list.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Well, speaking of medical hardware, one thing that blew me
away is that almost every hearing aid on the market
these days is three D printed.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, people use have a hard time finding hearing aids
that match the contours of their ear canals, and that's
because hearing aids only came in a few standard sizes,
so if one of them didn't fit, you just had
to make do with something that was too loose or
too snug. But now with three D printing, audiologists can
take a digital scan of a patient's ear and create
a perfectly customized hearing aid just for them. And you
(10:22):
can find these advances all over the medical field, like
whether it's with three D printed surgical tools, implants, or
even artificial limbs.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
That is really so cool. We've come a long way
from that one little eye wash cup.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And I think the coolest fact about this technology is
that it's not just limited to stuff like making a
custom phone case or improving an industrial production process. It's
actually improving and saving lives every day in ways that
most of us don't even realize.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Indeed, and you know, we have some really fascinating examples
of that coming up. But first, let's take a quick break.
(11:10):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the world of three D printing. All right, mego, so
tell me more about how this technology is actually saving
lives these days.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, it's not just saving any lives, it's saving turtle lives.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Okay, I'm intrigued, tell me more so.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Back in twenty sixteen, a group of animal rescuers in
Brazil came across a tortoise that had lost eighty five
percent of its shell in a brush fire. The tortoise,
which the team named Freddy, didn't have a high chance
of survival without a shell, so after treating the little
guy for his burns, they decided to build him a
new one. First, they built a three D model of
a shell based on pictures of Freddy and other tortoises.
(11:47):
Then they printed out in four interlocking pieces, and the
all white plastic shell was assembled in gluten place around
Freddy's body, and as a final touch, the team hand
painted it to make sure it looked like his old shell.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's heartwarming and pretty amazing science. Yeah yeah, I love
the story. And it's not just Freddy. Other turtles have
been saved with three D printing as well. For example,
in places like Arizona and Florida, hundreds of turtles a
year are injured by cars and left with broken shells,
and a turtle with a hole in its shell is
highly vulnerable to infection and even spinal damage. In the past,
(12:24):
custom prosthesis for this type of injury could cost hundreds
of dollars or more. But now it's actually possible to
scan the broken pieces of a turtle shell, create a
three D model, and print out new ones for as
little as I don't know, like twenty bucks, oh wow.
And similar techniques have been used to restore bird bills,
reattach alligator tails, and replace the missing limbs of cats, dogs,
(12:47):
and other species including humans.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It really is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
And actually, you know, you talked about how three D
printing has brought the cost of animal prosthesis down, and
that's actually also true for humans. So high end bionic
arms canst upwards of one hundred thousand dollars, which means
that less than one percent of the adult amputee population
can actually afford to buy one.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I can't even imagine. But is that because the components
are so expensive or why is not?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I mean, that's part of it, But the other issue
is that the production process is just super complicated like,
different components get made in separate factories by different companies,
then yet another company assembles them. So all these manufacturing
costs and markups get factored into that final price. But
three D printing can streamline this process by cutting out
the middleman. Now a company can scan print and as
(13:34):
symbol a bionic arm with a single facility.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And so how much cheaper does that actually become?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
You know, there's some variables here, like the size and
complexity of the arm, and of course what kind of
insurance you have. But if you look at the two
leading companies in the field, you've got Unlimited Tomorrow and
Open Bionics. Their prosthetic arms cost five to ten times
less than a traditional manufactured one. And this is especially
important when you consider the difficulty for young amputees because
(14:01):
kids outgrow these prosthesis and you know, they need bigger
ones as they get older.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
You know, I never actually thought about that, Like I
feel like I get stressed out watching how fast my
kids outgrow their shoes. Yeah, you can't even imagine for amputees.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
No, it's very true, and the lower cost isn't actually
the only advantage here, because when all the components are
three D printed. There's also more opportunity for customization. For instance,
open i Biotics calls their limb the Hero Arm, and
it has all these cool magnetic panels that you can
pop off and on. They come in different colors and textures.
You can coordinate them with your outfits. They even make
(14:35):
these panel sets based on licensed characters, so you can
trick out your arm to look like like Iron Man's
Gauntlet or Adroid from Star Wars.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Like, there's so many cool possibilities.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I'm sure that is great for kids, but I bet
there are plenty of adults who would also love a superhero,
are right.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I mean it's so cool you get to cosplay at
work and nobody can complain because like, that's just.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Your arm, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And I know that decorating your arm might sound frivolous,
but I actually found this quote from one of open
Bionics founders, Samantha Pain, and she pointed out that having
a prosthetic limb that purposefully looks artificial is kind of
subversive and fun. So, as she puts it, quote, a
generation ago, as a society, we valued conformity. Everyone wanted
to look the same, and that's why you saw a
(15:17):
lot of prosthetic arms that tried to blend in that
tried to look human, but as engineers, we couldn't quite
get the look right. So it's really cool that as
time moved on, we began to celebrate individualism and self expression.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, that feels really liberating. Of course, while getting creative
seems smart for three D printing for your prosthetic arms,
when it comes to three D printing internal organs, it
helps to get as close to the real deal as possible.
And that's why bioinc is so important, because while your
body might not accept a bladder made of artificial material
like plastic or carbon fiber, if you print one using bioinc,
(15:52):
the chances are it'll get along just fine with your interiors.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So what is bioinc.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It is basically a mixture of a special kind of
eletin and the cultured cells needed to create living tissue.
And this gets a little technical here, but let's say
someone's missing an ear and their doctor wants to print
a functional replacement, which is a thing they can actually do.
The first step is to harvest stem cells from the patient.
These are undifferentiated cells, meaning they don't have a specific
(16:19):
purpose yet, and they can turn into other types of
cells like tissue or bone. You can kind of think
of them like a blank template of the human body.
So the doctors would manipulate the genes in these stem
cells so they develop into cells that do have a
specific purpose. In this case, that would be functions related
to hearing and balance. Then you mix them with gelatin
and some other high end biomaterials to create something called
(16:41):
bioinc and you load that into a three D printer
and voila instant ear. And the best part is, since
it's made from the patient's own cells, the odds of
the body rejecting it are much much lower compared to
a donor transplant. This actually might blow your mind, but
the first three D printed organ was transplanted into human
way back in nineteen ninety nine, which is the same
(17:04):
year a few other important things happened like SpongeBob SquarePants
debuted and Napster launched.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So three equally important advanced mess.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
But that's also the year that scientists at the wake
Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine created a new bladder using
cells from a patient, and they successfully implanted it in
the same person without any complications. The procedure has actually
been repeated about a dozen times since then, and all
of those three D printed bladders, even the ones from
a couple decades back, are still fully functioning today. Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
You know, I'm thinking, as you're talking about this, about
all the people waiting on transplant lists for organs, So
can we do this for any organ.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So as the technology stands, it's easiest to bioprint flat
or hollow organs. So you think about bladders, things like skin, ears,
wind pipes, right, these are things that have been successfully
transplanted already, but anything more complex and that is still
off the table. So scientists have made some headway in
recent years by printing small scale, functional replicas of hearts, kidneys,
(18:08):
even brains, and the hope is that in the next
few decades they'll be able to make them full size.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
You know, maybe I think we've proven conclusively that three
D printing can can really help humans and animals, especially
tortoises with the story you were telling there, And that's
all great, But like any technology, it's a tool that
can also do harm unfortunately, So we probably should take
a moment to recognize what may be the darkest side
of three D printing, and that is ghost guns.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
So I know this is the thing that people have
been worried about, that you can make three D printed
guns that can actually fire real bullets. But why exactly
are they called ghost guns.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
It's actually because they.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Don't have serial numbers like all real guns do, and
this makes them virtually untraceable. So the first three D
printed gun was created in twenty thirteen by a Texas
firearms activist named Cody Wilson. Now, it wasn't exactly the
same as a real gun. It only fired one bullet
at a time, and it was prone to breaking, but
Wilson released his design as an open source project that
(19:04):
anyone could download or modify, and over the next few years,
he and others kept tinkering. They figured out how to
make fully functional guns from three D printed kits and
some basic metal parts, and some of these homemade guns
were used in actual crimes. So, as you can imagine,
this became a concern for law enforcement and for public
health and safety groups gun control activists. Now, obviously there
(19:26):
are strict rules that govern gun manufacturing in the US,
from licensing to requiring those serial numbers. We also have
laws that prohibit people convicted of felonies from owning guns,
and three D printing sort of bypasses all of that.
So what can governments actually do about this? Well, in
the past few years, several states have passed laws regulating
three D printed guns, specifically requiring them to have traceable
(19:49):
serial numbers, so that's a step and just as pass bringing.
The Supreme Court upheld a twenty twenty two rule that
requires serial numbers and background checks for certain three D
printed gun kits now, but that decision focused narrowly on
some administrative details, so companies that make these kits could
potentially get around it, and Cody Wilson has actually asked
the Texas Court for an injunction that would prevent enforcement
(20:11):
of that twenty twenty two rules. So it's really not
clear how all this is going to shake out.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
That feels a little depressing.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Actually, all right, well that may be the case, But
after the break, I'm going to make it up to
you by telling you how three D printing could help
solve the housing crisis that I'm intoe.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. If you're enjoying the show,
please be sure to subscribe and leave us a nice rating.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And review. It absolutely makes our day.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And if you have a question you'd like us to
answer or topic you'd like us to explore, you can
email us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com or
call our brand new hotline, which we have a link
to in our show notes.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
That's right, and as you mentioned at the top of
the show, the idea for today's episode came from one
of our listeners who goes by the handle Aurora Borealis,
and I love this comment so much I want to
read it in its entirety. It says, quote Will and Mango,
please do one on three D printing. You can three
D print anything from chocolate to houses. It's true, you
can use concrete.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Google it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I like that this had google it because they assume
we wouldn't believe them, and then we google it.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So our listeners never lie and we trust you guys completely,
but we also fact check. So yes, I did google it,
and it turns out that Aurora was absolutely right. There
are companies out there that specialize in three D printing
full scale houses, and their material of choice is indeed concrete. Now,
this begin in Europe in twenty eighteen, and there are
now companies in the US and Mexico that are using
(21:53):
the process for major development projects.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
And to be clear, we're not talking about three D
printing cinderblocks and stacking them into a house, right right,
Like this is actually printing out all the walls of
a house layer by layer.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
That is exactly right.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Like you set up an enormous eleven foot tall robotic
printer on a build site and you input a three
D model of the floor plan, and then the printer's
mobile nozzle goes to work squeezing out rounded lines of
concrete one on top of the other. And it's kind
of like this giant soft served concrete machine. That's fascinating
and tasty. So I love that it is fully automated.
(22:26):
Do you need humans to work machines? You do need humans,
but not as many as you might find on a
normal construction site. You really only need two or three
people to oversee the build of this, and the whole
system can be controlled by a tablet or a smartphone.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
That is so cool.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And since the printer does most of the actual physical labor,
the system can operate around the clock.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So to compare, it.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Can take two to six months to build a like
a fifteen hundred square foot home the old fashioned way,
but you can three D print the same size house
in two weeks. Now, if you're willing to go smaller,
you can print a five hundred square foot house and
less than twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
That is bonkers, and they really print every part of
the house.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Typically, the only parts of a three D printed house
that aren't three D printed are the floor, the roof,
and the finishing things like you know, doors and windows.
But all of the exterior and interior walls are one
hundred percent printed concrete. And it's easy to tell too,
because you can see the different layers there. So some
people say it makes the walls look like wide whale
corduroy or like the bristles on a toothbrush.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I feel like that could take some getting used to,
Like I imagine it's a pain to hang things in
a house like that, Like you've got to drill through
solid concrete just to put up I don't know, paintings
or a curtain run. You know.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I thought the same thing, but I actually read an
interview with someone who owns a three D printed house
and they said that the concrete is actually easier for
hanging things because you don't have to worry about running
into studs all the time. And another cool thing is
that the printer can account for things like electrical and
plumbing outlets, so it'll automatically build those gaps into the walls,
which means no one has to cut through the concrete
(23:58):
to build them later. Plus, because the concrete is highly
energy efficient, three D homeowners tend to have lower utility bills,
plus less street noise, and best of all, it is fire,
wind and insect resistant. So for someone who lives in
an area prone to wildfires or hurricanes or plagues of locusts,
like whatever it may be, these three D printed concrete
houses could actually be a lifesaver.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
That's pretty incredible. And I'm guessing they're a lot cheaper
than normal house too, right, Well, you.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Would think so, but no, not really, at least not
yet so at the time of the recording. The world's
largest three D printed housing development is woolf Ranch in Georgetown, Texas. Now,
the homes there come in two and three bedroom models
and they started just under four hundred thousand dollars, which
is comparable to a similar size regular home in the area.
Now that said, the three D printed real estate market
(24:47):
is just emerging. As it scales up and becomes more efficient,
those prices could come down, or you'd expect them to
come down. And I really hope that's the case, because
three D printed homes could go such a long way
toward alleviating the worldwide housing short.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You know, this whole time you were talking about three
D printed concrete houses, I've been thinking about our old pal,
Thomas Edison and how he would build houses by pouring
concrete into a giant house sized mole.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
And he was just pouring the walls of the house
or was it more elaborate than that?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Definitely more elaborate. According to Edison's nineteen seventeen patent, all
of the building's parts included the sides, roofs, partitions, bathtubs, floors,
et cetera. It would be quote formed of an integral
mass of a cement mixture. In theory, the molds could
be used over and over again, and Edison hoped the
technique would build low income housing in crowded cities. If
(25:39):
you look online, you can actually find some of these
houses and they're actually beautiful, like the moldings and things
like that. The only problem was that it wasn't exactly practical.
His molds were enormous and composed of more than two
thousand pieces, which of course made them super expensive to assemble. Now,
Edison had a hard time convincing builders to make that
initial investment, and even though he offered up the building
(26:00):
plans for free, the only concrete houses to ever use
his method were part of a small test batch made
by his own company.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah, I bet he'd be glad to know that we
finally found this work around with three D printing, and
that his idea is now reality more than a century later.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Three D printing has been the kind of the wave
of the future for the past eighty years, going all
the way back to the story I mentioned from the
nineteen forties, but now here we are actually catching up
to it in the present. It's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, definitely. Well, before we sign off, let's do a
little fact off. Three D printing has made its mark
on restaurants, operating rooms, factories, construction sites, and also on
fashion runways. It turns out designers love the tech for
its ability to create complex organic structures and intricate patterns
(26:50):
with ease, and the result has been this slew of
visually striking, wearable art pieces inspired by everything from sacred
geometry to the iridescent feathers of hummingbird. There's even been
crossover with the movie industry, where three D printing has
been used to create props and costumes, for example, the
elaborate headpiece worn by Angela Bassett's Queen in the Black
(27:10):
Panther movies with three D printed and if hote couture
isn't your thing and you're not a Hollywood star, do
not wear you can still wear pree D printed gear.
Some designers have started using it to make everyday wearables
like handbags, glasses, frames, and even sneakers. Right, well, here's
a fun one I've found. So the Smithsonian website has
(27:31):
an online three D digitization portal where you can download
free print ready three D models of about one hundred
different artifacts that are in their collection. Users can print
the models themselves or simply upload the files of their
choice to one of the many on demand printing services
out there, such as shape ways or craft Cloud. And
that means you can print out things like a t
(27:51):
rex skull, a Native American cat sculpture, Amelia Earhart's flight
suit and not one, but two life mask of Abraham Link.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That's amazing. You can't have just one.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
The artifacts make great decorations, gifts, learning aids, and the
program supports the Smithsonian's mission to increase access to their
collection for those who can't visit in person.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
That is incredible.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Okay, so I brought up Thomas Edison earlier, so it's
only fair that I give equal time to Albert Einstein,
which is a rule on our show. And thankfully there
is a really cool point of overlap between Einstein and
three D printing, which is that you can now print
free three D replicas of the toy blocks he played
with as a child. The printing kit is available on
(28:33):
a site called Open Einstein, and it was made through
a partnership between the Lego Foundation, Unilever, Ikea, and National Geographic,
which is a wonderful and surprising collective of companies. Anyway,
the kit provides models for thirty six building blocks of
different sizes and shapes, all of which were scanned directly
from the set of wooden blocks that Einstein used when
(28:54):
he was a kid. The original blocks were made by
this German company, anchor Stein Baluchistan and These must have
been popular because they were actually used by a whole
group of budding geniuses. Frank Lloyd Wright had them as
a kid, and Buckminster Fuller also had a set of
his own. So results may vary with your own kids,
(29:14):
but you know, if you're trying to raise a genius,
it might be worth a shot, all right.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
So we've covered a bunch of things that three D
printers can make, but one thing that's still beyond their means,
at least for now, is other three D printers. It
kind of reminds me of when you were a kid
and people are like, if you had one wish and
you can't.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Wish for lots more wishes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
So it would be a neat little trick because even
though the cost of three D printers has come down
in the last decade, they are still quite pricey. But
if new three D printers could be assembled using low
cost printed materials, the technology would become accessible to just
about everyone. The problem is there are over one hundred
different components in each device, and while many of them
(29:52):
are simple enough to be reproduced by a single plastic
printing unit, other parts.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Aren't printable at all. You think about things.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Like motors bearing circuit boards, but that hasn't stopped makers
from trying so. The most famous example is the long
running project called rep Rap, and they spent over a
decade trying to develop the world's first self replicating three
D printer. They went through multiple itterations, made a lot
of headway, but the most recent build was still only
able to produce about seventy percent of the parts. Now
(30:21):
the project has been installed for a few years now,
but with three D printers getting more and more capable
by the day, the dream of having one in every
home could eventually come true.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
I love the idea of a three D printed three
D printer in every three D printed home.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Right exactly. That's the dream.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
I cannot possibly top that dream. So will you deserve
this trophy for this week?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
And I'm going to hand it to you.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Look at that, Dylan made a three D printed little
trophy here.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
You didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh it, dun's the best. It's actually an eyewash coop
of us. That is it for today's show, but we
will be back next week week with another brand new episode.
In the meantime, you can hang out with us on
Instagram and Blue Sky. Those links are in the show
description and call us on our new hotline. We are
waiting to hear from you, but from Dylan, Mary, Gabe,
(31:12):
Will and myself. Thank you so much for listening. Part
Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongaish Heatikler,
(31:36):
and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
media support from Sasha Gay trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the Ihear
(32:00):
Art Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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