3D Printing

Thingiverse is full of models that you can download for 3D printing, but that is only the beginning. Get inspiration by looking at what other designers are making, or make new models by combining two existing designs, adding an existing design to one of your own.
TinkerCAD is an easy to use, browser-based 3D design and modelling tool. Models are created by grouping together shapes and the final design can be output in File-Types suitable for use with 3D Printers and Laser Cutters.

A resin printer from Chad Mirkin’s lab at Northwestern University in Illinois can create structures as large as a person in hours (image sequence sped up). Credit: Northwestern University

In 2015, Joseph DeSimone at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill unveiled a technique to speed up 3D printing.Credit: Carbon 3D Inc.

A projector shines a video loop onto liquid resin, causing an entire object to be created at once, rather than layer by layer.Credit: UC Berkeley

A view of MX3D’s printer during the process of printing a metal bridge.Credit: Olivier de Gruijter/MX3D

A metal printer at start-up firm Relativity Space, which aims to test a mostly 3D-printed rocket this year.Credit: Relativity Space

The 3D Systems ChefJet Pro 3D food printer, designed for use by hotels and restaurants, produces sweets in multiple colours with a single added flavour.

A 3D-printed concrete pedestrian bridge developed by Tsinghua University.Credit: Imaginechina/Shutterstock

A machine that combines multiple 3D printing methods could one day produce prosthetic limbs.Credit: Jae C. Hong/AP/REX/Shutterstock

A combination of light-sensitive resins makes it possible to print a ‘butterfly’ with flexible joints. Credit: N. D. Dolinski et al./ Adv.Mater.