“It’s well known that we have a problem with plastics in the environment,” says Mackintosh. “We face the challenges of figuring out ways to reduce and prevent it as well as clean up the water that’s already out there.”

Held by the University of Surrey, the brand new public competition solicited entries from anyone who had an idea for a bio-inspired robot. Mackintosh’s proposal was a simple drawing showing how the robot fish could swim through the water, its internal cavity opening and then compressing to force water over the gills in order to collect plastic particles. The winning entry was selected and built by a group of senior engineers and scientists with years of experience bringing robotic concepts to life.

“We don’t know where the vast majority of the plastic that enters our waters ends up,” says Dr. Robert Siddall, lecturer at the University of Surrey and initiator of the competition. “We hope that this robo-fish and its future offspring will be the first steps in the right direction to help us find and eventually control this plastic pollution problem.”

The roboticists assisting with the competition turned Mackintosh’s proposal into a remote-controlled robot about the size of a salmon. It swims by flapping its tail while keeping its mouth wide open to collect water (and microplastics) in its internal cavity. Once the cavity is full, the robot closes its mouth and opens its lamellar gill valves, pushing the water out of the valves and lifting the bottom of the cavity. Its features include pectoral fins, a gill and mouth motor, a gill raker, particulate mesh, a separate motor for the fins, a tail fin actuation rod, a tail fin motor, battery and microcontroller, and sensors that detect light levels and turbidity (clarity) of the water.

You can now make your very own Gillbert Robo-Fish, as the plans for the current iteration of the design are available as free, open-source CAD files on GrabCad.com. Future revisions will make the fish autonomous instead of remote-controlled so they can be deployed in groups. The public is encouraged to make their own changes and improvements as they experiment with the design.

Other entries in the 2022 Natural Robotics Contest included a forest-protecting robot bird, a hermit crab rover, a robotic sea urchin, and a plastic-collecting dolphin. You can see them all and apply for next year’s contest at the Natural Robotics Contest website.

“We chose Eleanor’s both because we really liked the idea and the way it used bioinspiration, but also because cleaning up ocean plastic was the most common purpose among all the entries we received, so we thought our winner should reflect that,” Siddall told FOX Weather.

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It turns out this idea is not only a viable one, but something that could revolutionize the entire construction industry. Publishing their findings in the science journal Nature, researchers at Imperial College London and Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology) created a fleet of small flying 3D printers that can work together to build and repair structures high above the ground. The teams were inspired by swarms of bees, which cooperate seamlessly to construct their hives.

Using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, the scientists created a fleet of drones collectively called Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM). To test their idea, the team tasked the bots with the job of building four cement-like structures. Some drones were designed as “BuilDrones” to do the actual work of creating materials during the job, while others were created as “ScanDrones” to continually assess the BuilDrones’ output and provide instructions for next steps.

After all being fed the exact same blueprints, the drones worked autonomously to create a 72-layer, two-meter-high tower out of polyurethane-based foam, as well as a 28-layer, 18-centimeter higher cylinder out of a custom-designed cement-like compound.
The researchers also acted as human controllers on the ground, analzying the bots’ work in real time and intervening if necessary to make sure they were working collectively and accurately (within five millimeters of the building schematics).

“We’ve proved that drones can work autonomously and in tandem to construct and repair buildings, at least in the lab,” says lead author Mirko Kovac, Professor at Imperial’s Department of Aeronautics and Head of Empa’s Materials and Technology Center of Robotics. He adds: “Our solution is scalable and could help us to construct and repair buildings in difficult-to-reach areas in the future.”

The team’s next goal is to prove the drones’ viability in a real-world setting, and they already have plans for collaborations underway. If the trials are successful, the 3D printing drones could not only construct new buildings and help make standard repairs, but they could also be deployed for massive rebuilding in post-disaster situations, where manpower may be limited or access is obstructed for traditional construction vehicles.

Armies of building drones would significantly lower the risk of human injury and death on tall worksites, all for dramatically lower costs compared to conventional construction methods. The bots’ environmental benefits are also promising, as they would reduce the need for massive fuel-consuming vehicles and cause far less damage to local ecosystems during the construction process.

While we may not yet be at the point where swarms of flying robots swoop down in our neighborhoods to create new homes and buildings from the ground up, these smart drones hint that a world like that could be our reality in a matter of years, if not decades.

The post Bee-Like 3D Printing Drones Can Build Structures on the Fly first appeared on Dornob.

Joining forces with renowned architect Masayuki Sono, winner of NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, Serendix and Sono designed a small house that could be printed quickly enough to serve as emergency housing after a natural disaster like an earthquake or hurricane that destroys the population’s homes.

“The skeleton weighed about 20 tons, and its assembly was completed in 3 hours,” Serendix said in a press release. “Housing construction such as waterproofing and openings was completed in just 23 hours and 12 minutes.”

While the assembly time doesn’t include installation of windows, doors, or interior features, these can be prefabricated and added on site within a few extra hours, allowing these “instant homes” to provide temporary shelter for disaster victims in as little as a day after a catastrophe hits.

The entire pod costs just 3 million yen, or roughly $25,000 USD, to construct thanks to the lack of human labor required. “Using a 3D printer and advanced robotics, we are working on a design that only works with robots and uses as little human hand [input] as possible,” the firm explains.

The home’s distinctive shape was chosen because of its large surface area-to-volume ratio and for its high structural stability. The Sphere is fashioned from 12 identical base segments cut from a cylinder. The pieces are then assembled into a single cocoon-like form. The result is a pod that can look round, square, or hexagonal depending on the particular vantage point.

“This creates a dynamic effect as if it is constantly changing its profile as people walk around the structure,” the firm says. “When multiple units are installed in a cluster such as in the case of cottage or camping ground, this provides diversity and avoids the next house from looking monotonous while maintaining a consistent design vocabulary.”

With its rib-reinforced double shell structure, the 3D-printed dwelling meets both European heat insulation performance standards and Japanese seismic operation requirements. And because it’s made up of separate but easily conjoined parts, the Sphere can be manufactured either onsite or pre-printed as needed. “The goal is to print each unit on ite for highest efficiency,” Serendix says on its website. “Due to identical base geometry of all [pieces] it can also be pre-printed in a controlled factory environment and assembled onsite in case the site condition limits use of in situ printing.”

The 3D-printed structure can also easily be customized for multiple uses. The “window locations can be flexibly adjusted and even the entire base model can be rotated in [a] vertical orientation to achieve variations in design and form.” This could include vaulted, domed, and pitched roof profiles. Multiple units can also be connected to create larger spaces for bigger families or community groups.

Serendix reports that it has already printed its first full-scale prototypes on two different continents and assembled a proof-of-concept unit in Japan. The firm is further improving the fabrication process for upgraded models.

The post This 3D-Printed Housing Pod Can Be Built in Under a Day for Less than the Price of a Car first appeared on Dornob.

When a Swedish newspaper publicized a year ago that there were more than 200 electric scooters lying at the bottom of the Malmö canals, four designers banded together to solve the problem, creating a company called Andra Formen, or “Second Form” in Swedish.

“We let others’ bad decisions inspire us and take our starting point in mistakes when we start a new project. How could a material, a place, or a phenomenon be made differently? Could [it] be done better?” the team writes on their website.

They started by enlisting the aid of two brave divers to fish abandoned two-wheelers out of the murky water. “Some of them had barnacles growing on them,” co-founder Christian Svensson notes. The designers estimated that many of electric transporters hadn’t even survived a year of usefulness before being ditched in the seaway.

After giving each scooter a good scrub, the team took them apart and laid out their inventory of components, looking for design revelations. The result is a collection of desk and floor lamps, a chair, a hydroponic planter, and a grill, all under the name “E-metabolism.”

“Our mission is to turn toxic waste in the form of electric scooters from the bottom of the canal into pieces of art,” adds Oskar Olsson, who designed many of the pieces himself. He adds: “We tried to stay true to the shapes of the scooters. Some even have dents and scratches, and they tell a story about the life it had before.”

Olsson and Svesson, along with partners Jingbei Zheng and Peder Nilsson, used the original parts as much as possible: a dead battery for the base of the floor lamp, handlebars and decks for the chair legs and seat, hubcaps as a base for the desk lamp, and handlebars for the lamp neck and head. Connector pieces from the cast-off scooters fashion the furniture together, with a few bits of 3D-printed material here and there tying it all together.

The aesthetic of the pieces has a colorful modern feel with an air of recycled chic, keeping the original hues and branding from the salvaged Voi, Bolt, and Tier scooters. While the playfully quirky furniture would be difficult to scale up based on the limited supply of scooters from waterway graveyards, the intention behind the work is a helpful reminder of our responsibility to preserve natural resources.

“We wanted to show that you can actually do something with waste,” says Svensson. “It doesn’t need to go to the dump.”

The group adds that “With this project we want to challenge our contemporaries to look past environmental degradation and see how today’s materials can be resources tomorrow.”

All the repurposed products in the E-metabolism line are on display on the Andre Formen website, with prices ranging from $200 to $800. Interested parties must fill out an email form for potential purchases.

The post Sunken E-Scooters Get New Life as Recycled Furniture first appeared on Dornob.

But now all that may be a thing of the past with an incredible invention straight from one of the most ubiquitous pop culture gems of all time: The Office. Undoubtedly superfans will recall Dunder Mifflin exec David Wallace’s idea for an unfortunately named vacuum dubbed the Suck It designed to help kids clean up their toys. Later sold to the U.S. military, the fictional Suck It was a Shop-Vac-like machine and basically a souped-up vacuum. Like so many other inventions, it was a slightly tweaked version of an already existing device.

Fast forward to today, and enter Matty Bendetto, host of the YouTube channel Unnecessary Inventions. He’s also an already accomplished inventor with a resumé that includes “LEGO socks” meant to prevent wearers from mashing up their feet when stepping on the hard little blocks. Now, Bendetto says he was “inspired” to create a new LEGO invention from watching the aforementioned episode of The Office. Of course, Bendetto doesn’t want users to simply Suck It, but to Organize It, too.

The “It” in this case is, as you may have guessed, lost LEGO bricks. According to a recent AV Club article, Bendetto created his LEGO vac by “designing and 3D printing four canister inserts” that take simple suction one step further by adeptly organizing the errant pieces by shape — the next-gen souped up Suck It.

The canisters are conveniently transparent in this uber-modified Shop-Vac, allowing users the visual thrill of watching their truant pieces being separated before their very eyes. The secret here is Bendetto’s addition of increased air flow to allow pieces to be sucked up more easily in a virtual clog-free zone. Before you know it, you now have yourself a neatly organized quartet of LEGO canisters at the ready, no muss, no fuss.

Bendetto also provides a cool video to demonstrate his latest invention. Described as “unexpectedly hypnotic,” it’s easy to see why LEGO fans would be wooed by such a device — the latest addition in the charismatic Youtuber’s list of “unnecessary inventions.”

The post This New LEGO Vacuum Was Inspired By an Episode of The Office first appeared on Dornob.

Forward-thinking visionaries like creator Stephan Henrich are leading the way with advances in “robotic design and architecture in physical realization and speculation,” and one only has to feast their eyes on his latest work to see just how much is possible through the combined powers of 3D printing, mechanistic robotics, and modern ground transport.

Dubbed “The Infinity,” the project is (surprisingly) not a Batman-esque reimagining of the Tron bike, nor is it a souped up, hyper-sleek sports car like the Bugatti Bolide. It’s actually a beach cruiser – a mode of transport that’s usually not considered quite as sexy.

But this isn’t just any beach cruiser. It’s a true example of Henrich’s penchant for design that’s anything but simplistic. Built around a “continuous construction element,” the bike, though not motorized, is just one short step away from inking itself into the history books as a perpetual motion machine on wheels. Henrich explains that this is “driven by a revolutionary monotyre clip chain construction…propulsed by a central wheel getting its force by a crank over a short chain and a 8-speed gearbox.” Sound complicated? That’s because it is – but would you really expect the cruiser of the future to be anything less?

Set aside all that techno-babble, impressive construction, and sleek, industrial composition, and the bike remains just that: a bike. There’s pedals, handlebars, and wheels — they just so happen to be arranged in a way that makes non-robotically enhanced rides look like that trike you had as a kid.

While it’s only a prototype for now, “The Infinity” all-wheel beach and city cruiser has the potential to make a big splash with its innovative design concepts, 3D printed origins, and central “continuous construction element,” though Henrich believes it has the potential to make an even bigger splash as a two-wheeled transport for bike riders everywhere. As the design itself proves, with a little time, imagination, and creativity, anything is possible.

The post Stephan Henrich’s Infinity Bike is the Beach Cruiser of the Future first appeared on Dornob.

A Company with Out-There Ideas

Relativity Space was founded in 2015 by former Blue Origin aerospace engineer Tim Ellis and former SpaceX aerospace engineer Jordan Noone. With humanity seemingly on the cusp of a new stage of space exploration, the duo hoped to find a more affordable, reliable, and adaptable way to build and launch rockets using fewer pieces, fewer steps, and fewer raw materials. The idea is that their small rockets will be able reduce the time it takes to blast satellites into orbit. It’s a goal shared by many other startups in the industry, but Relativity Space believes their methods will set them apart when it comes to delivering on their promises.

Other rocket companies, including Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Boeing, have previously used 3D printing to craft certain parts for their vessels. But thus far, none have made such extensive use of the technology to dramatically simplify the building process. Housed in their factory in Long Beach, California, Relativity Space’s enormous 3D printing machines are capable of building a rocket in less than a month. Currently, conventional methods can take up to a year, and they’re slow to adapt to any on-the-fly design changes that might come up. 3D printing makes the whole process a lot more fluid, incorporating design tweaks in a matter of days.

Investors clearly have faith that Relativity Space is onto something incredible. The company raised $500 million in capital from investors like Mark Cuban, Fidelity, Tiger Global Management, and Jared Leto, and its current value is $2.3 billion.

Testing the First Fully 3D-Printed Rocket

So what’s the catch? Well, Relativity Space hasn’t yet shown that its 3D-printed rockets can even leave Earth’s atmosphere, let alone perform as well as conventional rockets. But that could change very soon. The company plans to send the Terran 1, its first 3D-printed rocket, into space on March 31st at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Currently the largest metal 3D-printed object ever made, according to Ellis, the Terran 1 is a two-stage launch vehicle standing 110 feet tall with a diameter of 7.5 feet. It can deliver a maximum payload of up to 2,756 pounds to low-Earth orbit. Relativity Space is also working on a second rocket, the Terran R, which is both fully 3D printed and completely reusable. It will be 216 feet tall and 16 feet in diameter with a max payload of 44,100 pounds, and the company plans to test launch that one by 2024.

Why 3D Printing?

“The same fundamental premise of aerospace has really been unchanged since back when we started in Apollo,” Ellis told Space.com. “It’s still just as true today as it was 60 years ago that we’re building products one at a time by hand in these giant factories full of fixed tooling with hundreds of thousands to millions of individual parts, all assembled with a bunch of manual labor across a very complicated supply chain.”

Using robots means Relativity Space can avoid all the pesky human rights, scheduling, and availability issues that come up with a large team of human personnel. The company’s 3D printers are capable of manufacturing a single piece of metal up to 32 feet tall, and about 95 percent of the parts for its rockets are 3D printed.

If it works, this new manufacturing process could inspire more than just a sea change in space technology. It could help push a shift towards 3D printing in all sorts of industries. “Many other industries have adopted automation and software-driven technologies,” Ellis says. “That’s really all I see 3D printing as being. It’s really just an automation technology that merges many, many parts together.”

In fact, Ellis and Noone believe 3D printing will be the key to humanity’s dreams of colonizing Mars. “I think that the future on Mars and living on other planets won’t happen unless some company is the one that figures out how to build an industrial base with a high rate of automation, and very little touch labor, because that’s exactly the situation we’re going to be in on another planet.”

The post Relativity Space to Test Launch Innovative 3D-Printed Rocket This Spring first appeared on Dornob.

Unsurprisingly, transforming deserts into lush landscapes is no easy task, but as we learn more about this process in the hope of alleviating the effects of climate change, a funny little robot revealed at this year’s Dubai Design Week could help.

Part Wall-E, part mechanical seal, A’seedbot is an oddly adorable autonomous robot designed to roam desert landscapes, using a host of built-in sensors and navigation systems to examine the ground and identify and report on fertile areas. It’s equipped with solar panels that keep it crawling along anywhere within a three-mile radius of its operator on its 3D-printed legs.

Information is transmitted to a receiver so it can be analyzed by scientists, and once planting areas are identified, it can be used to plant seeds. The robot’s built-in collision avoidance system ensures that it won’t destroy itself on rocks and other obstacles.

It may sound like a futuristic dream or the next Pixar movie, but A’seedbot has very real potential, and could vastly reduce the number of human workers needed to work on desert-transforming agricultural research projects. Dubai Institute of Design and innovation graduate Mazyar Etehadi created it as part of his graduation project, which was shown for the Global Grad Show, an annual gathering of graduate design projects that aim to create solutions to social and environmental issues. This year, the Middle East and North Africa section of the show was held as an in-person event within Dubai Design Week.

“Desertification is a massive problem across the globe caused by unsustainable agricultural practices, mining, climate change, and general land overuse,” Etehadi explains on his Instagram. “But much like climate change itself, desertification is a complex ecological issue that is difficult to understand.”

That’s where the use of a drone comes in. A’seedbot, which was chosen for exhibition out of thousands of entries, is a brilliant solution. It’s also surprisingly cute. Measuring about eight inches long, it features a pair of cameras that give it that Wall-E look, a protective shell over its electronic components, and propeller-style legs that look sort of like flippers. Etehadi plans to experiment with modifications that would allow it to get around in different types of sand, and imagines that it will be attractive to both government entities and farmers.

Etehadi says of himself: “My two concentrations in the design field are product and fashion design, and I’m currently focusing to minimize and simplify human problem issues and to ensure beneficial possibilities out of complex issues, basically wanting to make human lives easier. After completing my studies at the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, I plan to stick and focus on tasks that would relate to problem-solving on both product and fashion design. Potentially to construct innovative yet straightforward proposals. As a designer, I plan to make a change as small or as impactful as it may be on the world.”

The post Solar-Powered Autonomous Robot Roams the Desert Planting Seeds first appeared on Dornob.

But what about your everyday, run-of-the-mill laser printer? Could such a device be used to create technologies that make it possible for us to interact with our electronics in an entirely different way?

Prelonic Technologies thinks so. The company envisions a future where paper-printed objects like keyboards could serve as the interface for our phones, tablets, and smartwatches, all without the excess waste that’s created with other wireless, more temporary hardware. Take wireless keyboards, for example – a popular alternative for those that want to work exclusively on their phones or watches, but require a keyboard to handle more complicated tasks like editing photos, building spreadsheets, or even performing music. But while these wireless keyboards are affordable, they’re not always practical, used a little only to be quickly discarded, and creating waste that our already beleaguered planet certainly doesn’t need.

Enter Prelonic Technologies. Founded in 2007, the company’s aim is to create “flexible printed electronics” to produce cheaper hardware that’s more eco-friendly, according to Gizmodo. Temporary, more affordable hardware that’s also recyclable? Who couldn’t get on board with that?

The company recently demonstrated this technology, dubbed Prelonic Interactive Paper (PIP), by posting a video on their site of a set of printed piano keys created by a standard laser printer. So much more than a piece of paper, however, the sheet is adapted with a circuit layout sandwiched between layers of conductive carbon, with a tiny NFC (near-field communication) chip in between. This is actually less complicated than it sounds, as the layout itself is relatively simple. And unlike NFCs that usually drain power quickly, this printed paper keyboard actually gets all the power it needs from your smartphone. Just place it atop the board, pair it with the accompanying app, and you’re ready to jam.

This application, while useful and impressive, is nothing compared to the possible applications of PIP. Think not just piano keyboards, but full-on QWERTY keyboards that make it easier to interface with your smart devices without having to bust out the laptop. And it could also be used to create custom interfaces for specific applications like Photoshop, an already existing technology that’s not nearly as cost-effective as PIP. Printed, custom keyboards and interfaces created on-demand that are also environmentally friendly and have the capability to be powered by your smartphone? Now that’s what we call making beautiful music.

The post This Printed Paper Piano’s Power Comes from Your Smartphone first appeared on Dornob.

The groundbreaking houses took just five to seven days to print using a proprietary cement-based material called Lavacrete, which ICON says is more durable than traditional construction materials. Only the first floor of each home was 3D printed; the upper floors were built using more conventional methods and materials and feature timber framing and black standing-seam metal cladding. ICON’s Vulcan construction system uses robots to layer the Lavacrete into striated surfaces, creating structures that can withstand fire, flood, wind, and other natural disasters better than conventionally built houses.

“The architectural design of the East 17th residences is a concerto between the stereotomic stone-like nature of the 3D printed concrete building bases and the tectonic, traditionally framed, upper volumes supported by their bases,” says Logan Architecture. “This duality, and the geometry informed by it, is inspired by the Neolithic Village of Skara Brae located on Orkney Island in the Northern Isles of Scotland. Skara Brae was built in 3,180 BC and was actively occupied for over 600 years. Although separated from the East 17th residences by five millennia, the challenges of the site and the epoch of the intervention upon it, as well as the inspiring optimism of human ingenuity, remain the same for both projects.”

“The East 17th residences development by 3Strands are the first 3D printed homes for sale in the United States built using ICON’s proprietary technology and advanced materials – the 21st century equivalent of readily available stone. Like Skara Brae and the meticulous stone accomplishments of its builders, the design of the East 17th Residences is pushing the envelope for the capability of concrete and exploring the frontiers of what shape our new stone age should take. And perhaps 5,000 years from now, some future civilization will marvel at what 3Strands and ICON accomplished, with such primitive technology.”

Interior designer Claire Zinnecker drew inspiration from Southwestern style for the light, bright spaces inside the homes. A limited color palette of green, white, and terracotta harmonizes with the wood, metal, and concrete structural materials of the houses. The visibility of the 3D printed walls on the inside of the first floor are a primary design feature, giving each space an interesting element of texture and pattern.

The 17th Street project is ICON’s second development in Austin, but the first to be made publicly available. Before it came “Community First! Village,” which consists of affordable homes designed to address homelessness in the city. The company also previously partnered with the Texas Military Department to design and 3D print an energy-efficient training barracks in Bastrop, Texas, which is currently the largest 3D printed structure in North America. Their technology is even in demand with NASA, which commissioned a student-led prototype lunar rocket landing pad with a vented design that redirects the plume away from the lunar surface. ICON is also working with NASA to 3D print a Martian analog habitat designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group at its Johnson Space Center.

The post You Can Now Buy a Home in America’s First 3D Printed Neighborhood first appeared on Dornob.

In the wake of the COVID-19 social distancing protocols, the fashion artist fine-tuned her “Proximity Dress,” which uses ultrasonic sensors to inflate at the hips if someone gets too close for comfort, creating a larger personal bubble for the wearer. She originally unveiled a prototype of the outfit back in 2012 but has since added 3D-printed elements everywhere, as well as noise-free sensors.

“I haven’t made dresses for myself in a long time,” she wrote, “and I got a bit fed up with people in public not considering the current distancing suggestions, so this one I’m keeping…”

The white “smart dress” appears unassuming enough when in resting position, but when the thermal sensors around the neck detect a stranger within a defined space around the wearer’s body, the built-in robotic 3D-printed hip mechanisms activate, and the skirt expands on either side. The effect is a little like a pufferfish swelling up when threatened.

One of her previous interactive creations, the “Spider” dress, has arachnid-like arms that extend in a defensive position when outsiders come too close. That 3D-printed design garnered acclaim around the world, being included in fashion shows in Amsterdam, Russia, and China.

Wipprecht explains that her “designs are based on the Proxemics Theory of Edward T. Hall. This defines four spaces around the body, each with their own characteristic distances. Whereas Hall had to measure the space between people using a wooden stick, I have been working since 2007 to translate these concepts into the digital domain, in order to measure the spaces between people up to a range of 25 feet.”

To accomplish this goal, the sensors on the Proximity Dress provide readings from high-output acoustic power with real-time waveform signature analysis and automatic calibration. And don’t worry, the suit doesn’t record any video imagery for its motion detection, so no one’s privacy is being violated during the detection process.

Wipprecht got her start in fashion while still in high school. “I was really fascinated by the notion that the people really express themselves through basically the things that they wear,” she says.

As time went on, however, her designs began to feel stale. “I started to notice that the garments that I was creating were ‘analog.’ They were not doing anything. They were not sensory. They were not changing.” Since that time, she’s worked to incorporate technology, including artificial intelligence, into every piece of clothing, allowing her pieces to move, breathe, and react to the environment around them.

Her next focus is on clothing that can visually gauge the wearer’s anxiety and depression levels. Her “Pangolin” prototype requires the use of a headset that can track the brain’s electrical signals and display them on the outfit. When someone is feeling calm, the outfit’s lights turn a soothing shade of purple.

When stress levels rise, the lights flicker and the motorized “scales” flap rapidly. “We live in a time and age [when] negative emotions start to take over,” Wipprecht notes, adding that “a lot of people start getting into more depressive modes, maybe not wanting to speak about it… So, [the Pangolin dress] might even create a situation that these things become more discussable.”

The post COVID-Inspired Proximity Dress Warns People When They Invade Your Personal Space first appeared on Dornob.

In a Kickstarter campaign that’s already garnered six times its original funding goal, the Milan-based Krill team is planning to mass produce small lamps made mostly from food waste, specifically the peels of two Sicilian oranges.

“We wanted to create a special piece, beautiful and useful as well as sustainable, so everyone can have something unique in their home that not only decorates the room but tells a story of revolution,” says product designer Victoria R. Schön in an official campaign video.

That revolution is the circular economy idea gaining steam with companies all around the world, with the eventual aim of recycling and reusing all product waste. Founded in 2018 by Ivan Calimani and Yack H. Di Maio, Krill Designs is a company dedicated to combining the need to recycle waste and the need to create new products through material research, design, and innovation. The Krill team hopes the Ohmie will be one step in changing paradigms so that “’sustainable’ will stop being an adjective and will become the norm.”

“We [didn’t] just want to make a change in design. We wanted to make this change beautiful and meaningful,” says Krill co-founder and CEO Calimani. “We have been developing biomaterials for almost three years, helping corporate be more sustainable and crafting eco design products for them. It’s time to use our expertise to make a product just for you.”

To make the petite and visually intriguing lamp, the designers at Krill obtained discarded peels from the food industry, dried them, and ground them into a powder. After being blended with a plant-derived biopolymer, the mixture was squeezed into a filament and fed into a 3D printer in a continuous spiral-like movement. This technique, called “vase mode,” gives the Ohmie its distinctive ribbed texture.

The final product is a 9-inch tall, 5.3-oz table lamp that has the feel, color, and even smell of an orange. It also comes with a USB-plug power cord, a dimmer switch, and an LED bulb with an output of 70 to 90 lumens.

Thanks to the many variations in natural orange color, the Krill team says that each lamp’s particular hue will be different depending on its organic origin. “Every Ohmie will be a completely unique piece,” the campaign page says. And since they’re all made of organic material, the Italian company also says the shape of each lamp could actually change slightly over time.

Closing the production waste loop, if an Ohmie ever breaks, the lamp body is compostable, allowing the majority of its mass to return to Mother Nature to be used again in another form.

With 9 days to go before its Kickstarter deadline of August 5, the Ohmie project had already attracted 347 investors who had contributed over $37,000, far surpassing the original goal of $3,500. Those purchasing the early-bird special got a 30-percent discount off the original price, paying $85 with an expected delivery date of November 2021.

The post Italian Designers Turn Orange Peels Into Compostable Lamps first appeared on Dornob.

Working with 3D printing company WASP, the architecture firm has designed a home that almost seems to rise out of the soil like a living organism.The home’s spherical form takes full advantage of the sculptural abilities of 3D printing, with textural curving walls topped by a giant skylight that lets daylight flood into the interior. The printing process also allows furniture and fixtures to be built right into the form, including things like kitchen cabinets. The home includes a bedroom, living area, simple kitchen, and bathroom, as well as a living tree.

TECLA, which takes its name from “technology” and “clay,” is the first eco-habitat to be built with multiple WASP Crane 3D printers. Two printing arms were synchronized as part of the construction using software capable of optimizing movements and avoiding collision, allowing the home to be built much faster than usual. It’s also a striking example of “circular housing,” in which the reusable, recyclable materials taken from the local terrain can be returned to the Earth after the house’s lifespan is over. That makes it a nearly zero-emissions project that can be recreated just about anywhere in the world.

Even better, if this same model is repeated in other locations, it can adapt to the local materials, traditions, and architectural vernacular. Principal architect Mario Cucinella stresses that one of TECLA’s strongest qualities is the fact that it can serve as a response to the changing world climate. It can be especially useful in areas that haven’t been industrialized, allowing them to quickly craft their own sustainable architecture at a low cost using whatever natural materials are available. In this case, the clay abundant in Ravenna offers benefits like thermal mass and natural ventilation, making it self-insulating and energy efficient.

“For this project, Mario Cucinella Architects not only explored housing solutions in formal aesthetic terms, it also studied the building’s shape in relation to its climate and latitude,” the firm says. “In addition, the composition of the earth mixture responds to local climatic conditions and the filling of the envelope is parametrically optimized to balance thermal mass, insulation, and ventilation according to the climate’s needs. TECLA is a composition of two continuous elements that through a sinuous and uninterrupted sine curve culminate in two circular skylights that convey the ‘zenith of light.’”

Taking inspiration from the potter wasp, WASP aims to develop viable construction processes using digital fabrication, producing 3D-printed houses in the shortest possible time and in the most sustainable way possible. “The oldest material and a state-of-the-art technology merge to give new hope to the world,” says WASP’s Massimo Moretti.

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As part of an award-winning graduate project at the Royal College of Art, designer Dani Clode invented a mechanical “Third Thumb” to see if the human brain could incorporate a bonus digit. The idea got her invited onto a neuroscience research team at University College London, where the theory was put to the test.

The 3D printed, customizable Third Thumb was worn on the hand next to the pinky finger. It was controlled via pressure sensors attached to the wearer’s feet, under the big toes. Using Bluetooth technology, the sensors wirelessly connect to the extra digit, sending directions that vary based on subtle pressure changes from the toes.

Over the course of a week, during which wearers got several hours of daily training in a lab and several more hours of at-home practice, the study revealed that users easily learned to control the extra thumb, using for it for things like holding mugs, carrying multiple balls, and even blowing bubbles from a container one-handed.

Participants adapted so well they were even able to use the Third Thumb while multitasking, like building a wooden block tower while doing a math problem.

“Our study shows that people can quickly learn to control an augmentation device and use it for their benefit, without overthinking,” Clode explains. “We saw that while using the Third Thumb, people changed their natural hand movements, and they also reported that the robotic thumb felt like part of their own body.”

Taking fMRI brain scans before and after the training, researchers found that subtle changes had been made in the way the brain represented the augmented hand in the sensorimotor cortex. A week after the study concluded, more fMRI scans were taken showing those changes had reversed back to their original scans, suggesting the brain adaptations are reversible.

The implications of the Third Thumb research could be life and even species-altering.

“Body augmentation could one day be valuable to society in numerous ways, such as enabling a surgeon to get by without an assistant, or a factory worker to work more efficiently,” says Paulina Kieliba, study co-author and researcher at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. “This line of work could revolutionize the concept of prosthetics, and it could help someone who permanently or temporarily can only use one hand, to do everything with that hand. But to get there, we need to continue researching the complicated, interdisciplinary questions of how these devices interact with our brains.”

Clode hopes that her design will help people change their perception of what prosthetics are and can facilitate.

“The Third Thumb instigates a necessary conversation about the definition of ‘ability’. The origin of the word ‘prosthesis’ meant ’to add, put onto’; so not to fix or replace, but to extend,” she writes on her website. “The project is inspired by this word origin, exploring human augmentation and aiming to reframe prosthetics as extensions of the body.”

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Recently, researchers have taken the meaning of “future projects” to the next level by printing an actual living material that could have many exciting applications— including on the planet Mars.

A number of international researchers worked on the project, which was led by the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Using a new bioprinting technique, they were able to print living “artificial leaves” made of algae and capable of photosynthesis. Kui Yu, a Ph.D. student involved in the project, explains that “the biodegradable nature of the material itself and the recyclable use of microalgal cells make it a sustainable living material.” This means that it can produce energy and still break down naturally over time. Neat, huh?

Printed on bacterial cellulose, the microalgae is also extremely durable. Super strong and sustainable, it’s the best of both worlds all in one eco-friendly little package.

So where does Mars come in? As you may or may not know, space is pretty much not amenable to growing things, as it’s an oxygen-less vacuum. However, in recent years, scientists have been researching ways to grow plants in space to support future colonies, including ones on the red planet. In 2017, for instance, Germany’s space agency tested growing tomatoes on the International Space Station by recycling astronaut urine. Other scientists have been trying to determine what vegetables are the most likely to grow in space, with the best answer so far being Española peppers.

The main reason scientists are so interested in growing things in space is because it’s a much more sustainable option than sending goods and supplies from Earth, which can get expensive quick (about $10,000 for a single pound of materials!). Additionally, they see potential paths to creating oxygen and energy in space, an environment not necessarily known for its hospitality.

The 3D printed microalgae can be used to harvest energy as sugars, which could then be converted into fuels. And since the microalgae is capable of photosynthesis, it’ll also be producing oxygen as an extremely beneficial byproduct.

The success of this project may also have other implications for the future of 3D printing beyond future Mars and space colonies. Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam, an associate professor involved in the project, is enthusiastic about the future of the sustainable tech, adding that “the printing of living cells is an attractive technology for the fabrication of engineered living materials. [This material] has the unique advantage of being sufficiently mechanically robust for applications in real-life settings.”

While not entirely clear on what these “real-life settings” might be, it’s not hard to imagine how useful this type of technology could be here on Earth. Sustainable, biodegradable, and able to be produced via 3D printing, this microalgae may be an answer to a host of energy-related problems here on our own beleaguered planet. To learn more about this amazing technology, check out the Delft University of Technology’s research in the scientific journal Advanced Functional Materials.

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Set in Shanghai’s Baoshan Wisdom Bay Science and Technology Park, the Book Cabin was designed by Professor Xu Weiguo of Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture and built by printing machines his team developed themselves. The cabin adds space for reading, book sharing, book shows, and academic discussions to the city’s Arts Bridge Space, a bookstore and venue offered by the Guanxi Normal University Press Group and ACC Art Books and Images Publishing.

From outside, the cabin almost looks like an enormous piece of dented pottery, or perhaps a paper wasp nest. Each thin layer of printed concrete is visible on its exterior surface for a textural ridged effect, and a wall that curves out to welcome you inside has an interestingly rippled surface of its own. Designed using MAYA software, the cabin can accommodate up to 15 people at a time.

No rigid framework or formwork went into the Book Cabin’s construction. Two sets of robotic arms simply laid out the fiber concrete material (specially developed by the team) one layer at a time until it completed the top of the domed roof. Each robot requires two people to operate, but just 4 to 5 people are needed to oversee the entire construction process, unlike the larger crews required for conventional building. The hollow walls are filled with thermal insulation mortar, and the ceiling is punctured by an operable skylight, so you can enjoy fresh air and read by the light of the sun.

“The design and construction of the Book Cabin show that 3D printing, as a way of intelligent construction, not only saves materials and manpower, but also has high construction efficiency and high construction speed, and can achieve irregular shape construction and ensure high quality of the construction,” says the team.

Professor Xu Weiguo previously designed and developed the world’s largest concrete 3D printed pedestrian bridge, which is also located in Shanghai’s Wisdom Bay Industrial Park. Measuring over 86 feet long and 12 feet wide, the bridge has a fluid shape inspired by the ancient Anti Bridge in Zhaoxian, China.

The professor’s team integrated innovative technologies like printing path generation, digital design, and advancements in 3D printing like a robot arm with a printing tool that won’t get clogged during long concrete printing sessions. It took 450 hours to complete and cost one-third less than a conventional bridge of similar size.

Weiugo explains that “the design of the pedestrian bridge adopts three-dimensional solid modeling. The bridge handrails are shaped like flowing ribbons on the arch, forming a light and elegant posture lying on the pond of Shanghai Wisdom Bay. The pavements of the bridge are generated from the form of brain corals, and white pebbles are filled in the voids of the pattern.”

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