Tea – early grey – hot!
When you hear about something like this (alternative “goop” found for 3d-printers that gosts $1/lb instead of $50/lb, making printing 3d objects very, very cheap), do the possibilities excite you?
If I linked to an article about building a molecular biology lab for less than $1,000, would it interest you (exciting or scary)?
’cause right now, I look through my IM list, and there’s maybe two, perhaps three people who I think would even raise an eyebrow to this stuff, which leaves me with pent up wannatalkaboutit!
I’m not sad or anything, I just know most of my friends could care less, and I don’t want to pepper your IMs with cool-to-me links if you’re not into it. :D
If you are, let me know!
I want a 3D printer! Wow.
You can make one for less than $1,000 now using off-the-shelf parts. For the same price as a decent laptop, you can have something like the CandyFab (our hack of honor!) making shapes too complicated to mold or carve, or creating on-the-spot disposable objects.
I take it you’re already familiar with Candyfab, a 3D printer that uses a heatgun and refined sugar? If not, heigh ye hence.
— Steve’d love to see that gadget in operation in person.
I’d better be, since it’s one of our Hacks of Honor. :D I wrote the text, there.
Argh, that was supposed to be a reply to.
— Steve hates it when he does that.
$1 a pound? Yes, that’s really exciting actually.
I can’t wait for the day when we can download something off the internet and print it cheaply.
I always imagine that more complicated items would come like a model kit, your printer would might even create the sprues connecting the pieces, then you have to assemble it yourself.
Imagine if it changed materials like an inkjet printer changes inks? Can you say circuitry?
Imagine if one of those inks was meant to be sublimated somehow? Can you say moving parts?
That will still be tough. I’m looking at the little Transformers I have here on my desk. They have ball joints, pin joints, and axels. Not really sure how those would work.
Putting the object together might be half the fun though!
edit: this icon is more apropos
Hee. Well yes, some things are very complex – I wouldn’t expect to get there tomorrow. Let’s just start with making two compatible moving gears simultaneously, eh?
The circuit-board, though … that could be fairly easy with conductive and nonconductive materials.
yeah, that wouldn’t be hard, you’d just paint the circuit layer on top of the plastic, it could even be on the end of a little arm that could travel around the outside of the 3d surface.
I’m one of those people, right?
RIGHT?
*laugh* Maybe! I only got your workday IM recently.
I would like to create new life forms in my garage. Yeah, it’s scary, but really no less scary than the gazillion dollar government labs :)
I’m gonna wiggle with excitement. Now.
*WIGGLE*
Haha. :)
I’m definitely interested in the awesomeness of being able to fabricate arbitrary things at our whim, but to be totally honest I usually just pass most of the links by. I’m kinda funny this way, I guess, but I just assume that it’s a given that this is going to happen one day and don’t feel the need to keep close tabs on it or something. =)
I totally want a 3D printer. Like, tomorrow.
I’m into it. Feel free to IM me.
H’okay, you’ve got the gear…
Now what? Most of the reagents necessary for your garage molbio lab are going to run at least the $1000, and depending on your scale, maybe even on a monthly basis. Yes, you can buy a lot of them with a credit card, since that’s rather typical for a lot of startup biotechs these days (my first boss here in town dropped $4K off his personal card for the first company gear).
And there’s even a great deal of technical information about what to do with all of that gear, available online. Okay, maybe not the Current Protocols books (though, again, you might be able to buy the CD versions via CC), but with the public access to all journal articles now, enough information that you can get an idea how to use Bit A to work Slime B.
However, doing your troubleshooting… ay, there’s the rub. That’s where having buildings full of colleagues is necessary…
(well, and access to insitutional-scale safety measures and emergency response systems…)
Re: H’okay, you’ve got the gear…
Nice to know I’m not the only one thinking OSHA would be all over this…
Re: H'okay, you've got the gear…
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’d never touch such a thing. I presume it’d be for hobbying around in your free time, and would be done by someone who -also- does such things professionally, in a professional setting. Still a pretty awesome concept, that you could throw together -something- to mess around with molecular biology for the price of a computer.
Would it surprise you if I tell you I have bought second hand lab equipment from online auctions for a microbiology lab?
The deal is this tho.
Most of the big equipment if you buy it new will sell you the warranty and maintenance for it for X number of years. Of course, from looking over that lab they forgot the BAZILLION latex gloves and pipettes and slides and what have you. The intial investment might only be a K, but the disposable supplies needed to run a lab can really add up over time.
This is all very exciting, yes.
Actually…
What you’ve got me thinking about is possible models under which AASFA could go in with other interested parties to buy and operate a 3d printer for use by local geeks. Intriguing.
That would be terribly exciting. I would totally get back into 3D design if I could mess around with them in real life.
I’m serious. Think about it; come up with some ideas for how it might work; email me or talk to me at Penguicon.
One possibility would be for us to go in with another geek group that has resources too. I’m guessing Peng wouldn’t have money to invest in something like this, but if they did, they’re a potential partner.
Also, if we can get one cheap (from a company that doesn’t need theirs anymore etc.) that would help. I might know someone who could have space for it, and we could also haul it to cons.
I want in for these links. Oh man. The lab I could afford? Oh man. And if we can refine the 3D printer goo like that, maybe it’d be possible to swap inks on the fly…. can you image printing your own circuitry at home? Without even bothering to put on shoes?
(Since you don’t have my IM, it’s punkrockscience on AIM.)
Heh, did you see my comment about just that?
I didn’t. But it’d be awesome, wouldn’t it? I don’t even think, given what some physicists I know are researching, that it’d be overly difficult to do. Or that far off. Picospritzers already handle things not much smaller than the kind of metal ions you’d need.
I’ve usually already read it, but I’m always excited to talk about it. (Or read it on your google reader feed)
This is fabulous news!
OMG fablabs. A more exciting bit of the future is hard to contemplate!
I definitely want the 3d printer yesterday!
…I think you should post the links on your LJ. That way all of us geeks that are interested can chat about it with you and each other.
Fair enough! Of course, if I do it here instead of just in Google Reader, you all will have to converse about it, or I’ll just go back to linking it there. ;)