The simple fact that 3D printers are becoming more and more common, let alone even exist, is truly amazing.
Originally I was told that 3D printers would allow our astronauts to simply print the tools they needed instead of having to wait or never get them. Now Nasa is evening offering grants to companies to produce the best 3D food printers and uses; look here for one of the many amazing food possibilities.
Even our local CU-Boulder campus has a CubeX 3D printer in it’s library for student use. I had known of this free service for a while but made it my goal to use it before my college career at CU ended; the outcome of this…Yoda. No, I didn’t become a Master Jedi, nor did i even make Yoda from scratch, thingaverse.com helped me out by providing this design so I could print my very own Yoda. Once I had the design in .stl format, it was a matter of converting it with CubeX software to a cad model and BAM. Well, it took nearly four hours to finish the print job… but I am impressed and excited with the outcome.
3D printers open up a whole new world of opportunity; I am both excited and a little frightened with what could be printed next!
