Prototype device can do drug testing via fingerprints

28 November 2011

Cambridge-based product design consultancy eg technology and Norwich-based Intelligent Fingerprinting has developed a prototype hand-held device that can detect drugs and other substances from the sweat contained in fingerprints

Danny Godfrey, director of eg technology, says: “Intelligent Fingerprinting’s core intellectual property is fascinating, offering a unique, robust way of linking a test result to the individual.

“Designing a device to automate their well-defined laboratory process has required input from all of our skill groups – microfluidics, optics, electronics, software, industrial and mechanical design.

“The release of the prototype is a major milestone towards the unveiling of the production device next year and we’re delighted to be part of such an exciting development.”

The device will enable testing of fingerprints for illegal drugs and other substances using disposable cartridges. The samples are quick and easy to collect and do not require specialist handling or biohazard precautions.

eg technology
Intelligent Fingerprinting

Barbarella lives on – at least in product concept form

8 November 2011

We couldn’t help going goggled-eyed over this image spotted on the BDI website – The Love Gun, a concept by Merrington Design. It’s a movie prop idea that Gary Merrington has created for Propshop Modelmakers, based at Pinewood Studios.

Merrington says The Love Gun has been designed with an eye on a possible re-make of the 1968 classic sci-fi movie Barbarella. The gun is an improvement on the toilet-roll-based model toted by Jane Fonda in the original film (below).

Further concepts are being developed, Merrington says. We’d like to see what an updated version of Dr Durand-Durand’s Excessive Machine looks like.

Merrington Design
Propshop Modelmakers

Objet shows folding stool printed from new ABS-like material

1 August 2011

Objet has demonstrated the capabilities of its new ABS-like material for 3D printing in a folding stool which is able to support over 100 kg.

Objet engineers printed the stool in a single print job, using the new Objet ABS-like digital material (RGD5160-DM) which is jetted as a composite material on the Objet Connex multi-material 3D printer.

Objet, which was a Platinum Sponsor at or Product Design + Innovation event in May, says the folding stool, which sits 48 cm off the ground, has similar high dimensional stability, thermal resistance, and toughness as ABS-grade engineering plastics, enabling it to repeatedly sustain the weight of a person.

Gilad Gans, executive vice president at Objet, says: “The folding stool is a demonstration of the unique possibilities available using Objet’s multi-material 3D printers including the new Objet260 Connex. Our technology represents the most effective way of functionally testing complex design ideas. Whether skateboards or folding stools, the prototypes that come out of Objet Connex 3D printers look like the real thing and also perform like the real thing.”

The stool was printed in the fold-up position in a single print job and then opened-up upon removal from the printer to be used.

Objet says the material is aimed at companies looking to functionally simulate products made of ABS-grade engineering plastics, including snap-fit parts, durable and movable parts and products requiring drop-testing.

More at Objet

CONFERENCE: Objet to discuss innovative materials

6 May 2011

Objet Geometries, Platinum Sponsor at our Product Design + Innovation conference, has announced new 3D printing materials for prototyping, providing options from realistic product visualization all the way to advanced functional verification.

Zehavit Reisin, Objet’s Head of Consumables Line of Business (above), will make a presentation at the conference, on Thursday 19 May, in which she will discuss the Israel-headquartered company’s offering to product designers, including the new materials.

Reisen tells us Objet invests a lot of resources in its relationship with industrial designers. “How we help is by taking designers’ ideas and enabling creativity through the versatility of our materials,” she says.

Her presentation is called “Objet: From Design to Reality” which will focus on how Objet’s materials simulate as closely as possible the plastics which the product will be manufactured in. She will address both standard plastics – in which designers typically consider issues such as form and fit – and engineering plastics – in which function and performance are major requirements of, for example, automotive designers.

Among the materials Reisen will discuss, which include some that will be commercially available to customers at a later date, are an ABS-like digital material and an optically clear material.

Objet says its ABS-like material is “a high-impact (65-80J/m or 1.22-1.50 ft lb/in), high-temperature-resistant (65°C or 149°F and after thermal post treatment 90°C or 194°F) material ideal for manufacturers and engineers looking to functionally simulate products made of ABS-grade engineering plastics, including snap-fit parts, durable and movable parts and products requiring drop-testing”.

Reisen says that this material should appeal to product designers working in a wide range of industries, as there is an increasing need for prototypes to meet requirements in impact and temperature testing.

“This material is not just for automotive applications, but is for every designer wanting to create prototypes that are durable and have high temperature resistance,” she says.

Objet says its new clear material “provides clear optical and visual transparency combined with great dimensional stability enabling designers to simulate PMMA in glass-like applications such as lighting cases, lenses and cosmetics containers”.

Reisen says this is an advance on previous materials simulating acrylic which did not have absolute clarity.

In its announcement, Objet quoted Gary Miller, Head of Rapid Prototyping at IPF, a service bureau in the UK: “I can see huge potential for the new Objet VeroClear material, particularly within the consumer electronics sector. During the beta testing we had great success producing clear screens, casing and housing for electronics. The new clear material allows LED lights to be easily seen within the casings and housings.”

Find out about all the speakers at Product Design + Innovation and how you can book your delegate place.

Objet Geometries

Objet will be exhibiting on stand 54 at Plastics Design & Moulding 2011, the design and manufacturing show that is co-located with Product Design + Innovation at the ExCel Centre, London.

Recycle the Melonia Shoe and it need never go out of fashion

16 February 2011

Materialise is promoting its involvement in the Melonia Shoe, intended by its designers to be a ‘closed loop’ product – at the end of its life, the shoe’s material is recycled into a new shoe.

The shoes, designed by Naim Josefi and Souzan Youssouf, were 3D printed in polyamide using laser sintering technology at Materialise’s headquarters in Belgium.

Josefi and Youssouf, of Sweden's Beckmans and Konstfack design schools respectively, collaborated in the creation of the shoes. Five pairs were made by Materialise for use in Naim’s “Melonia” collection at last year’s Stockholm Fashion Show.

The designers clearly want to increase the engagement of shoe buyers in their purchase. Their intention is that a buyer goes to a shop, has their foot scanned, and then a bespoke pair of shoes is 3D printed for them. Then, rather than dispose of them later, the shoes can be recycled into a new design.

The shoes are ‘wearable art’, so don’t expect high street shops to be offering the service any time soon. But Materialise points out the robustness of the Melonia Shoe created with laser sintering: “Despite its delicate skeletal look, it is surprisingly strong, and as five models were able to prove on the runway, can be functional as well.”

Josefi and Youssouf are nominees in the fashion category of the Brit Insurance Design Awards with the Melonia Shoe.

Materialise
YouTube video

If you struggle to give form to words, you could try 3D printing

4 January 2011
 

Books are not going to become obsolete any time soon, despite the hype of the e-reader industry. But print’s monopoly on the word is broken and has been since personal computers started appearing in offices.
Who, though, would think of giving expression to words in a non-print and non-digital way? Freedom Of Creation has done so with its launch of 3D printed typefaces.
Kashida-arabic and Kashida-latin are two versions of the 3D font developed by Yara Khoury and Melle Hammer in collaboration with Freedom Of Creation. The project resulted from an invitation by the Khatt Foundation centre for Arabic typography, which aims to advance Arabic typography and design research in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere.
 

The idea is to make words become objects. A customer can type his personal text, word or acronym on the computer and order his sculptural text directly from the 3D printers of Freedom Of Creation.
The company, based in Helsinki and Amsterdam, specialises in design using rapid prototyping technology. The organic shapes of its designs in lighting, jewellery, accessories and furniture can be seen and ordered directly at its website.
It says its latest offering takes the company “one further step towards its dream of totally customized industrial production available to a global public”.
 

Freedom Of Creation website
Khatt Foundation website
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Festo recreates an elephant’s trunk using SLS and pneumatics

22 December 2010

Design solutions are abundant in the natural world but co-opting them for man-made products often encounters manufacturing constraints.

Not so with the Bionic Handling Assistant, a flexible robot arm and three-finger gripper system from pneumatics and automation company Festo. Its design is based on elephant trunks and trout fins and it was realized through the SLS additive manufacturing process, which builds components in an organic way.

David Vink has written an article for the website of European Plastics News (our sister publication), based on his visit to the Euromold exhibition in Germany, where SLS technology company EOS and the Fraunhofer IPA institute displayed the robot arm and gripper.

IPA’s Andrzej Grzesiak says: “With the aid of additive manufacturing, we can replicate structures from nature almost one-to-one. And in combination with this additive technology, the use of compressed air pneumatics for the drive system creates the basis for such a low production price.”

SLS may be more familiar as a prototype creation process, but EOS has showed its suitability for production runs in durable materials (polyamide in this case). Festo says that 150 grippers can be produced by the SLS process in less than 24 hours.

The Bionic Handling Assistant was awarded the German Future Prize 2010 on 1 December.

Festo website
EOS website
Fraunhofer IPA website

Design, make and sell your own products with Ponoko’s new factory

25 November 2010

With the launch of Personal Factory 4, Ponoko is trying to make it as easy as possible for consumers to utilise rapid manufacturing technology and bring their own designs into being.

Ponoko is bringing together 3D printing, a decent range of materials and an online process for ordering the manufacturing, all done from the consumer’s home.

To help consumers make the leap, Ponoko is also offering starter kits for 3D printing from Alibre, Autodesk 3ds Max, Blender, Google SketchUp and SolidWorks – although design professionals can use other CAD software and can get online pricing for STL, DAE and VRML 97 design files.

Ponoko CEO David ten Have says: “Sophisticated design and manufacturing are no longer reserved for an elite group with big budgets. Everyone has had a product idea at some point, and Personal Factory 4 gives them a place to make it real.”

Ponoko has acted as a hub for users to access additive manufacturing services from different companies around the world, and Personal Factory 4 looks to build on that. In a new agreement, Ponoko is adding the CloudFab network of 3D printers to its global network of laser cutters.

The new 3D printing powder materials it is offering are durable plastic (polyamide), superfine plastic (UV curable acrylic), rainbow ceramic, stainless steel (using an infusion process with bronze) and gold plate.

The Ponoko website also contains a range of electronic components for the insides of a product, such as the pictured box lamp, designed by Dan Emery.

“The box lamp on our homepage today is a superb example of a product created using Personal Factory 4”, says David ten Have. “It illustrates that 2D materials are great for relatively large, flat and straight surfaces, 3D materials are good for durable connectors and complex shapes, while electronics hardware simply bring everything to life. This lamp is also available as a free download from our marketplace, so you can customize and make it yourself.”

Personal Factory 4 is up and running for deliveries from Ponoko’s US hub, and is planned to be rolled out worldwide during 2011.

Details of Ponoko’s Personal Factory 4.

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Patient-specific devices to be made at new centre in Wales

A new centre has opened in Wales in which rapid manufacturing technology is being used to produce one-off medical devices for individual patients.

The centre is located at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC), and brings together the clinical specialist expertise of the Medical Applications Group (MAG) and the industrial expertise and rapid prototyping specialism of the National Centre for Product Design and Development Research (PDR), which are both based at UWIC.

PDR says the devices could range from products to make daily living easier, including utensils and reading aids to customised grips for walking aids for people with arthritis and specialised seating cushions.

The aim of the centre, which received funding from the Welsh Assembly Government’s Academic Expertise for Business (A4B) programme, is to meet growing demand for personalised healthcare products at an affordable price.

The centre will work with companies to create one-off products for specific patients, but it also works with companies to improve the performance of existing medical products by incorporating customised design features to meet individual patient needs.

Jarred Evans, PDR commercial director, says: “There is plenty of help and support available for companies developing standard medical devices but nowhere offering specialist skills, technology and knowledge in the emerging field of patient specific healthcare devices.

“The majority of bespoke devices are currently fabricated within an NHS department and are expensive and only designed for single patients where there is no suitable mass-produced product.”

The PDR release says:

“Revolutionising the process of adapting cars for disabled drivers is an example of how the new centre will work. Until now making such adaptations has relied on taking physical casts and multiple measurements of an individual driver’s body. The process can be uncomfortable, debilitating and lacking in dignity at the same time as being expensive and time consuming. These casts and measurements are then used to from the basic templates to modify, by hand, the interior of a vehicle, including the seating and controls.

“Adaptations using this method can cost £60,000 and take up to six months to complete. But the driver and the movements used to control a car can now be captured in 3D using digital scans. The interior of the vehicle can then be digitally redesigned quickly and accurately and the rapid manufacturing technology to produce the unique one-off configurations and components.

“It is thought these techniques could reduce the costs and timescale by about a third.”

October 2010

More at PDR website