Ian van Mourik, a product designer from the Netherlands developed and open sourced an air purifier anyone can make. It is autonomous since it is controlled with Arduino and uses simple fans to move air trough particle filters and activated carbon. It costs around 70 Euro. It has some laser cut parts from plywood but you could cut them manually or use different structural support since they are mostly decorative. Looks like a great solution to improve your home air quality by removing dust and destroy mold particles or pollen (which I'm allergic to). Just keep in mind to change the filters or upgrade them with HEPA. Carbon filters get used up relatively fast.
CVRA (Club Vaudois de Robotique Autonome) is a group of students and engineers passionate about robotics. It is based in Renens, Switzerland. They needed a compressed air tank for their robot project that could hold 4 bar (400kPa) of pressure. They made several 3d printed prototypes in PLA and were successful in the end with tank holding some 6,5 bar sealed with some acrylic coating. Interesting experiment, but be aware that pressurizing plastic containers with gas can lead to serious explosion.
Here is the advanced prototype sealed with "Doc Blue" sealant pressure tested under water:
Project homepage with extensive information and progression of development:
OctaWorm is a deformable octahedron burrowing robot that is currently powered by air pressure. It is developed by Juan Cristobal Zagal and has many 3d printed parts. The design enables it to move in very confined spaces.
Here is a video showing its abilities and a development path of OctaWorm from early hydraulically powered prototypes:
Doug Conner developed a 3d printable homemade Stirling engine, a type of motor that creates mechanical motion from temperature differential of a medium which is air in this case. The engine is made in ABS on a Stratasys FDM printer.
This engine has some metal (brass, aluminum) parts, couple of metal screws and some rubber O-rings, but that is unavoidable due to the nature of the technology and ABS material limitations.
It takes some 50 deg F (or 28 deg C) of heat differential to move at stable speed at about 300 rpm without additional weight or load. Project homepage:
At Victoria University of Wellington's School of Design, Richard Clarkson 3D printed these complex flower shaped objects from a soft rubber multimaterials that are inflatable and adapt to air pressure.
Recent advances in 3D printing now allow the simultaneous deposition of different build materials in a single print. In a similar way to nature, materials can be distributed seamlessly within objects for structural and functional advantage. “Blossom” explores the blending of two materials with varying physical properties transitioning from flexible to rigid. The variation offers an opportunity to generate complex forms and dynamic structures that are impossible to make by any other means. The research into applications of these Digital Materials™ has resulted in what is believed to be the world’s first inflatable 3D print. Forcing air into the cavities of the print causes it to ‘bloom’ and thereby reveal the complexity of its physical structure.
INDN 441 Supervisor: Tim Miller – Creative Digital Manufacturing. School of Design, Victoria University of Wellington. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/design Designer: Richard Clarkson. Supervisor: Tim Miller. Video: Szliárd Ozorák.
If you ask me, it looks somewhat creepy when its magnified and moving ...
I wanted to check the claim that it was the worlds first air inflatable 3d printed rubber object. On youtube I found this video published in September of 2013 that shows something that looks like layer 3d printed rubber inflatable object that has a system of chambers to manipulate the shape and vibration pattern by applying pressure.
Disney research is really getting into 3d printing and cutting edge technologies.
From project page:
AIREAL is a new low cost, highly scalable haptic technology that delivers expressive tactile sensations in mid air. AIREAL enables users to feel virtual objects, experience dynamically varying textures and receive feedback on full body gestures, all without requiring the user to wear a physical device. AIREAL is designed to use a vortex, a ring of air that can travel large distances while keeping its shape and speed. When the vortex hits a user’s skin, the low pressure system inside a vortex collapses and imparts a force the user can feel. The AIREAL technology is almost entirely 3D printed using a 3D printed enclosure, flexible nozzle and a pan and tilt gimbal structure capable of a 75-degree targeting field. Five actuators are mounted around the enclosure which displaces air from the enclosed volume, through the flexible nozzle and into the physical environment. The actuated flexible nozzle allows a vortex to be precisely delivered to any location in 3D space.
YOU CAN TOUCH VIRTUAL OBJECTS!
I can see that this is a technology which is simple enough that someone could make DIY version of it. Also: one could make an entire room covered in AIREAL like arrays ...