Check out Stratasys founder, chairman and head of innovation Scott Crump braving the slopes as he tests what could be the world's first 3D printed skis. These skis are fully functional, built on a Fortus 3D Production System using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Technology and ULTEM 9085 resin.
Stratasys Engineer Dominic Mannella designed and built the skis at our Skunkworks facility. He picked ULTEM because it's a strong and stable thermoplastic that endures a wide range of temperature and moisture conditions -- even a Minnesota hillside in a polar-vortex winter.
The ability to 3D print low-volume end-use parts could be a boon in industries like sporting goods, where personalized ergonomics and custom aesthetics are attractive.
Tas Oszkay, Mo Harmon, and Jac Currie are graduate students at UCLA's school of Architecture and Urban Design who re-imagined skateboard product design using (http://www.solidconcepts.com/3d-print...) Solid Concepts' 3D Printing to manufacture an incredible board in one unit. Their board is an involved aesthetic dialogue between form and function. The design reveals heavy influences from the team's organic inspiration, Radiolaria. From a machining perspective, the complex mineral shell of radiolarians is nothing short of a nightmare. The patterns of the organism from under a microscope weave into each other, looking roughly similar to a dried up piece of sea reef. The team took the basic design of the silica skeletons unique to radiolarians and further complicated it through layering using CAD software.Here is the post about first 3d printed skateboard project:
Their board is self identified as a cruiser, meant for gracing the beach front or getting about campus. They think in the future they might look into trick boards; 3d Printing is a technology capable of being extremely light, and that would factor well into such a venture. But for now, they're experimenting with the more relaxed board.
Where is the future of 3D printed product design headed and why? Niche and pricy markets like arrow fletchers may see the soonest market disruption. A good arrow fletcher holds feathers accurately and securely in place while glue dries. This fletcher was printed and delivered at the market price of current ones.
A helical twist in the feathers create arrows with better stability in flight, but helical fletchers are generally more difficult to manufacture, leading to very few that can fletch 3 feathers simultaneously. Instead of designing products with simple extrusions and assemblies of stamped parts, this fletcher asks where forces are actually needed, and how they can be satisfied with the least.
Depending on an archer's handedness and set up, different twists are required. Instead of buying the only fletcher that meets your requirements, you can select “18.5 Degree Twist, Clockwise Rotation, 12lb Glue Pressure, Style 2”,through a customizer such as OpenSCAD and click “print”.
23 springs, yet only four parts. By understanding the elasticity of the material, we can create products which clamp and stretch and bend in predictable ways without adding more parts to assemble. Freedom from draft angle or such other constrictions allows these shortcuts to be used more freely than they have been in the past.
To use:
- An arrow nock is snapped into the base
- Squeezing the arms allows feathers to slide in, glue is applied
- The arms click into the base and are folded up
- The arms snap - with audible satisfaction - onto any diameter of aluminum arrow
- The feathers are now secure, and the glue is left to dry
Please note that this skateboard is an art piece and not really for actually using. It is rideable, but as I'm sure you can see workout, it's not anywhere near the strength and pop of a good old 9 ply Canadian maple deck. This is not a comercial product and we're not saying that we're becoming the first company to manufacture 3D printed skateboards. That would be silly.**
www.3dprint-uk.co.uk - Sam Abbot is one skilled fella - he won our competition that we co-hosted with CGTrader last month. Sam won best the best portfolio catagory due to his plethora of awesome designs. We then had a few weeks of fun making his skateboard..... it wasn't quite as strait forward as just a print as the board is longer than our build tray, meaning that we had to cut it into 3 sections, joining it together with some connector pins to ensure accuracy and to give it some strength over a simple butt joint. The final result..... the worlds first 3d printed twin tip skateboard.
.... is it ride-able? Yes... but I wouldn't drop down many sets of stairs on it just yet!
