iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Thanks to its relatively high accessibility and affordability, 3D printing is slowly changing the face of prosthetics. In this article, we take a look at some of the most common and most promising prosthetics that can be 3D printed.

So where are we now?

One day soon, we’ve been told over the last decade or so, we’ll all have 3D printers in our living rooms! You can make whatever you want!! But we don’t, and you can’t. “With every technology, you have the hype cycle, and right now we’re sort of at the bottom, because the hype is over,” says Joris Laarman, a Dutch designer who has engineered new types of digital-fabrication materials and whose work is the subject of an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York through January. “People are kind of like, ‘Okay, so? What can we do with it? Was it real or was it just hype?’ ”

Well, for some it hasn’t been just hype. Laarman uses 3D printing to create functional, usable furniture called micro structures. SpaceX has a dedicated 3D printing zone at its plant in Hawthorne, California. GE’s Brilliant Factory aims to use 3D printing to transform large-scale manufacturing.

But where is 3D printing for the rest of us?

In Becky Stern’s latest Instructables project and accompanying YouTube video, she shows how to 3D design and print sweet LED-illuminated flowers. Becky is one of the true masters of clear and clever presentation of instructional materials. And she just keeps getting better.