The year is 2025. A soldier is low on potassium. Sensors trigger. A machine zaps into existence a banana.
Lauren Oleksyk (leader of the Army’s Natick research lab) is working towards a future where soldiers are fed by 3-D printers. Her team hopes to gather personalized information through head-to-toe sensors that will measure levels of potassium and cholesterol, and then use that information to create efficient, nutrient-heavy meals for the battlefront.
“We envisioned to have a 3-D printer that is interfaced with the soldier. And that sensor can deliver info to the computer software,” Oleksky says to NPR.
These 3-D printers would blast liquids and powders into complex shapes, though there is speculation over whether or not these printers would be able to create a solid food without altering its nutritional value. Other companies have already taken to using 3-D printing technology to create food, such as The Sugar Lab, a startup acquired by 3-D Systems that transforms sugar into sweet candy sculptures for wedding cakes and cocktails. And Biozoon’s Smoothfood concept utilizes the technology to create easily digestible food for the elderly. Natick’s problem, however, has to do with the shelf-life of the printed product, since these foods wouldn’t be viable as MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat, as the Army has dubbed them).
So that’s where ultrasonic agglomeration comes in.
This technology projects high frequency sound waves at targeted particles to clump them together, and with meticulous modulation, researchers are able to control the ways these constituents bind together (yielding compact, nonperishable, small snack-type items). Researchers hope to utilize both this process and the advent of 3-D printing to create a nutrient-dense, shelf-stable product.
“Another potential application may be 3-D printing a pizza, baking it, packaging it and putting it in a ration,” Oleksyk tells Army Technology Magazine.
The Army only made pizza workable in as an MRE last year, so the idea that soldiers may have access to meals that are customized not only to their biological needs but also to their tastes is a pleasant step forward in the way we feed our nation’s protectors.
Tag: 3-D printing
Being Severely Burned Didn’t Stop This Veteran From Hitting the Links
Before enlisting in the Army, Rick Yarosh of Windsor, N.Y., had taken up golf and was getting good at it. He planned to continue his pursuit of the sport when he returned from deployment.
But in 2006, while Yarosh served as a sergeant in Iraq, an I.E.D. exploded, burning 60 percent of his body and causing him to lose his nose, ears, a leg and several fingers. Since then, Yarosh has been continuing his physical therapy while also working at Sitrin Health Care Center, helping with its military rehabilitation program.
Yarosh was eager to try golf again, but he couldn’t find an adaptive club that worked with his disabilities. Luckily, two students from SUNY-Polytechnic Institute (near Utica, N.Y.) stepped in to help.
Nicholas Arbour and Adam Peters had a class assignment to solve a real-world problem and started meeting with Yarosh in January to design a golf club that would accommodate his needs. Arbour and Peters studied professional golfers’ swings and created three prototypes on a 3-D printer to develop their final design, which includes a wrist guard and a handle that Yarosh can hold while he swings the club.
On October 28, Arbour and Peters presented Yarosh with his new golf club at a ceremony at Sitrin Health Care Center. “I’m so happy,” Yarosh tells Syracuse.com. “I tried the club and I could hit the ball with it quite a distance. Now I can go out with my friends again and play golf. It’s an incredible feeling…I used to wrestle and play football, and I like to be competitive. It was another piece of my life that I lost, and these two helped me get that back.”
Arbour and Peters earned top grades from their professor for their project. “I would have written to their professor and protested if they didn’t get an A,” Yarosh says. “They worked really hard at this, and it means a lot to me.”
MORE: These Engineering Students Turned a Simple Assignment Into Two Years of Hard Work, Innovation, and Kindness
How 3D Printing Can Teach Blind Kids to Read
It goes without saying that reading to kids is vitally important. So much so, in fact, that a couple of weeks ago, the American Society of Pediatrics issued a policy statement urging parents to read to their children every single day — starting in infancy and continuing through kindergarten at least. The organization also advised pediatricians to stress the importance of this during appointments and to hand out books to their patients, especially those from low-income households.
But what about visually-impaired children who face special challenges when it comes to reading? Not only do they have a hard time seeing the words, but they also miss out on all the colorful drawings in picture books, which go a long way towards helping young kids connect with a story.
For those youngsters, researchers at the University of Colorado have come up with a solution: They’re using 3-D printers to create tactile picture books.
Tom Yeh, an assistant professor of computer science, has been leading the team on this project for two years. They’ve created three-dimensional versions of classic picture books, such as “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?” and “Goodnight Moon.”
One happy user, Michelle Bateson, who reads the books with her three-year-old visually impaired daughter Elodie, told Sarah Kuta of the Boulder Daily Camera, “Elodie loves exploring the tiniest details. Her tiny fingers are so sensitive, she finds marks and lines I can’t see.”
According to Kuta, individual artists and the American Printing House for the Blind have been producing tactile picture books for years, but the process is labor-intensive and expensive. The University of Colorado team’s efforts to produce them with 3-D printers could give all blind kids access to these books. As the price of 3-D printers decrease, the researchers hope that families can use the online library they are creating to print books for themselves.
If you’re curious about what tactile books look like and you’re in Colorado, you can see several examples of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” created by students in Yeh’s upper-level computer sciences classes. The pages are on display at the University of Colorado’s Gemmill Library of Engineering, Mathematics and Physics.
“There’s not too many projects where you can see a very clear combination of engineering, societal impact and art,” Yeh told Kuta. “It gives all students an option to communicate through design and 3-D models.”
MORE: Meet the Generous Boy Who Collects Books for Homeless Kids
This Startup is Producing Beef and Leather Without Harming a Single Cow
It’s a problem any socially conscious meat-lover has — that delicious slab of beef we sometimes call dinner was once a living, breathing, mooing animal. Not only that, but the meat industry is also incredibly harmful to the environment.
We previously reported that America’s love affair with meat is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — more than all forms of transportation combined. But what if a flavorful serving of protein were guilt-free?
MORE: Want to Help Save the Planet? Take This Pledge to Eat Less Meat
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Brooklyn, New York-based startup Modern Meadow Inc. can grow meat and leather in their lab — all without killing a single animal. The company uses 3-D printers (check out the process in the video below) and a process called “biofabrication” to produce meat and leather in the lab with cells taken from animals via a noninvasive biopsy.
And while large-scale production of meat is a ways off, printing leather is already a reality. According to 3Dprint.com, it takes Modern Meadow about 45 days to create one square foot of leather, versus the two-to-three years it takes to raise, feed and shelter an animal.
Sounds like a noble mission to us. After all, the $91.2 billion global leather industry doesn’t just mean a lot of dead animals; its chemical-based dyes, acids, and treatments can be a health hazard and an environmental nightmare, too.
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Modern Meadow CEO and founder Andras told the WSJ that his company is trying to make its leather as affordable as what’s already available on the market, but at even higher quality (no nicks and scars). He’s also finding ways to process the man-made leather without using water and chemicals.
“With the livestock industry being the largest user of land and water and the leading driver of climate change, now is the time to pursue better alternatives,” Forgacs said in a press release. “Our goal is to develop new cultured leather materials with advantages in design, performance, sustainability, and animal welfare. In the longer term, we are also developing meat products that are healthier, safer, and don’t require harming animals or the environment.”
This all sounds pretty sci-fi, huh? While we probably won’t see lab-grown meat sold alongside flank steak at the local butcher anytime soon, it appears the company’s vision is getting closer to reality. Modern Meadow recently received a huge $10 million investment from Hong Kong billionaire investor Li Ka-shing that will help accelerate research and development and expand its facilities.
Would you buy lab-grown meat or leather?
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DON’T MISS: Meet the Brilliant Team of Scientists Taking 3-D Printing to Heart
These High Schoolers Solved a Foodie Problem With a 3-D Printer
If you’ve ever had the unpleasant experience of squeezing out watery ketchup all over your hotdog, two high school students in Liberty, Missouri, have come up with just the invention you need.
Condiment experts Tyler Richards and Jonathan Thompson, both seniors studying in the Project Lead the Way Program (PLTW) at North Liberty High School, were challenged by their teacher, Brett Kisker, to come up with a solution to a problem that was relevant to them. “We always start with the phrase, ‘it really bugs me when,'” Kisker told Lindsey Foat of the Hale Center for Journalism at KCPT. (PLTW is a nonprofit that provides instruction and training in science and technology to students from kindergarten to high school, in the form of after-school programs and in-class lessons for teachers.)
What could be more relevant to a teenager than the perfect ketchup experience?
Kisker challenged their idea initially. “I said that they could just shake the bottle and that there is a free solution,” Kisker told Foat. “But they did a lot of research and they had me convinced that this problem really does exist.” The two teens found that many people would be willing to pay a little extra to have the watery ketchup problem solved. Additionally, a ketchup dispenser that doesn’t need to be shaken could help seniors and people with disabilities alike.
The students began their project by researching what patents had already been issued for ketchup inventions. “There are a surprising amount of ketchup-related patents out there,” Richards told Foat. “There was one — it’s kind of hard to explain — but basically it’s a way to inject ketchup into a french fry. It was a bit extreme.”
Next the students brainstormed, coming up with 60 possible solutions. The one they settled on is shaped like a mushroom and inserted into the underside of the ketchup cap. “It is based on the Pythagorean cup idea,” Thompson told Foat. “It’s also the same principle that toilets work off of.” They built their prototype using a 3-D printer and showed it at an exhibition of PLTW experiments in Kansas City.
The two don’t have any immediate plans to turn their ketchup idea into a business, however. Thompson has enlisted in the Army, and Richards will start at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in August. But whatever they do, their time spent as inventors probably means that they’ll never look at a bottle of ketchup the same way again.
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Could 3-D Printing Help Find A Cure For Cancer?
Imagine if you had a cancerous tumor, and your doctor could determine the best course of treatment by printing a three-dimensional (3-D) replica of the mass. You’d probably sign up immediately, right?
Thanks to researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia this could soon be a possibility.
Dr. Wei Sun and his staff have discovered new research on expediting the process of testing cancer drugs through the use of 3-D printers. The technology means doctors can print a living tumor (or a mixture of cancerous and healthy biomaterial) at such high resolution that the cells can be examined with extreme precision, according to Fast Company.
Typically, the drawn-out process requires testing drugs on cancer cells in a Petri dish, then on 3-D tumors in animals and — with a comprehensive record of trials — eventually on humans. But this process is far from ideal. Why? First off, what works in two-dimensional form may not work in 3-D. Not to mention that what works on animals may not always work on humans. Formulas can fail when switching test subjects, which is why developing cancer drugs can be such a costly venture, according to Sun.
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“Doctors want to be able to print tissue, to make organ on the cheap,” Dr. Sun said. “This kind of technology is what will make that happen. In 10 years, every lab and hospital will have a 3-D printing machine that can print living cells.”
By using 3-D printing technology, doctors can speed up the process of drug development but also potentially use it to personalize cancer treatment. The accuracy to print out multi-shaped tumors of different sizes means that a doctor can determine what drugs would work the best by simulating it with the printed version.
With cancer being such a costly and widespread disease, Sun’s venture has the potential to revolutionize treatment and save countless lives.
Meet the Brilliant Team of Scientists Taking 3-D Printing to Heart
Organ printing may sound like a plot line out of a science fiction movie, but it’s anything but. In fact, a team of doctors and researchers from the University of Louisville in Kentucky have taken great strides in 3-D printing a working human heart.
As the Associated Press reports, cell biologist Stuart Williams is leading the ambitious creation of a so-called “bioficial heart,” that’s both and artificial and natural because it’s made from a recipient’s own fat cells. Williams told the AP that he and his team have already printed simpler parts — such as human heart valves and small veins. He said they have also successfully tested the tiny blood vessels on lab mice and other animals.
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Williams said the goal is to print parts and assemble an entire bioficial heart in three to five years. The organ should be ready for human trials in less than 10 years.
We’ve already seen how the remarkable technology of 3-D printing is being used to create medical devices and prosthesis. Now, 3-D printing has the potential to revolutionize global organ shortages. How so? Since bioficial hearts are built from a recipient’s own cells, it’s unlikely the patient would reject the transplanted organ.
Watch the video below to learn more about this exciting (albeit, weird) new science.
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How 3-D Printing Helps This Girl Move Like Never Before
Hugging, throwing, eating food. Many kids don’t think too much about these simple tasks, but for one little girl named Hannah Mohn, all of these actions were nearly impossible to do on her own.
Born with Arthrogryposis, the rare neuromuscular disease made Hannah’s muscles very weak and severely limited her ability to move. But thanks to innovations in 3-D printing, Hannah can now move, Truth Atlas reports. She’s fitted with a nifty exoskeletal arm called the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX). You can check out how the innovation works wonderfully on Hannah, who is now four years old, in the video above.
There are several benefits to printing prosthetics in plastic. It’s lightweight, which is good for small children, and it’s customizable, which is better than other materials as kids grow bigger. Finally, plastics are much more affordable over metal braces — making it music to any struggling family’s ears.
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Hannah’s mom, Jennifer, was initially told by doctors when she was pregnant that Hannah might not even survive birth. Now, as she told CNN, the world is at her daughter’s fingertips.
“My hope is that she grows up to be as independent as she can,” she said. “I’d love to see her go to college. As sassy as she is and as much as she likes to be in charge, she might run for president someday — who knows?”
She adds, “Up to this point there hasn’t been much that she has let stop her. Whatever it is, she’s going to achieve it.”
This High Schooler Crafted an Affordable 3-D Prosthetic for His Young Friend
Talk about a helping hand. Mason Wilde, a high schooler from Kansas City, crafted a working prosthetic hand for his young friend, Matthew Shields, using the 3-D printer at his local library. Shields, 9, was born with only a thumb and nubs for fingers on his right hand. He didn’t think much about his disability until kids at school started teasing him.
“Every day, kids were asking him, ‘What happened to your hand, what happened to your hand,’ and I noticed it was wrecking his spirit,” said, mom, Jennifer to The Kansas City Star. “Social stigma was starting to creep in on him.”
Jennifer, a single mom, couldn’t afford commercial prostheses that can run up to $18,000, she said. After Jennifer found instructions for the “Robohand” on the Internet, she had Wilde, a 16-year-old family friend, loaded them onto the Johnson County Library’s 3-D printer that’s free to use for anyone with a library card. In eight hours, the hand was printed.
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“I actually have fingers,” a smiling Shields told CNN. ” I didn’t know what that felt like until now.” If you watch the video above, Shields can now pick things up and draw pictures.
“It has been a huge blessing. It has changed the conversation from, ‘What happened to your hand?’ to, ‘Oh my gosh! That is so cool,'” said Jennifer about her son’s new gadget. “That is huge when you are 9 and when you’re a little bit different.”
These Kids Are Designing the Future — and 3-D Printing It in Their Classroom
How exactly does a 3-D printer work? You can ask the students at Glen Grove Elementary School, who are using one to solve potential urban problems. The students are taking part in the City X Project, an international educational program that challenges kids to come up with ideas for new devices that could help the imaginary residents of City X. The students use tablets to design their objects, then make models out of clay. Then they can use the 3-D printer to create real plastic prototypes. The kids at Glen Grove, outside of Chicago, are working on a device that would clean up a river after an oil spill, for example, and a pair of headphones that a city dweller might use to dampen urban din. The overall goal of the City X program is to use technology to teach students valuable problem-solving skills. It’s not only a great way to get students thinking and learning about design, but also to prepare them to work with the cities and technology of the future. Watching the kids build their models layer by layer with the 3-D printer, one teacher described it as the “coolest thing in the world.”