Year: 2013

Mechanical Engineer Jeff Landrum examines the future of 3D Printing and how the recent rapid developments in the industry could lead to a new “killer product”. There’s a countless number of game-changing developments that could arise and lead to a truly consumer-level product. When will we see “the Apple II of 3D Printers”?

How do bits and bytes feel on your fingertips? Like your controller’s gravelly rumble when a video game football player gets tackled? Like bubbles of turbulence on an airline simulator control wheel? Like the rubbery resilience of 3D digital clay? Like the hairline cracks on a fragile archaeological find? Yes. Could they feel like varying and unique human tissues as a surgeon in London performs surgery on a patient in Johannesburg? You bet. What we’re talking about here is called “haptics,” a class of technology that most of us have experienced most commonly in the form of a vibrating cell phone. But increasingly, it’s coming to the medical world.

Hardware is hard as the quip goes, but there’s never been a better time to be prototyping and launching hardware projects than right now. That seemed to be the consensus today as the second and final day of MAKE Hardware’s Innovation Workshop wrapped up. The all-day schedule of speakers represented a deep pool of talent, creativity, and passion for the business of making.

The Viper was one of the most popular projects at Maker Faire Bay Area last year, blowing minds, creating smiles, and eliciting screams of excitement. The Viper is a full-motion Battlestar Galactica-themed flight simulator built into the fuselage of a Piper PA-28 plane, complete with 360-degree rotation on both the pitch and roll axes, as well as a fully immersive flying environment inside. The most amazing part is that The Viper was made by a team of five high school students, guided by their mentors, as part of the Young Makers program. The Viper is coming back to Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend, and it promises to be even more impressive.