While 3-D printers have been around for quite a few years, they have been recently appearing in the news and making a name for themselves. 3-D printers were first introduced in the late 1980’s and throughout the early 1990’s. When 3-D printers were first introduced they were extremely expensive making them not accessible to the public. Currently 3-D printers are making a comeback and their prices have dropped making them available on a more affordable market for more people to use.
A 3-D printer is also known as additive manufacturing. To create something from a 3-D printer additives are used to form many different solid 3-d items based off of digital models. Is this the new change and how manufacturing will be in the future? Many technology visionaries think that our lives will change dramatically because of 3-D printing. 3-D printing will be able to change lives in multiple different ways.
Medically 3-D printing will be a life saver, literally a life saver. 3-D printer will be able to print organs for transplants. There will no longer be a need to wait years and years on a transplant list. CNBC reported that as of now skin, kidneys and a replica of a human heart that’s beating are already being printed. It’s hoped that in the future full body limbs could be printed for replace amputations.
For the manufacturing world time and money will be saved. Items can be printed domestically. International outsourcing will hopefully be eliminated. Another benefit for the manufacturing company is that waste would be eliminated. The hope is there could be zero waste for manufactured goods.
While the idea of 3-D printing seems like an amazing idea, there are side effects with it. Think about people being able to create whatever they would like. The control of items would disappear. There are already gun issues happening in America, 3-D printers could possibly print guns, making them accessible to almost anyone. Food is also another item that has been printed recently. Is this food healthy, does it supply all the nutrients our food supply does today? While this is just the beginning of possible complications, many more can appear. Complications could also break the law when it comes to copywriting and such.
3-D printing technology is advancing tremendously. Currently American’s are working on printed versions of cars. In other parts of the world larger items like houses are attempting to be printed. With advances being made each day the possibilities are endless. While there are still glitches to fix in printers, there is hope that one day 3-D printers will be the source for many of the items humanity uses on a day to day basis. It will take many years for this to happen, but inventors and scientists are on the right track to make this reality instead of a possibility.