As printing technology grows in leaps and bounds, it’s possible to print virtually anything on any imaginable surface these days. We’ve done a little sleuthing to see what the world of printing has currently been up, and here are some amazing finds…
You can now print anything on coffee foam
Latte art just got more interesting with The Ripple Maker, a coffee machine that’s so in love with technology that it uses 3D printing and inkjet tech to transfer art and images onto your morning latte. A library of designs and symbols connect to The Ripple Maker via an application, and it takes all of ten seconds to print them onto the foam. This snazzy innovation is a product of SteamCC, a design and tech startup hailing from Israel. With a hefty price tag of $999, its targets are mainly businesses and brands. If you’re itching to try a cuppa, fly booking a first or business class on Lufthansa – the airline is using The Ripple Maker on some of their flights. See the video below:
Print your fully-customized furniture in just two hours
All those who have struggled to assemble a sofa can now sigh in relief as Drawn, a French startup company, unveils a 3D printer so big that it can print a chair in two hours flat. The Galatea, which in origin was a robot arm for assembling cars, has already printed out designer chairs, lamps, bookshelves and coffee tables, measuring up to 1.5 meters. Encouraging sustainability and value, each of the pieces can be customized to fit one’s specifications. Its founder, Sylvain Charpiot, has turned to crowdfunding in order to turn its goal of showcasing Galatea in trade shows into a reality. Head over to their Kickstarter campaign now, where pledges of €30 can get you a 3D printed toilet paper shelf, while a €5000 pledge buys you a ticket to print 150 kilograms of anything you so desire!
Print a picture… using Lego
JK Brickworks‘ Jason Allerman has gone and done what every Lego-obsessed child and adult has been dreaming of — he’s created Bricasso, a Lego Mosaic Printer! Using an EV3 color sensor that first scans a source image, the saved data is then ‘printed’ onto a Lego base using single Lego blocks. See the video of the Bricasso in action:
At the moment this is but a project, but Allerman hopes to expand it into the realm of 3D Lego printing. Sure, it’d be much faster to manually put the image together with your Lego bricks, but where’s the fun in that?