when i was 5 years old,i used to love playing computer games. one of them in particularwould reward me with virtual toys like yo-yos or stuffed animals,which was pretty cool. but i always wished i could takethe toys from my computer game and play with them in real life.
ted talks 3d printing organs, so when my dad told me he'd finally bought our familya color printer, i was ecstatic. five-year-old me was like, "wow!"
now i'm going to print out all of my toys,and then i'm going to play with them. i don't even have to buy them at the store. but after attempting my brilliant plan, i was obviously very disappointed because all that came out of the printerwas a piece of paper with 2-dimensional renderings of my toys, instead of the toys themselves. but what if you and idid have this ability? this ability to print whatever we wanted,whenever we wanted it.
what if we had the abilityto bring our ideas to life? the technology to do thisknown as additive manufacturing has actually existed since the 1980s. and you may be more familiar withadditive manufacturing as 3d printing. 3d printing has slowly beendisrupting and revolutionizing manufacture and designfor the past 30 years. and although it's not quite at the point where we can print outany conceivable object, it's still done a lot of goodfor the world.
it's already impacteda variety of industries, in fact. for example, it's made it easierto design prototypes, it's made it easier to printparts for aeroplanes, and it has even given us the abilityto print replacement human organs. but before we get into the nearlylimitless potential of this technology, let's understand how exactly it works. first, an engineer or designer will createa 3-dimensional model of the object that they want printedusing digital design software. and then, the design softwarewill take this 3d model
and slice it up into 2d cross-sections. the digital design software then will lasethese cross-sections to a 3d printer, which then essentiallyjust acts as a robot using a variety of materials from metals to plastics,to wood, even chocolate. and it prints out the final object. this video demonstrates in time lapsehow a 3d printer works using plastic to build-up a building. it's pretty incredible, right?
imagine how your lives would changeif you could print out whatever you needed,whenever you needed it. so, let's say you hada remote control or a calculator, and you lost the battery case. not only would it be really annoying because you wouldn't be ableto use those implements without having the batteries fall out, you just couldn't go to a store and say,"i only want to buy the battery cover." you'd probably have to buythe entire thing.
but if you have the 3d cad model,all you have to do is press "print". you'd have the battery cover,and your problem would be solved. a more important applicationof this technology is for the military. before, military surgeonsfound it really difficult to treat soldiers on the front line because they didn't have a sufficient supplyof sterilized surgical equipment. and because of different supply chainand transportation constraints, it was simply impossibleto get enough to them, on time,
to be able to save the livesof these soldiers. but recently, the military developed this new way of 3d printingsurgical instruments so they came right off the printer,already sterilized. now, thanks to this technology, these military surgeons would be ableto save the lives of many more soldiers, and it's going to improve the livesof many more people. another application of this technologyis actually in the developing world. recently, a non-profit called ilab haitisent two 3d printers to haiti.
and haitians have already begun using itto print out basic medical equipment like umbilical cord clamps. things that we, in the developed world,may take for granted, but are actually going to save the livesof many mothers and children in the developing world. and thanks to this technology,hopefully, we will able to overcome some of the inefficiencyand the corruption in supply chains to be able to produce a lot more partsto save the lives of many people. seeing how muchall this technology can do.
and it's all thanks to the work of thousands of designers, engineers,scientists, and business people. but there's still a lot of questionsthat are left to be answered: what are the intellectual property rightsof these different 3d models? or how can we improve both the quality and quantityof the materials we can use to print? or the questionsthat i've been working to answer with a group of researchers here at penn: how can 3d printing affectthe manufacturing, and supply chain,
and inventory costsof different companies? 3d printing has really donea lot of good in the world, and there's still a lot more to be done. so let's work together to harnessall the technology, and all the potential, and try to answer these questions. let's see if we can unlockall this potential,
and maybe one day, in the future,you'll be using a 3d printer to print out toys for your 5-year-old. thank you.
(applause)
