my name is roos meerman, 23 years old and i'm from arnhem, the netherlands. i studied product design and mainly focused on the process of creating a new product, how to create an end productand which machines you need. i’m fascinated by applied technology, howproducts are made and can be used in real life. on the internet i saw a very interesting test withinflating marshmallows in a vacuum chamber.
when did 3d printing start, this gave me the idea to apply this technique on another material to see if i can make a permanently inflated product. it all started with plastic that i putin an oven, this was my first test. when i got it out of the oven, itfell over by accident onto a plate
and i noticed that i could stretchthe plastic into a long thread. i concluded that this was the bestmaterial to use for my idea so that i can transform small pieces of plasticinto inflated shapes of large volume. by using 3d printing you can createall kinds of shapes and forms, you can even put a shape into another shape,the design possibilities are endless. i use a combination of 3d printing,glassblowing and blow molding, also used to inflate pet bottles. i start by printing a hollow shape,which i heat in warm water. this softens the plasticand makes it flexible and inflatable.
with compressed air the printed object isinflated, with a huge increase in volume. for example, this is an experimentwhere i print a small shape that i inflate afterwards in a way that theexterior walls are as big as they can get. these are two different test results. it isn’t pure art or pure science,it’s a combination of the two. i dream of printing objectswhich can be temporarily inflated
and can be deflated back to its original small shape, making it easy to move from one place to another. i would love to continue experimentingwith this technique,
find new applications for it and push the boundaries.
