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Jennie Hills/Science Museum London
3D Printing the Future
Simon Scott, Director of Renishaw’s Additive Manufacturing Products Division at 3D Printing the Future.
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3D Printing the Future prosthetic arm
Prosthetic arm designed by Nottingham University interns under Prof Richard Hague
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Jennie Hills/Science Museum London
3D Printing the Future
Simon Scott, Director of Renishaw’s Additive Manufacturing Products Division at 3D Printing the Future.
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Jennie Hills/Science Museum London
3D Printing the Future
Simon Scott, Director of Renishaw’s Additive Manufacturing Products Division, at 3D Printing the Future.
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Jennie Hills/Science Museum London
3D Printing the Future
Simon Scott, Director of Renishaw’s Additive Manufacturing Products Division, at 3D Printing the Future.
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Prof Richard Hague
Professor Richard Hague working in the Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Research Group lab at University of Nottingham.
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Jennie Hills/Science Museum London
3D Printing the Future
Simon Scott, Director of Renishaw’s Additive Manufacturing Products Division at 3D Printing the Future.
A dawn reveille, a two-hour train journey, a packed commuter Tube and a brisk jog along the South Kensington museum subway does not always equal the most stylish of starts to the day, but what this journalist's entrance lacked in style, the venue made up for in impressiveness.
The Science Museum in London is a fantastic venue and shortly after its doors swing open to the public it is jam packed with school groups, day-trippers, overseas tourists and those just passing through. I cannot, therefore, imagine a better location for the museum's new exhibition 3D Printing the Future, for accessibility to the whole range of ages and walks of life.
TCT Magazine attended the media launch one day before the exhibition opened to the public on October 9th and, as a 3D printing industry insider, it is hard to resist a swell of pride in knowing the technology has sequestered a corner of this amazing institution all to itself.
The morning's events commenced with an official welcome from Suzy Antoniw, Project Leader at the Science Museum, which then allowed for plenty of time to peruse the exhibition and speak with those involved - preferably before our mainstream broadcasting contemporaries had set up their film equipment commandeering the space for themselves.
Vast appeal
The exhibition received support from major funders Renishaw amongst others, who are exceedingly proud to have been involved.
Chris Pockett, Head of Communications at Renishaw, said: "This is an important launch for us, this exhibition appeals to a very large set of people. We are all about inspiring the next generation of engineers and it appeals to both a general and specialist audience. You can come here with absolutely no preconceptions about 3D printing."
Preconceptions about 3D printing is a matter the industry is keen to put right. Buzz phrases such as "the third industrial revolution" and "push-button technology" have been rolled out a great deal over the past year and those who have been involved in additive manufacturing for decades, such as Renishaw, are eager to show the truth behind this sophisticated and varied technology.
The exhibition does this well, with numerous pieces familiar to the 3D printing industry on show, such as a photo-realistic 3D-printed head from Mcor Technologies, various imaginative and innovative builds from the RepRap community, Renishaw-made metal 3D printed dentures and the 3D-printed arm developed by summer interns at the University of Nottingham under the knowing eye of Prof Richard Hague, a professor at the university and Head of the Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Research Group (3DPRG)
"We are now looking to the next generation of additive manufacturing and we're calling it multifunctional additive manufacturing," Prof Hague explained. "The hand was designed by interns we had over the summer and we asked them to produce something that would be exhibited at the Science Museum. The prosthetic arm embodies where we are going with the research."
"Super-talented students"
The expert revealed that while Nottingham University has spent time on extruder-based 3D printing techniques in the past, now it is focusing on metals and powders and "ink-jetting" technologies. He also noted how proud he is to have led this latest batch of interns.
"We are very lucky to have a bunch of talented students in this year's programme. There is a rigorous selection process and most come from Physics, Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering backgrounds. What we wanted to do was have multidisciplinary teams, so we split the interns into three separate projects. These guys are super-talented and all of them are motivated and their projects worked well. For us, this embodies what we want to do at the University of Nottingham. We are going to start looking for students at other universities next time for the paid internships."
Paid internships? Indeed, Prof Hague acknowledged his interns don't work for nothing. "We are not completely altruistic so we want to get great PhD students and are willing to offer them pay," he said.
"We are lucky enough to have a fabulous laboratory and they had a great time. We are also approaching local schools because what we want to do is get 3D printers into schools so kids can develop a feel for 3D printing themselves. We're not just looking at high schools. Why not have 3D printers in junior schools?"
Being in a museum environment, it is hard not to think about education, and the team from Renishaw agreed that reaching out to children is high on their agenda as well, particularly because additive manufacturing as a 'new' technology does not have the traditionally male-orientated foundation in industry and is, therefore, a potential keystone for ensuring a better gender balance when it comes to future STEM cohorts in schools and colleges.
"We are keen to participate in educational drives because it puts Renishaw at the forefront and puts Renishaw at the front of metal 3D printing and engineering generally. This exhibition just goes to show how we can take our engineering knowhow and put it to use in other areas of technology," Pockett explained.
"Increasing access"
Walking around the exhibition there are some things you cannot miss. Pieces such as replacement body parts and skull patches, the open-source design Robohand by Richard Van As, art by Tobias Klein and even a miniature BBC's Evan Davies - also present at the press event - built using a Z-Corp machine. A broad range of applications on show to appeal to the broadest possible range of visitors.
Speaking to Project Leader Suzy Antoniw, it is clear that the Science Museum hopes to engender some curiosity in younger visitors by opening up the possibilities of 3D printing and additive manufacturing by demonstrating just how versatile a technology it is and, therefore, how 3D printed objects could appear in any part of one's life.
"We have all kinds of audiences here," Antoniw explained, "and at the Science Museum this particularly means targeting the 13-30-year-olds. Customisation is a big factor in this because it's all about increasing access to 3D printing in an increasing number of environments. The way we look at it, 3D printing is enabling innovation in peoples homes and we are trying to show how access to 3D printing is affecting and changing people's lives and how it could change their lives in the future."
3D Printing the Future will run for nine months and is free to Science Museum visitors.
