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"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
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![]() This is the earliest description of what we now call a flexible 3D printer that I've ever seen; it works differently from the ones that deposit a layer using tiny blobs of material.
Here's a description of the machine in action:
A cable led to a table at the side of the shed,
where vivid lights showed upon drawings
pinned in the vision-range of scanners.
The arm made clumsy but precise gestures, following the drawings off to one
side. It had begun by putting a blob of magnetronic plastic on a stout upright at the end
of its steel track. Then, for a while, it made
gradually enlarging circles about that spot.
The result was rather remarkable, because plastic flowed through the hose to the
end of that moving arm, and as it came out
of the end it was shaped and hardened. It
formed a cone. The forming-arm, in fact,
simply poured out plastic as it described a
circle, and the plastic was hardened as it
emerged.
A cone resulted when the circles widened,
and the arm drew back. The process was
exactly that of an insect spinning a cocoon,
save that the result was no mass of gummed-together threads, but a solid wall of glass-
hard plastic, strong as steel, but vastly lighter. It was, moreover, practically a non-conductor of heat and electricity.
Presently the shape became more complex. The growing object ceased to be merely
a cone. Guided by drawings under the harsh
light of scanning-lamps, the constructor
built on. The cone swelled and curved.
The movements of the moving arm became
more complicated. It sealed off the cone with
a solid wall. Interior walls started from that.
There were openings in some of them. In
three hours, fifteen feet of the length of a
rounded hull had been made.
Braddick stopped the constructor and
fitted items of machinery into place. The
constructor took up its task again and sealed
the machines in as it built on further. The
hull swelled still more. Its interior design
became more complicated and more detailed.
The forming object grew more slowly. It
took six hours to make the second fifteen
feet. But the interior fittings and supplies
were in place for all the completed section.
From then on, the hull grew more slowly
still.
This video shows a prototype device that is an earth-bound version of a plastic constructor. Contour Crafting (CC) is basically a "house printer;" when supplied with the proper instructions, it will "print out" a complete shell of a house. Technovelgy readers should be familiar with the work of Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis from a previous article (see Contour Crafting: 3D House Printer for additional details on how the technique actually works).
(Robotic Contour Crafting Video ) Compare to the idea behind the cosmic express from The Cosmic Express (1930) by Jack Williamson, however, for an early version of 3D printing as part of a teleportation idea. Compare also to Deposition (3D Printing) from Assassin (1978) by James P. Hogan. Thanks to Eric for submitting this item, with quotes! Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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