Brazilian Soccer Star Kaká Gives 6-Year Old Boy Bionic Hand Created by Limbitless Using Stratasys 3D Printer. Kids pursuing their passions provide terrific inspiration for the team at Limbitless Solutions. Working out of a lab at the University of Central Florida (UCF), Limbitless Solutions creates individualized 3D printed bionic limbs for children that match both their anatomy and personality. These fantastic and personalized devices are produced in just hours on a Stratasys Dimension Elite 3D Printer. Kaká, the Brazilian captain of the Orlando City Lions, helps six-year-old Paulo Costa Boa Nova put on his Limbitless 3D printed hand, produced on a Stratasys 3D Printer. Photo courtesy Orlando City Soccer Club. What’s the Goal? Last week, a young Brazilian soccer fan was the lucky recipient of a 3D printed hand from Limbitless Solutions. Paulo Costa Boa Nova, age 6, has a genetic condition that affected his right arm and hand. Paulo was selected from hundreds of applicants to have his bionic hand built by Limbitless Solutions. Paulo’s dad, Claudio, heard about 3D printed prosthetics from a friend who sent him the link to Limbitless Solutions -- prior to that, these kinds of devices weren’t a practical option for the family. The Stratasys [...]

Repost from www.fastcodesign.com Fitness trackers, email-alert rings, bracelets that tell you how much sun you've gotten: your average wearable is good at conveying information and not much more. But in the hands of Neri Oxman, an architect and founder of the Mediated Matter research group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wearables aren't just passive lifestyle devices; they could generate the food, energy, light, and oxygen to keep us alive. In a series of concept wearables that augment human biological systems, Oxman implants synthetically engineered microorganisms in custom-designed vessels. Worn externally, these devices—collectively known as the Wanderers: An Astrobiological Exploration—create the resources that an interplanetary traveler would need to survive in other climates. "Our goal was to design wearables that could have a symbiotic relationship with the human body," Oxman says. There are four devices, and they're modeled after the digestive, nervous, skeletal, and integumentary (hair and skin) systems. Each offers the biological counterpart to the classic life-sustaining elements of earth, water, air, and fire, with different microorganisms implanted in the device’s 3-D printed vasculature. Jonathan Williams/Paula Aguiler/courtesy of Mediated Matter Take Mushtari, a 33-foot-long, corset-like wearable based on the gastrointestinal tract. Created from acrylic resin, it features channels of different widths and opacities [...]

This article is a repost from tctmagazine.com. Paramount to additive manufacturing is the ability to create objects we wouldn’t have previously thought possible. We’ve heard a lot about these ‘impossible objects’, sometimes it’s the AM experts that are offering these breakthrough ideas to various industries and other times it’s the clients themselves, major industrial companies, asking ‘is this even possible?’ The aerospace industry has provided some major headline grabbing developments over the last few years and that’s been even more evident in just the last few months. Talk to anyone about 3D printing and chances are they’ve heard one of the more famous examples like the one about the plane that’s being flown with 1,000 3D printed parts or the one with the huge 3D printed turbine. The radical fact about aerospace is we’re not just talking about prototypes but real functional parts that are being used in aircraft, some of which have been on commercial vehicles for the last year without the need for a huge parade and ceremony to back them up. Airbus was the name behind the recent sexy “1,000 3D printed parts on board an aircraft” story that saw Stratasys FDM 3D Production Systems used in place of traditionally [...]

The Japanese car company Daihatsu is giving customers a unique, personalized driving experience. Designers Kota Nezu and Junjie Sun used the Daihatsu Copen Roadster, a car that was totally redesigned and re-introduced to the market in 2014, as their base to introduce customized elements such as Stratasys 3D printed decorative frames in their “Effect Skins” project. Stratasys Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printing technology is a key part of the process for the unique Effect Skins that appear on the bumpers and emblem of the Daihatsu Copen car Using the Fortus 450mc 3D Production System from Stratasys, 12 types of “Effect Skin” parts were designed by Designer/3D Creator Junjie Sun with 10-color variations produced with high UV stability ASA thermoplastic material. The car is featured at the 2015 Design Engineering & Manufacturing Solutions Expo (DMS), the largest IT solutions expo for the manufacturing industry in Japan, attracting more than 80,000 visitors annually. It takes place at the Tokyo International Exhibition Center (Tokyo Big Sight), June 24 - 26. Unique design elements on the front bumper and emblem of thisDaihatsu Copen were created with Stratasys 3D printing. “The creativity of DRESS-FOMATION, which aims at enabling you to express yourself in the car’s [...]

Airbus has selected Stratasys to produce 3D printed flight parts for its A350 XWB Aircraft. The Airbus A350 XWB aircraft contains more than 1000 flight parts 3D printed on Stratasys FDM Production Systems Stratasys additive manufacturing continues to impact the aerospace industry with this exciting news about Airbus. The leading aircraft manufacturer has produced more than 1000 flight parts on its Stratasys FDM 3D Production Systems for use on A350 XWB aircraft, which began delivery in December 2014. The 3D printed parts were used in place of traditionally manufactured parts to increase supply chain flexibility, enabling Airbus to meet its delivery commitment on time. Airbus initiated development and certification of 3D printing with Stratasys in 2013 as a schedule risk reduction activity that proved valuable for the A350 XWB program and highlights a key benefit of 3D printing in the manufacturing industry. The parts are 3D printed using ULTEM™ 9085 resin for FDM, which is certified to an Airbus material specification. ULTEM™ 9085 resin provides high strength-to-weight ratio and is FST (flame, smoke, and toxicity) compliant for aircraft interior applications. This enables Airbus to manufacture strong, lighter weight parts while substantially reducing production time and manufacturing costs. “Both companies share a [...]