Disney’s New 3D Printer Prototype Makes Huggable Things Out Of Fabric Instead Of Hard Plastic
Built by Disney’s research lab along with researchers from Cornell and CMU, this 3D printer isn’t like most printers we’ve come to know. It’s neither extruding melted material (like a Makerbot) or blasting a tub of goo with UV light to precisely solidify it (like a Form1). In fact, it’s as much a laser cutter as it is a 3D printer.
The machine builds the object up layer by layer by cutting shapes out of a sheet of adhesive felt, cramming/heating each layer together as it goes. You know those 3D puzzles where you stack a bunch of sheets to eventually build a weird, blocky version of Abe Lincoln’s head? It’s like that, but created on the fly.
When it’s done, you get what looks like one big block — but once you tear away the extra felt bits (left in place to support the shape as it’s printed), you’re left with your bunny/bird/mostly useless wrench/whatever.
Is it going to change the 3D printing world? Nah. The resolution of the print isn’t stellar and the adhesive layers don’t look durable enough for your kids to toss around. Unlike Makerbot and the rest, you probably won’t see something like this built for home use any time soon.
But that’s not the point — instead, like much of what Disney builds in its incredible research labs, it’s mostly meant for their own uses. Think fast, easy stuffed toy prototypes.
Full Story: TechCrunch
An easy to miss portion of the vision is the embedding of flexible electronics into the plush toy prototypes.