Tag Archives: 3D Printed Products

3D Printed Products designed to exhibit the endless possibilities of this simple yet groundbreaking technique!

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3D Printing is gaining more momentum and popularity than ever! Designers and architects all over the world are now adopting 3D Printing for the creation of almost all types of products and structures. It’s a technique that is being widely utilized in product design, owing to its simple and innovative nature. But designers aren’t employing 3D printing only to create basic models, they’re utilizing this technique in mind-blowing ways as well! From 3D printed artificial coral reefs to a menacing two-wheeler design with 3D printed bodywork, the scope of this dependable technique is unlimited! Dive into this collection of humble yet groundbreaking 3D printed designs!

Hong Kong saw an 80% decline in the coral population in Double Island, Sai Kung, over the past decade and that drove the team to come up with a solution that would not only help that region but also the rest of the world that was blessed with corals. The team from Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and its Robotic Fabrication Lab of the faculty of architecture worked together to 3D print terra-cotta tiles that will act as artificial reefs. The result is a mesmerizing, organic swirl of line and negative space that reads like a burnt orange topographic map—and mimics the natural patterns of the coral itself. Why terra-cotta? It’s highly porous with “nice surface micro-texture” for marine organisms to latch on to, says team member Dave Baker, and an eco-friendly alternative to conventional materials such as cement or metal, the HKU team says.

Austria-based Vagabund Moto is one custom motorcycle shop that keeps pushing the envelope of design, materials, and processes. Their 15th build based around the BMW R nineT justifies the fact, as founders, Paul Brauchart and Philipp Rabl spray their creative magic over the two-wheeler for a facelift that’s so desirable for a speed junkie. The amount of metalwork is owed to craftsman Bernard Naumann! The client asked the team to make this the best ever two-wheeler they’ve ever worked on and the final result is called “Tin Man.” It has an extensive shell of bodywork highlighted by the monocoque tank cover and the seating configuration. It also has an underlying monocoque part that doubles as the under-seat storage. This is the most exciting bit of the bike is the 3D printed remote control that opens up the upper layer moving on hydraulic shocks. When open, the Motogadget dash is visible through the acrylic window in the cover.

Kairi Eguchi’s 3D-printed pen has a pretty unique way of balancing minimalism along with an expressive design. It’s rather simple if you break it down by its cross-section – The pen’s basically square-shaped, but it isn’t just a simple extruded square. Somewhere down the middle, the square profile makes a gradual 180° twist, creating a form that’s wonderful to look at and has a tactile appeal!

They look like wood, feel like it too. Hell, they even have those grain patterns that you associate with wood, but don’t let your eyes or fingers be fooled. This line of homeware designed by Yves Behar’s fuseproject isn’t made from actual wood. The technology you’re looking at lies within the domain of 3D printing, but it’s much more advanced than you’d think. Developed and pioneered by Forust, a subsidiary of Desktop Metal, this 3D printed material is a unique composite of recycled sawdust and bio-epoxy resin… but here’s where it gets interesting. Forust’s printers can actually print annular rings, knots, and grains into the printed wood. These details don’t exist on a surface level either. You can sand them and run a coat of polish over them and they’d look exactly like real wood.

The Art Deco movement of the late 19th century helped create new relationships between architecture and geometry. In a time that was certainly considered flourishing, just before the world wars, Art Deco beautifully combined European sensibilities with Eastern and South-American exotic styles while expressing itself through simple-yet-complex geometric forms and shapes… quite like Picasso’s Cubist art, but with arguably more attention to symmetry and composition. The Arintzea Collection from Muka Design Lab and Gantri pays tribute to Art Deco’s influences within Basque architecture, and it’s 3D printed!

If Adidas is to be believed, they might have created the most advanced running shoe of them all. The highly advanced shoe is deemed to give runners an all-new capability they’ve not experienced so far. They call it the 4DFWD sneaker – crafted using high-tech 3D printed performance technology. Working in close quarters with Carbon, the shoe results from 17 years of athlete-driven data and the Digital Light Synthesis technology coming together to create an advanced Adidas shoe unlike anything so far. According to Alberto Uncini Manganelli, SVP, and GM Adidas Running & Credibility Sports at Adidas, “We’re always looking to combine athlete insights with new and innovative technologies to create the best performance running products.”

The sleekness of the Apple TV remote wasn’t a feature, it was a flaw, and people were constantly complaining about losing their remote and never being able to find it… so when Apple redesigned their remote, many were expecting the 2 trillion-dollar company to address this problem too. However, all Apple managed to do was redesign the remote’s controls by bringing an iPod-style jog-dial on it. For the thousands of people who don’t see themselves buying a new remote just so that they can face the same old problems, Etsy-maker PrintSpired Designs has a neat workaround – a 3D printed case that not only gives the old Apple TV remote some volume and thickness but also allows you to slip an AirTag in so you can track your remote when it inevitably gets misplaced.

The Mickey Soap Dispenser Attachment isn’t an officially licensed product from Disney but is rather a clever fan-made product that retrofits onto most foaming handwash dispenser nozzles (although the designer recommends Bath and Body Works soap bottles). The attachment basically helps distribute the foamed handwash into three large blobs instead of one, making it resemble Mickey Mouse’s iconic circular head and ears (or Deadmau5, if you’re an electronic music aficionado). The 3D printed attachment is pretty simple to install and even simpler to use. It comes in three solid colors (that gold one looks rather nice), as well as two decorated variants that resemble Mickey and Minnie.

Say hello to the Mandalorian smart speaker holder for the 4th Generation Amazon Echo Dot. Inspired by the Star Wars spin-off series, the smart-speaker holder comes 3D printed by Etsy shop Slic3DArt, quite perfectly resembling the Mandalorian helmet. Place your spherical Amazon Echo Dot within its head cavity and you’ve officially got yourself a trophy-head worth showcasing on your mantelpiece or coffee table! The purpose of the Mandalorian smart-speaker holder is purely aesthetic. It doesn’t enhance the speaker’s functions but doesn’t impair them either (it does, however, block the light ring at the base).

Designing new and unique light fixtures is no easy feat though and the designers behind HorizON, a suspension lamp with an elliptical form designed and constructed in Italy’s glass-making capital, Murano, took it upon themselves to completely reimagine the future of lighting design. On the inspiration behind HorizON, the designers say, “HorizON lamp is based on the belief that the industry of the next years won’t only evolve through a constant, technological upgrade of products, but reconsider values such as uniqueness, hand-making, and even ‘imperfection.’” Through HorizON, the creators reconsider design values by transmuting classic, craftsman artistry with 21st-century technological capabilities. HorizON’s final product is comprised of two main parts: a glass bubble crafted through a tried-and-true glassmaking tradition that enwraps its 3D-printed, LED-filled centerpiece.

3D printed product designs that exhibit the endless possibilities of this innovative technique!

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Designers and architects all over the world are now adopting 3D Printing for the creation of almost all types of products and structures! It’s a technique that has gained a lot of momentum, owing to its simple and innovative nature. But designers aren’t employing 3D printing only to create basic models, they’re utilizing this technique in mind-blowing ways as well! From 3D printed artificial coral reefs to a menacing automotive design with 3D printed parts, the scope of this dependable technique is unlimited! In fact, did you know, lunar habitats for the moon are being 3D printed as well? There’s honestly nothing that cannot be 3D printed these days, the possibilities are endless, and we’re super excited to see what else is in store! For now, dive into this collection of humble yet groundbreaking 3D printed designs!

Hong Kong saw an 80% decline in the coral population in Double Island, Sai Kung, over the past decade and that drove the team to come up with a solution that would not only help that region but also the rest of the world that was blessed with corals. The team from Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and its Robotic Fabrication Lab of the faculty of architecture worked together to 3D print terra-cotta tiles that will act as artificial reefs. The result is a mesmerizing, organic swirl of line and negative space that reads like a burnt orange topographic map—and mimics the natural patterns of the coral itself. Why terra-cotta? It’s highly porous with “nice surface micro-texture” for marine organisms to latch on to, says team member Dave Baker, and an eco-friendly alternative to conventional materials such as cement or metal, the HKU team says.

The shape of the handy tool called MH-19 is inspired by protection masks and has solved yet another problem using design. Gloves are single-use items that generate more waste if used by everyone to do everyday things. Gloves can be left aside for the healthcare professionals who need them the most while we can use reusable handles like this for our daily essential outdoor tasks. Innovation has the power to be simple yet mighty effective in its purpose. 3D printers are currently a valuable tool in this fight and the global design community is doing everything they can to support the healthcare professionals, engineers as well as the general public through their creativity.

The 2029 e-bike brings art-deco and automotive design into the future, with its unusual combination of clean-cut geometric shapes brought about by sheet-metal fabrication, along with bone-inspired generative-design details 3D printed in metal. The bike is an amalgamation of styles that pays a hat-tip to the revolutionary design of the 1929 Majestic, built by George Roy. Ninety years later, Bryan Fuller and his team at Fuller Moto decided to push boundaries with bike design. Created as a commissioned piece for the Haas Moto Museum and Sculpture Gallery, the bike incorporates design trends and technologies that are indicative of the future of automotive design. The stunning 2029 comes with an electric drivetrain, fully enclosed aluminum body, hub-centric steering, transparent PolyCarbonate wheels, and 3D printed bike parts, furnished out of Titanium.

NIVEA’s parent company is German giant Beiersdorf and they are on a mission to reduce packaging waste by minimizing and closing their material cycles. And for NIVEA that meant launching a shower gel refill station! Now it is a good first step and has its pros but also has some cons. The biggest con is that shower gels themselves are not good for the environment and there is no way to know how many bottles actually get rinsed clean before they are recycled – otherwise, it doesn’t work. Shower gels also need a lot of water to be made, and as climate change makes the world hotter/drier, the water crisis is already a big issue in many countries. A solution to that? Bar soaps! NIVEA makes those too, they use less water and can be packaged in the recycled paper – that is the real solution but if this refill station reduces some plastic waste and sparks a movement for the brand to take bigger steps, then we are here to see it. The prototype is going to be tested in select locations where the brand will gather data on how consumers are interacting, feeling, reacting to the concept of reusable bottles. The prototype machine was made with their in-house 3D printers. NIVEA hopes that with this refill station they will make it convenient for consumers to reuse containers and reduce plastic usage.

Say hello to Timor, Sargasso, and Celebes, three members of John’s Coral Lighting Collection. Inspired by different styles of corals, the lamps come with varying aesthetics that reflect the visual characteristics of each coral type. The way John went about creating these unique lights was to first develop the computational design algorithms that mimic growth patterns found in nature. “The lighting collection is my way of paying tribute to the beauty of the ocean. As a veteran surfer, I’ve experienced the power and beauty of the ocean while enjoying each wave as its own unique moment in time. One of many magical living structures in our great oceans is coral. With a diverse range of colors, shapes, and scales, coral is an entire ecosystem of thriving life. My lighting celebrates this life”, says Mauriello.

What we really need is for everyone to wear face-masks that prevent the transmission of germs. What we DON’T need is for those face-masks to make it harder for us to breathe, right? As you inhale, most flimsy fabric masks collapse inwards because of the negative air pressure created inside the mask… it’s honestly something most people can deal with, but if you’re someone with pre-existing respiratory difficulties, it could make regular breathing rather difficult. The Cannula mask avoids this problem with its reinforcing endoskeleton. A thin plastic grille, this skeleton gives the mask its defining structure, preventing it from pressing against your face the same way a hanger prevents clothes from getting crushed by retaining its shape. Designed to be worn by people with respiratory difficulties, the endoskeleton even comes with a hollow spine that allows you to plug a nasal cannula into it, letting you direct fresh oxygen right to the wearer’s nose; effectively allowing them to inhale and exhale freely without worrying about a flimsy mask smothering them every time they try to breathe.

A lot of moments in rock history are defined by the iconic guitar-smash… and while I personally don’t think it’s particularly nice to smash musical equipment, what if you designed a guitar that, if you look at the image immediately below, couldn’t be smashed? That’s what Sandvik decided to do. Designed to show off their advanced titanium additive printing techniques (and also their engineering prowess), they designed the world’s first guitar that can’t be smashed. Literally. Many have even tried, including rockstar Yngwie Malmsteen, who managed to wreck his stage amps and monitors but couldn’t get the guitar to even as much as deform. Sandvik partnered with guitar-designer Andy Holt over what sounds like a pretty unusual design brief… Designing an electric guitar that was virtually indestructible, but also sounded incredibly good. The design process included hours of analyzing footage of guitars being smashed (many by Malmsteen himself) to analyze the biggest points of weaknesses.

The TWS earphones’ unique shape comes with a specially designed 3D acoustic chamber that helps make the audio sound richer, with better, more distinct basslines… while also helping reduce sound distortion as well as providing organic noise isolation of up to -35 db, allowing it to rival the Airpods Pro’s active noise cancellation tech just through its ergonomic design. The amount of careful consideration built into the Lytte HarmoniQ is truly remarkable. Each earphone casing is meticulously 3D printed using DLP printing tech (a feature that allows it to have that unique acoustic chamber shape) and hand-polished to look as remarkable as it does. Just like most smart earphones, the Lytte HarmoniQ supports iOS as well as Android integration, with the ability to tap, double-tap, and long-press to control music playback as well as smartphone functions (including summoning the phone’s voice AI).

Harvesting abundant sources of renewable energy and then converting them into something valuable has been the quest humankind has been on for decades. This makes even more sense in current times when we are on the brink of exhausting earth’s vital resources, causing unrepairable harm to the planet. As scouts of this very quest, the team at Georgia Tech’s ATHENA lab has created a 3D-printed energy harvesting antenna that’s capable of garnering electromagnetic energy of the 5G signals to juice modern-day gadgets. The technology is literally about putting the overcapacity 5G network bandwidth to judicious use – turning it into a wireless power grid that could shape the future of our relentless energy requirements for IoT devices or mobile devices. They’ve created a flexible Rotman lens-based rectifying antenna (rectenna) that can collect the millimeter-wave in the 28-GHz band – the first of its kind. Previously there have been attempts to harvest the 24 or 35 GHz frequencies, but they were not practical since they only worked when they are in sight of the 5G base station.

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Does your company’s conference room need a little inspiration? This far-out office furniture is designed to liven up your workspace. It’s entirely 3D-printed which results in smooth transitions and curves throughout. With its three-dimensional Voronoi pattern, it sports an organic, liquid-like shape that’s sure to be a conversation starter and something to get your team’s wheels turning.