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4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes SpecialChem as Media Partner

SpecialChem

4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes SpecialChem as Media Partner. The event takes place on 18 April 2018 at Brightlands Chemelot Campus, Geleen, The Netherlands.

About SpecialChem
SpecialChem is the Universal Selection Source for chemicals and materials. We help formulators, specifiers, and suppliers of chemicals and materials to connect, to innovate, and to accelerate both their technology and business. Over the past 18 years, the company has built an online profiled network of more than 500,000 members and has over 3 million visitors per year to its five technical websites including Polymer Additives; Plastics & Elastomers; Paints, Coatings & Inks; Adhesives & Sealants; and Cosmetics & Personal Care Ingredients. Because of these unique assets, SpecialChem offers digital marketing services to chemicals and materials suppliers to help them explore new markets and validate new products or raise awareness, educate a market, and engage new customers. Each of the technical websites offers a Universal Selector™ aimed at providing technical data on every material or ingredient in the world in order to search, analyze and compare them, as well as the expert knowledge to select them. https://www.specialchem.com Continue reading “4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes SpecialChem as Media Partner”

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4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes 3D Print Magazine as Media Partner

3D Print Magazine

4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes 3D Print Magazine as Media Partner. The event takes place on 8 April 2018 at Brightlands Chemelot Campus, Geleen, The Netherlands

About 3D Print Magazine
3D Print magazine is a publication of Made-in-Europe and 54u Media.

In addition to this website, there is also a quarterly magazine, specifically aimed at the manufacturing industry in the Benelux. Continue reading “4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes 3D Print Magazine as Media Partner”

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4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes Flam3D as Media Partner

Flam3D

4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes Flam3D as Media Partner

About Flam3D
3D printing or ‘additive manufacturing’ is a collection of technologies that make up a product (‘printed’) from a base stock, usually layer per layer. New markets are emerging as the production rates increase and more potential raw materials get developed. It is widely accepted that 3D printing will have a major impact on the way goods are produced and transported. The technology also offers huge opportunities for sustainable production.

Also interested in 3D-printing for your company? Contact us for more information. Continue reading “4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference welcomes Flam3D as Media Partner”

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Changing robot capabilities by using self-folding origami “exoskeletons” (video)

self-folding origami

Changing robot capabilities by using self-folding origami “exoskeletons”

From butterflies that sprout wings to hermit crabs that switch their shells, many animals must adapt their exterior features in order to survive. While humans don’t undergo that kind of metamorphosis, we often try to create functional objects that are similarly adaptive — including our robots.

Despite what you might have seen in “Transformers” movies, though, today’s robots are still pretty inflexible. Each of their parts usually has a fixed structure and a single defined purpose, making it difficult for them to perform a wide variety of actions.

Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are aiming to change that with a new shape-shifting robot that’s something of a superhero: It can transform itself with different “outfits” that allow it to perform different tasks. Continue reading “Changing robot capabilities by using self-folding origami “exoskeletons” (video)”

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Brightlands Chemelot Campus is Hosting Partner of 4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference

Brightlands Chemelot Campus

Brightlands Chemelot Campus is Hosting Partner of 4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference, which will take place on April 18, 2018.

About Brightlands Chemelot Campus
Smart and Sustainable

Brightlands Chemelot Campus is one of the eight National Science and Innovation Parks in The Netherlands. Since 2012, the campus development is executed by a consortium of three parties: Royal DSM, the Province of Limburg and Maastricht University. In Sittard-Geleen advanced educational institutes and research institutes have been set up. Existing and new companies have developed, expanded or moved their activities to the campus. The Brightlands Innovation Factory was set up to stimulate entrepreneurship at Brightlands. Continue reading “Brightlands Chemelot Campus is Hosting Partner of 4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference”

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3D Printing coupled with right materials can impact on solving real-world problems – Interview with Marc in het Panhuis, University of Wollongong

Marc in het Panhuis

3D Printing coupled with right materials can impact on solving real-world problems – Marc in het Panhuis, University of Wollongong, Australia

Marc in het Panhuis is a Professor of Materials Science in the School of Chemistry and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at the University of Wollongong (Australia). He will speak about 3D and 4D printing of edible and living hydrogel materials at the 4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference, on April 18, 2018, at Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Sittard-Geleen, The Netherlands.

What drives you?

Curiosity to know and understand the world around me.

What emerging technologies/trends do you see as having the greatest potential in the short and long run? Continue reading “3D Printing coupled with right materials can impact on solving real-world problems – Interview with Marc in het Panhuis, University of Wollongong”

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3D and 4D printing of edible and living hydrogel materials – Presented by Marc in het Panhuis, University of Wollongong

Marc in het Panhuis

3D and 4D printing of edible and living hydrogel materials – Presented by Marc in het Panhuis, University of Wollongong, at the 4D Printing & Meta Materials Conference, on April 18, 2018, at Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Sittard-Geleen, The Netherlands.

Hydrogels are smart and multifunctional materials with a real potential for use novel applications including soft robotics, (edible) sensors and bionic implants. Consisting of a highly swollen polymer network, hydrogels are typically soft and brittle meaning they are not compatible with many traditional techniques used to process materials into structures.

In this presentation, I will demonstrate a variety of (extrusion-based) 3D and 4D printing techniques for processing hydrogel inks alongside other inks of structural polymers to create composite architectures including a smart valve, an artificial cartilage meniscus, an artificial tendon, brain-like structures, edible electronic circuits, stretchable devices and edible/living hydrogels. Continue reading “3D and 4D printing of edible and living hydrogel materials – Presented by Marc in het Panhuis, University of Wollongong”

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TU Delft researchers develop new technique to combine 3D Printing & origami folding (video)

3D Printing

TU Delft researchers develop new technique to combine 3D Printing & origami folding

Researchers at TU Delft have combined origami techniques and 3D printing to create flat structures that can fold themselves into 3D structures (for example a tulip). The structures self-fold according to a pre-planned sequence, with some parts folding sooner than others. Usually, expensive printers and special materials are needed for that. But the TU Delft scientists have created a new technique that requires only a common 3D printer and ubiquitous material. Among other applications, their research has the potential to greatly improve bone implants.

In recent years, Amir Zadpoor of TU Delft has become somewhat of an origami master. His team’s work combines the traditional Japanese paper folding art with the more novel technology of 3D printing in order to create constructs that can self-roll, self-twist, self-wrinkle and self-fold into a variety of 3D structures. In 2016, the researchers already demonstrated several self-folding objects. ‘But there were still serious challenges we needed to address’, says Zadpoor. Continue reading “TU Delft researchers develop new technique to combine 3D Printing & origami folding (video)”

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Expanding polymer enables self-folding without heating or immersion in water ( VIDEO)

polymer

Expanding polymer enables self-folding without heating or immersion in water

As 3-D printing has become a mainstream technology, industry and academic researchers have been investigating printable structures that will fold themselves into useful three-dimensional shapes when heated or immersed in water.

In a paper appearing in the American Chemical Society’s journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and colleagues report something new: a printable structure that begins to fold itself up as soon as it’s peeled off the printing platform.

One of the big advantages of devices that self-fold without any outside stimulus, the researchers say, is that they can involve a wider range of materials and more delicate structures. Continue reading “Expanding polymer enables self-folding without heating or immersion in water ( VIDEO)”

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Researchers engineer shape-shifting noodles when dunked in water (VIDEO)

shape-shifting noodles

Researchers engineer shape-shifting noodles when dunked in water

“Don’t play with your food” is a saying that MIT researchers are taking with a grain or two of salt. The team is finding ways to make the dining experience interactive and fun, with food that can transform its shape when water is added.

The researchers, from MIT’s Tangible Media Group, have concocted something akin to edible origami, in the form of flat sheets of gelatin and starch that, when submerged in water, instantly sprout into three-dimensional structures, including common pasta shapes such as macaroni and rotini.

The edible films can also be engineered to fold into the shape of a flower as well as other unconventional configurations. Playing with the films’ culinary potential, the researchers created flat discs that wrap around beads of caviar, similar to cannoli, as well as spaghetti that spontaneously divides into smaller noodles when dunked in hot broth. Continue reading “Researchers engineer shape-shifting noodles when dunked in water (VIDEO)”