Massimo Banzi: Arduino, open-sourcing, Makerbot, Botanicalls, and plant watering. Super TED Talk

 Massimo gives an energetic and inspiring talk about advances in open sourcing and what it can mean to progressing the creative process. He and five others are core to the Arduino microcontroller architecture. In his talk he relates how providing open source platforms allows a wide variety of applications to emerge because the cost of entry is minimized. He touches on an awe-inspiring list of applications in this talk. Most notably Makerbot, one of the recent additions to the TPM Technologies arsenal. (More on that later but if you can’t wait you can visit the new site.) One that is particularly intriguing is using these units to connect man and plants. Botanicalls is an Arduino based unit that allows your plant and its environment to communicate with you, maybe even using Twitter! Already there are a number of DIY sites for connecting with your jungle or garden. For the less adventurous you can find kits like those at Sparkfun. Do a quick search on Twitter ‘botanicalls’ and you’ll see plant life interacting in the Twittersphere. Already the hardwired, ethernet connection has been one up-ed with solar powered, wireless models. Feel free to comment on your plant conversation experiences.  I’ve included Massimo’s talk at TED so you can give it a quick preview.

3D printing the Mars Rover Curiosity – Could 3D printing be portable enough for space?

Shortly after the landing of Curiosity on Mars, the hobbyists are 3D printing a replica. Curiosity is a true marvel of technology not to mention the ability to launch and land it thousands of miles away and receive information from it. The scientific teams are thrilling to watch and thanks to the internet and Social Media you can feel like you’re part of it. Speaking of 3D printing, a couple of students from MIT have made great strides in the portability of 3D printing. The technology of executing a near perfect landing on Mars is truly phenomenal but back on earth manufacturing takes another stride with this advancement in portability, called PopFAB. Will the next rover sport a kiosk for selling plastic fish to the Martians?

3D printing at Olympic Speed in 2012

 Will 3D printing be a new Olympic Sport in the 21st Century?

In the spirit of the Olympic Games, one industrious and energetic designer developed a 3D model of the Olympic Stadium in London. Not only did he develop this model in 6 hours, he recorded his progress in an elegant time-lapse video, sprinting through his work. Footage of a FDM printer materializing his creation is even included. Kudos to Jon Fidler for his clever modeling work, especially his neat way to share his development in time-lapse mode. Especially intriguing is his use of satellite imagery to help guide the modeling process. You can watch Jon’s cool video here.

With 20 strings is it still a guitar?

 One of the specialty businesses in Rockford is Worland Guitars. I learned of Worland guitars from Kathryn Gustafson‘s blogtalkradio channel. You could pick up her radio interview podcast or visit Worland Guitars by clicking on the guitar picture. Besides getting the history of this unique 20 string, you can view YouTube videos on how Worland got started and the unique sound techniques and technology they have in guitar making.

Regenerative Medicine in 2012: Assessing Predictions from 2007

 Regenerative Medicine is bound to make strides in 2012. Dr. Atala, Regenerative Medicine guru, made a presentation in 2007 about the advances in technology predicting what the state of medicine would be in 2012. You can watch it by clicking here. Conferences are already scheduled for March in North Carolina and September in Austria. 2012 should prove an intriguing year for the Regenerative Medicine industry.

The Secret to Job Security in the 21st Century

 Tissue Engineering or Regenerative Medicine as a career appears to be the hot job choice for the 1st quarter of the 21st century. Time magazine in a cover story reported that researchers are predicting that they will make a pancreas in a petri dish by the year 2015. In 2001 there were 3,000 people working in the industry. In 2011, a book. “Regenerative Medicine” is on the shelves. The book relates a chart showing 14,517  and 2,197 publications in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine,  respectively, have been catalogued since 2001. The field is quite broad already including everything from stem cell research to organ regeneration. Organ regeneration is of particular interest to me as the use of 3D printing is sometimes incorporated to develop the “scaffold” on which the appropriate cells are fused or allowed to permeate. The size of the market in the U.S. is estimated at 1.6 Billion in 2010. Estimates for growth vary widely, some approaching $20 Billion in the next 15 years. This represents an industry poised for growth. Growth means new jobs will be there to support this growth.

Shark inspired design! Is it time for JAWS-7? The microbe killer.

Although not strictly related to the Shark Tank show, I found this new technology fascinating. Maybe in a future post there may be a corollary analogy but for now this is just a neat story. A materials science specialist was working on a research team to investigate anti-fouling techniques for Navy vessels. As they watched an algae-laden submarine pull into port he asked, “Does any slow-moving fish not have algae?” You guessed it! The shark. They went on to study the geometry of shark skin and have mimicked it in a plastic film. The results are remarkable. From boats to medical coatings that stop the spread of bacteria on well-touched surfaces. You can read the full background at the Sharklet website. An interesting sidelight to our region is that the film has such fine, precise features that make it difficult to manufacture. Micro-machining came to the rescue to provide miniature, precise features in the tooling to be imparted to the film.