Dumb question about 3D printers!

It is a granular plastic.... like coarse salt that is heated to melt. Beyond that I'm not sure how it works.

Funny, I was just talking to my husband about this yesterday. He's getting one for his manufacturing business to make prototype parts out of plastic. You can make plastic or metal or wax or ceramic or even paper models -- he was saying they even have printers that will make things out of gold! It depends on the type of printer, but they can take wire or filament, granular material, paper, sheets of plastic, or chunks of material. There are a bunch of different processes used in different types of printers.

There are a couple of different kinds of 3D printers. My husband's has plastic string that feeds near a heated tip, which melts the plastic in layers as the printer bed moves back and forth and up and down. There are also some where a kind of powder is used. The printer puts out a liquid in layers that turns some of the powder into a solid. When it's done, you are left with a solid item and unused powder, which can be reused.

3D printers are amazing! One of the things I do in my job is order equipment for STEM high school programs. Since the price of 3D printers has come down so much in the past couple of years, we're able to purchase them for a number of our engineering programs. Students are able to design items in 3D modeling software (like Inventor or Solidworks) and then output them to the 3D printers.

The most cost-effective 3D printers (also called rapid prototype machines) use a plastic string-type medium that comes on spools. Makerbot and Affinia are two of the most popular brands of this type. There's another, more expensive type, that uses a powder-like medium that's bonded with a chemical to create the 3D item. These printers can use a wide variety of mediums, including metal and even food like sugar and food starch.

As someone else said, there's research going on to use this technology to use cells to produce "replacement" body parts... pretty amazing!

I know it's already been answered but I have to say how lucky my dd 11 is. She's in a club called Hacker Scouts and they have a badge for 3D printing that the kids can earn. I'm not sure what kind of projects they do but it's cool that she's growing up with this kind of technology as part I her normal life. It still seems like scifi futuristic stuff to so many of us in my generation.

DH and I are still trying to justify getting a consumer model, but we're not sure what we'd use it for so don't want to spend the money just yet. Watching my kids play with their Legos the other day had me thinking someday there will probably be a machine, or at least the software for other machines, where the real enthusiasts can print their own Lego blocks, exactly the size and shape they need for a project.

It's amazing technology, and I'm looking forward to seeing what will be done with it.

Yes, this.

It's a great club. She's in the charter guild and the founders were the leaders for a while before parents took over leadership. I'm not sure if that changes the experience with it being a little more intense and also experimental. At any rate it's wonderful and fun. We joined while she was homeschooling but she is going to continue when she goes to public middle school. She loves it more than Girl Scouts because the kids are all "nerds" so she finds them relatable.

To start, they had to build an arduino circuit, then they were official hackers. The way her guild works is they break into a few groups based on interest. She's in the game design badge group so all her badges relate to that. She spent a few months working on her Python badge and they had to make a project for that. I think hers was a flag creator so if you want to start your own country it would help you design your flag lol. Her friends opened an organ (body parts) replacement shop with online ordering. They then finished off the year with a Minecraft mini unit.

I think one of the other groups is working on metalworking badges. I'm pretty sure they did fire safety and they offer badges like forging, blacksmithing, and maybe chainmail (or that might be part of blacksmithing) as well as jewelry making.

Technically their name is Curiousity Hacked now. The Boy Scouts threatened a lawsuit because they own the word Scout. The group decided it wasn't worth it to take on such a large group and changed their name but I haven't gotten with the program yet I'm sure their email info is listed on the website but I would recommend talking to Sam Cook if you're serious about getting a guild started. She is amazing. Pm me if you want more specific info, or if you would like contact info for her guild leader.

That's really awesome that you're considering doing this!