Rapid Ready Roundup: Stratasys, 3D Systems, Project Ara

In the course of my diligent efforts to keep you good people up to date on the state of additive manufacturing (AM), I come across many interesting news items. I’ll gather them up every so often and present them in a Rapid Ready Roundup (like this one). You can find the last Roundup here.

Today we’ll start with a couple pieces of news from Stratasys. First up, the company has released a new AM material called Endur. The new material is a simulated polypropylene for use with all Objet EdenV, Objet Connex, Objet500 Connex3 and Objet 30Pro AM systems. According to the company, Endur offers both high impact resistance and elongation at break, and has a heat-deflection temperature up to 129°F / 54°C (HDT @ 0.45MPa per ASTM D-648-06). 

“Beta field trials showed high user satisfaction with Endur for models and prototypes of polypropylene parts,” says Stratasys product director for materials and applications, Fred Fischer. “During Beta testing, customers testing Endur acknowledged its toughness and flexibility, and they believed the material would address future needs. Due to Endur’s excellent simulated polypropylene properties, testing customers were able to address a variety of applications, including moving parts, snap-fit components and small cases and containers.”

Stratasys has also announced the winners of its annual Extreme Redesign contest. First place winner for Art and Architecture was Wallace (Penn) Scott from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania with his vision of a lightweight a durable car chassis called the Xiphias. Marco Angione from Catholic Central High School in Windsor won in the Middle/High School Engineering category for his socket gun attachment design.

The winner of the College Engineering category was the Rabidus Arachnid - Mechanical Spider, designed by Andreas Zailo & Nathan Pacholko  from Okanagan College in Kelowna. Last up is Franklin Ostrow, from Grand Haven High School in Michigan, winner of the Extreme Sports category with his JetFlag (for a kayak) design. You can find all the winning designs at the Extreme Design winners page.

Moving on, 3D Systems (3DS) has announced the release of its Sense 3D scanner for Mac users with the V1.1 Sense software update accompanying the release. As a quick recap, resolution for the Sense is between 20,000 to 400,000 triangles for each new 3D scan, and is priced at $399.

“The Sense was an instant hit, becoming one of our most popular consumer products overnight and the easiest way for mainstream users to experience the world of 3D,” said Rajeev Kulkarni, VP and GM consumer products, 3DS. “The Sense’s intuitive nature, portability, range, unmatched quality and powerful user interface and user experience has spurred a new social movement around 3D sharable and printable physical photography.”

Last up for the day we have an update about Project Ara. For those of you not familiar with the project (and unwilling to click the link), Project Ara is a collaborative effort between Google and 3DS to design and build a modular smart phone. Google is providing the hardware, while 3DS is responsible for building a 3D printer capable of continuous rapid manufacturing to produce the outer shell.

As the project inches toward completion, Google has announced the release of a developers kit:

Today we’re announcing the first release of the Project Ara Module Developers Kit (MDK) v0.10. You can download the release at projectara.com/mdk/. This is a very early version but our goals are to give the developer community an opportunity to provide feedback and input, and to help us ensure that the final MDK—anticipated at the end of 2014—is elegant, flexible, and complete.

Below you’ll find a video about Project Ara.

Sources: Stratasys, 3D Systems, Google