Rapid Ready Roundup: NAMII, XEOS, Cube and Headphones

In the course of my diligent efforts to keep you good people up to date on the state of additive manufacturing, 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.

The National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) is getting ready to open its doors. For those who haven’t been following this particular story, you can find more details of what NAMII is and how it got started here. The official ribbon cutting ceremony was held on August 16, and the first meeting of NAMII members is being held on October 10.

“NAMII’s opening ceremony was a resounding success. The implications of NAMII’s award and opening in this time and place are enormously significant and far reaching not only for the additive manufacturing sector and the manufacturing industry as a whole, but also for the community of Youngstown, the Tech Belt region of the Eastern Ohio/Western Pennsylvania/West Virginia, and our nation,” said Ralph Resnick, NCDMM president and executive director and acting director for NAMII. “It is a game changer. With NAMII leading and fostering an unprecedented level of industry collaboration, the additive manufacturing sector is poised to revolutionize the U.S. manufacturing industry.”

Moving from the innovation institute to pure innovation, a German student named Stefan Reichert has developed a new concept for 3D printing as part of his thesis project for his Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design. Reichert’s XEOS additive manufacturing (AM) system is relatively small with a 5 x 5 x 5 in. build area, and uses material extrusion for its process, neither of which is particularly unusual.

The difference in the XEOS comes in the printer arm. Instead of adding new layers by moving the build plate, the arm itself is responsible for vertical motion. Each time a new layer is added, the arm expands in the Z axis. For now, the XEOS is only a prototype, but Reichert intends on offering it for sale.

3D Systems has won Popular Mechanics’ 2012 Breakthrough Award for the Cube personal 3D printer. 3D Systems and other winners of varying awards were honored at a presentation ceremony held in New York City, and will receive full coverage in the November issue of the magazine.

“We are deeply honored to have been selected for this prestigious award. Cube has really captured the imagination of the consumer, and we are delighted with the overwhelming response to this exciting ‘plug and print’ 3D printer for the home,” said Abe Reichental, president and CEO of 3D Systems.

Finally, we have more proof that AM is everywhere. Teague Labs has designed and built what it is calling 13:30 headphones using 3D printed parts. The name of the headphones is taken from the amount of time it took to build the parts (13 hours and 30 minutes) using a Stratasys Dimension 1200ES. As is the case with many AM created parts, the headphones are customizable, and instructions on how to make your own can be found on Thingiverse.

From the Teague Labs blog:

“With 3D printers becoming more accessible, we decided to have a think around the concept ‘life in beta’ as a future scenario. What if printed prototypes could become actual products? Meaning, once off the print bed an object could be assembled without any tools and be made functional by readily attainable components. I decided to stress test the premise with the challenge of making electronically simple yet functionally complex headphones.”

Below you’ll find a couple of different videos. The first is of the NAMII ribbon cutting and the second features the XEOS.

Sources: Core77, NAMII, 3D Systems, Teague Labs, Gizmag