Living Smart

004 005 I ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY shape. This creates a unique 3D shape that would normally require hundreds of thousands of man-hours. Before 3D printing, skilled technicians would go through the labor-intensive process of designing custom parts, painstakingly building it through multiple molding steps, followed by end product testing and additional improvements. 3D printing drastically slashed this process, creating big cost savings for industry and end consumers. Nowadays, 3D printers have become commonplace, and print in a wide variety of materials, including polymer plastics, metal alloys and even biological stem cells. Their prices range from HK$10,000 and up, depending on the printing quality desired. Enthusiasts can learn how to build their own printers for as little as US$300 via online videos. Current-day 3D modelling software means that prototype 3D printing gives new dimension to life solutions Prof. Robin MA Assistant Professor of Engineering Education, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering T hree-dimensional printing is enjoying its fifteen minutes of fame and notoriety. That is thanks to the controversy surrounding US-based Defense Distributed – a Texas-based gun rights organization – on posting the blueprints for 3D-printed plastic guns online for public downloading. Guns produced this way would not have serial numbers, omit the need for background checks, and can pass through metal detectors at security checkpoints due to their lack of metal parts. To make the guns fully functional, enthusiasts need only to find one to two key metal pieces. This makes them untraceable and poses a grave public risk. This is part of a year-long dispute between gun rights organizations and the US government, triggering serious questions about the legality of owning such firearms. Despite this, other 3D blueprints for firearms (like the Liberator and AR-15) have been released online in the past and have been downloaded tens of thousands of times up until July 31. However, 3D printing has been increasingly valuable to many industries since its humble beginnings in the early 1980s. The 1980s heralded an era where computing power enabled humans to create 3D digital files that could be translated into customized, one-off objects, and printers that could perform additive manufacturing – adding layers of plastic onto a 3D