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Next, The Copier Will Reproduce Popsicles 86

Posted by Hemos from the fun-with-toys dept.
4/3PI*R^3 writes "At my fellow UM System University, the University of Missouri Rolla Dr. Ming Leu, Wei Zhang, and their fellow mechanical engineers invented a device that constructs a 3-D model out of ice in a matter of hours, using a technique they call rapid-freeze prototyping. Article in Discover. At last we can finally make strawberry-banana swirl popsicles!!!!"
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Next, The Copier Will Reproduce Popsicles More

Next, The Copier Will Reproduce Popsicles

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  • wow...that is cool. I don't exactly know what to say...that is very very cool. I am trying to think of something funny or interesting or even on topic to say about it, but I can't get over how cool that is. That is just very, very cool.

    *hint...ice is cool...so this is sorta ontopic.


  • So far I've heard 2 applications: (Score:5)

    by TheDullBlade ( 28998 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:22PM (#698029)
    1) popsicles
    2) MRI scan models (presumably colored with different flavors of popsicle base)

    The result? Finally, an anatomically correct model of a diseased bowel that you can eat!

    I suspect physicians would abuse their scanner privileges if they got to eat it themselves, so the hospitals will have to feed it to someone else. So that's one more category of surgical waste to add to cafeteria menus.

    --------
  • You can run an ftp server here **if** you keep your traffic low enough not to get caught (which is rather high, I must mention, before they get upset about it..)

    Nice thing about being at a tech school: helluh bandwidth, and the expectation that we will run servers to "learn" umm.. pr0n I guess. Napster's blocked, of course, but there are some others that work.

    Perhaps emailing me in the future about UMR would be appropriate, to avoid OT.. remember, I'm karma whoring this story.

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by warrped ( 202864 )
    Perfect for the computer industry - create an ice replica of your latest innovation and leave it in a visible place. When it's melted, you know your product is obsolete and you can go back to the drawing board. Repeat as necessary. - Idle hands are the Devil's workshop. Idle minds are God's.
  • Sigh.. if only I were in a different department, I could claim this..

    Acutally, I've seen some of the BASIC stuff for this, it's quite cool. But, I must protest, the article has it wrong, the work was NOT done in the mechanical engineering building. And actually, no, the ink isn't completely reusable.. just mostly- evaporation, contamination, and other things have to be taken into account.

    Here is the official link from UMR. [umr.edu] Nothing too detailed in there, I'll warn you. Basically what you read at Discover.

    Sigh again. If I were in a different department, I'd know enough to provide quite a bit insight.
    (PS- UMR's other claims to fame is the National Champion Solar Car, and a huge arse St. Pat's festival that can only be described as... Animal House.)
  • My copier does make popsicles, But since it is a black and white copier, they only come out in 'charcoal' and 'ice' flavors, which is no fun.

    Yours has charcoal? Damn, mine only has '25% post-consumer bleached Hammermill' and 'Xerox® toner'.

    But seriously ... what are the size limits, if any, on such ice models? They'd make some nice outdoor [insert your own holiday here] decorations. Assuming it stayed below 32F from December to February (it tends to do that in most of PA), it'd stay up for a while until either it gets warm and melts (no storage problem, for those of us with cluttered attics) or the local kids smash it with a snowshovel and beat my neighbor's cat with the remaining large bits.

  • Next, Hemos Will Reproduce Previous Posts (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @04:12PM (#698034)
    Posted by Hemos (alias: The Copier) on Tuesday October 17, @06:45PM
    from the fun-with-cut-and-paste-utilities dept.
    4/3PI*R^3 writes "At my fellow UM System University, the University of Missouri Rolla Dr. Ming Leu, Wei Zhang, and their fellow mechanical engineers invented a device that constructs a 3-D model out of previous Slashdot posts in a matter of hours, using a technique they call "parametric self-plagiarism". Article in Discover. At last we can finally make the assumption that Hemos' brain is actually a strawberry-banana swirl popsicle!!!!"
  • They're doing it for the children!!!!

    *cough* *cough* *cough*

  • > Although his site doesn't seem to think it's important enough to even list it as one of "the issues", Ralph Nader ...

    Yeah, I had heard that Nader took a stance, but I visited his site just before changing my .sig, and I was disappointed to see that the topic didn't rate an appearance on his "the issues" page. And even "more disappointed" to see that it didn't even rate his "more issues" page.

    Guess I'd better check out Harry Browne. Sadly, the majority of net.libertarians really turn me off due to their rank cluelessness and naivety, and especially due to the thinly veiled "might makes right" stance that many try to pass off as Libertarianism. But maybe that's just the overly vocal cluebies; I'll check your links to see what I feel about the real thing.

    As for the pardons, I would do the same thing, and anything else the constitution allowed me to do to stop the (face it) terrorism, and also compensate the victims. I doubt that this will happen during my lifetime, but someday the War on Drugs will be looked back on with the same shame that some of us now feel about the Salem Witch trials, the McCarthy Witch trials, and various other unsavory episodes in the history of the misnamed Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. But even the mainstream media is starting to wonder just what the heck has been going on, so maybe there will eventually be a shift in public perception before the rest of the public finds itself in prison for personal vices.

    Sadly, as a friend once pointed out, any politician who spoke out against the War on Drugs and showed signs of actually succeeding in getting it stopped, would undoubtedly be assinated by the cartels, who would otherwise stand to lose Gigabucks in the outcome. (Or has it grown to Terabucks yet?)

    > Small tax cuts and boosts to social security just do not impress me when Bush and Gore will continue to have peaceful Americans thrown in jail for doing nothing wrong while others are forced to live in fear.

    Yeah, B&G are just trying to outbid each other. The biggest difference seems to be the segment of the population they are pitching their bids to. Neither is likely to show much backbone when the various TLAs claim that their work is much too important to let the Bill of Rights stand in their way.
  • You could just pour Magic Shell over the ice, and then you'd have a delicious, chocolate-covered coolest thing in the world. Patent it now!
  • ...is that water is free.

    Plastic isn't. Rubber isn't. Most materials aren't. But at least in industrialized nations, water, particularly in the quantities required for a sculpture, is essentially free. That means, with mere application of a moderate amount of electricity *any* reasonably large object can be synthesized at minimal per unit cost.

    This is extraordinarily significant. One-offs that might not justify the cost of materials can now be made for the cost of electricity. Energy-only weaponry has been a long term goal of the US Army--the supply lines that feed mechanized operations have long been a problematic weakness. While this obviously doesn't have much of a lethal aspect(ice-daggers aside), using these temporary models as the sources for cheaper and more permanent molds could be moderately viable. More importantly, it allows more "experimentation" with shape, allowing possibly better final products.

    Make no mistake--the fact that the per-unit cost of each mold is near-zero *is* the most significant part of this system, though the transparency of the material is a close second.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com

  • Create the reverse of what you want in ice, with drain paths designed in. Fill the ice mold with plastic resin and let harden. Heat up, ice melts, water pours out of drain holes. Whole new way of making things. Very cool indeed.

  • If you had an email I wouldn't be forced to post this offtopic, but Harry Browne makes the Drug War (ending it) one of his top priorities. I suggest buying his video, The Great Libertarian Offer, from his website, browne2000.com, you will learn about him, have something to show your friends, and support his campaign.

    I just voted for Browne today by absentee ballot. He is on the ballot in all 50 states, which is more than Nader, and yet Nader is getting all the attention for some reason. (I suspect ultra-liberals in the media)
    -

  • Is this [northerner.com] the place you are talking about?

    It is the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, in the nothern part of Sweden.

  • Moderate the parent post up.

    This kind of rapid prototyping has indeed been around for a while. One common form is, as described in the parent post, stereolithography, where a laser photocures resin in a vat slice by slice. A similar prototyping process involves sintering of a ceramic powder - also using a laser.

    While both of these methods are useless for making tasty ice snacks, they are preferrable for real engineering applications.
  • find quite some info on Smokedot.org [smokedot.org]. Also uses slashcode.

    //rdj

  • Umm... (Score:4)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:24PM (#698044)
    At last we can finally make strawberry-banana swirl popsicles!!!!

    Were we not able to make them before?

  • now expensive restaurants can make ice cubes in the shape of their restaraunt logo

    You know, they could do that pretty easily right now. It's called a "mold".

    --------
  • From the description of the device:
    The build speed of RFP can be significantly faster than other rapid prototyping processes, because a part can be built by first depositing water droplets to generate the part boundary and then filling in the enclosed interior with a water stream.

    I believe what they meant was that after they built up one layer, they fill in that layer, not creating the whole shell hollow then filling it up. Because the layers would be filled in before the shell is complete, any expansion would occur upward before the structure is sealed, thus putting no pressure on the walls. Pretty genius stuff if you ask me.
  • Hmm... this could lead to an underground "yellow market" in fraudulent artwork. We better be careful.
  • Well, if UMR Rulez so much, get off yer AC ass and be proud of UMR. And yes, Rapid Prototyping's been around a while, just this is a different approach being taken with some different results and uses. It even has the chance to be cheaper/smaller/faster/blah blah blah. That's what makes this so interesting.

    Here's the official link [umr.edu], while I'm karma whoring. Nothing new in there.. just different presentation.
  • Since when did art become industry? I live in Alaska and I never go to the 'industrial scultping sector' of town, in fact, I've never heard of it.. I wonder where it could be?

    Ice sculptors are motivated, artistic, creative citizens who don't get PAID for the art they create unless they win an award. There's no industry involved.

    And besides, just because a machine is now doing the scultping does that mean there's no longer any art involved?... get a grip man.
    Talk about bad humor, you probably live in Florida.

    TLF

    The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all, is the person who argues with him.

  • Wouldn't an ice klein bottle [umn.edu] just keep expanding and contracting forever?
  • I can't see anything really useful in this that would banefit human kind at all mostly just stuff to dink around with. Is there any redeeming value to this research at all?
  • C'mon man, I just saw the Professional. Shes only 12 years old! Sicko.
  • 3) teleporting snowmen

    "Beam me up, Frosty!"

  • Wow, first sheep [theonion.com].. now ice. What will they come up with next?
  • It sounds a lot like what my old lab at Stanford was doing, in their 3-D fax [stanford.edu] project, except using ice rather than a more permanent material.

  • Re:MEEPT!! (Score:2)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    "AS it says in the bible, ' there shall be no ice cube wide enough, and no ice cube tall enough to shut up a nerd. And there was much rejoicing' "

    Amen, Brother!

    Even if slashdot keeps posting crap like this, and even though these posts are at -1, it's good to still see that MEEPT!! is still around.

    ...but now it's time to go to kuro5hin, and see what the news is. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • Followed the link to Google for "strawberry-banana" and I found this!!! And because of the way Google ranks results, doesn't that mean it's popular?? The horror!

    Curried Carrot Soup and Strawberry-Banana Tofu [go.com]
  • The technology was developed at MIT in 1989 It was licensed to six companies and one of them (called Z Corporation) has even managed to make some create parts of any geometry and color (however the size is limited). Sounds extremely cool, right? I'll try to explain how these printers work. The URL is http://ctnews3d.com/zzz/index.html
  • Perfect for serving ice-cream and sorbet. Might make a baked chicken dinner a bit soggy though.
  • I was just doing a search on all of /. to see if anyone had mentioned ToyBuilders yet, ooleary wins the prize (the only hit in the last 30k posts). Its not just custom toys, it is *anything* you can submit a 3d CAD file for, file formats are listed in their FAQ. Tres cool. They have a backlog of orders after the NS article but they really deserve some more attention from the /. crowd, 3d models of ourselves, our latest fusion driven car design, and a new case for our laptop/mp3player/lunch is exactly what us geeks need.
  • Easily. But for a price :-)

    Z Corporation [zcorp.com] actually sells 3D-printers that use powder-gluing process to create [optionally colorful] 3D-models [zcorp.com] of pretty much anything (small enough). Models take several hours to produce, though they have decent volumetric resolution (about 0.1 mm) and can be created of wide range of materials (metals included, imho). Material has to be glueable and powderable. The powder then is put as a thin layer on a piston, an ink-jet head is used to put [colored] glue on it, forming a section. Then the piston is moved a little downwards, and a new thin layer of powder is put above; then the process continues. It allows to create models with 'dangling' parts. Models can de imported from CADs and even VRML.

    The sad part of the story is that the device costs about $67k %-)

    Some time before, as one can remember, another technology was proposed. It employed liquid polymer that can be made solid by laser light. But it was impossible to create dangling parts with it (something like several connected chain rings), because some parts of such things have to 'float' during layer-by-layer creation process. In liquid, they sank. In powder, they're firm.

  • We'll use it the next time were releaseing software to manufacturing.
  • Follow the link from the Discover blurb to the project web site, and you'll see that they mention both of these methods and the applications for which RFP may be superior.

  • Ok, but... (Score:2)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    Real hackers will still just use a chainsaw.

    Let me know when use this technique on something a little more permanent, like plastic. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • It's definately the next logical step, going from 2-d printer representations as we have now to something like this, 3-d surfaces. And the cool thing is, being made from water, the "ink" is completely reusuable! I think the ice sculptors are out of a job...

    Is that a job...? :)

  • For only $39.95, you too can download a perfect copy of Nathalie Portman's breasts,

    Personally, I'd kind of like the popsicle version.

    --------
  • The MIT computer store is having a contest [mit.edu] to build a G4 Cube out of ice. (Similar to their contest a couple of years ago to build an iMac out of Jell-o.) First prize is -- a Cube.

    I bet these guys would be a shoo-in if they were eligible....

    ---------

  • Now we're onto the next great thing. 3D solid modeling printers. Spraying water droplets could be replaced with polymers that set when exposed to air, producing soft or hard objects in the privacy of your own home.

    This could give the online sex industry that next boost in revenues the whole world's economies need.

    For only $39.95, you too can download a perfect copy of Nathalie Portman's breasts, to fondle as much as your immature slashdot desires can handle. For the ladies, we have a lifesize reproduction of CmdrTaco's, errr, reproduction. Also comes in 2x and 4x sizes, so you'll never be disappointed.

    the AC

  • This will destroy an entire industry! (Score:3)

    by TheDullBlade ( 28998 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:00PM (#698070)
    Won't someone please think of the ice sculptors!

    --------
  • Yeah yeah, I know.

    But this is something very cool. Being able to create an almost perfect 3D representation of an object, on a temporary basis, has its merits. Now it remains to be seen what the applications of this will be. Time will tell.
  • I feel like this story has been posted 20 or 30 times, each with slightly different details. When are these fantastic new machines going to stop being invented?

    3prong
  • Spraying water droplets could be replaced with polymers


    It's the other way around. Plastic ones have existed for several years, although they haven't worked by being exposed to air.

  • I was getting bored playing human chess [naplesnews.com]. Now I can create my very own SubZero and play real life Mortal Kombat.

    Now all I have to do is find my very own Pricess Kitana.
  • Next, The Copier Will Reproduce Popsicles

    My copier does make popsicles, But since it is a black and white copier, they only come out in 'charcoal' and 'ice' flavors, which is no fun.

  • Yes, I'm laughing deep inside. Can you hear it?

    The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all, is the person who argues with him.

  • If/as technology like this becomes more common-place, you'd begin to see people using it to make ice cubes and such.

    heheeh


    --
    Cognosco: (Latin) To examine, enquire, learn

  • Ok, um, so.... how do they manage to make popsicles now?

    This sounds like a prime candidate for the stupid patent contest... "uh, yeah...I invented freezing..."

    --cr@ckwhore
  • This is really old news. There was an article in Discover Magazine several months ago about this machine (or one nearly identical, if not this exact one). A few days ago there was another article on Slashdot about a "new" digital camera watch that I have been seeing for nearly six months in various trinket catalogs that show up in the mail.

    Also a few days ago I submitted an article about Synopsys' plans to switch from NT to Linux as their second tier platform for all of their digital ASIC synthesis and simulation software, effectively creating one of the hugest endorsements possible of Linux in the ASIC EDA industry. This article, which contained information just released that day that one would think would be of interest to the Linux and engineering communities, was rejected, and instead we get articles about year-old camera watches and things that appeared in science magazines four months ago.

    With all due respect, it seems like those "trained mammals" have been spending a little too much time in their cages without a break.
  • Well, they tried to make perfect 3-d models of the original post, but as you can see they're still trying to work the kinks out of the system.
  • You could inject the hollow with a fairly low exothermic epoxy or silicon to create a permanent model. I'd like to have a 3d model of my spine that'd be cool. Special effects ppl in hollywood would kill for something like this.

  • I may have missed this in the article, but if your poured some kind of plastic over the ice, let it harden, and then let the ice melt, this could be the coolest thing in the world. You could make anything in plastic. There may be some issues with getting the demensions correct after pooring plastic goo over ice, but I think it could work after some testing.
    --------------------------------------

  • This is very interesting. One can envision an inexpensive desktop unit that consists of a clear, heavy plastic or glass dome settled upon a flat base containing the coolant and other freezer innards, and through which clear, heavy plastic or glass dome, can be seen a solid mass of ice containing within itself an intricately layered ice sculpture, all carefully constructed from very pure water and dense colorants to maximize clarity and sharpness, and in which are delicate, often beautiful figurines and other three-dimensional features, such as entire miniature forests or seascapes, as well as highly-detailed clouds and flocks of birds.

    This combination of a relative ease of manufacture of such internally complex but quite durable ice sculptures and the availability of quiet, inexpensive freezer mechanisms, might very well prove to be a popular art [britannica.com] form, much in the way of those old "Lava Lamps [lavaworld.com]" from the 1960's, but not nearly as tacky ... uh, I meant to say, "but even groovier" 8^].

    (No, I will not speculate upon what the pornography industry would do with this, nor will I remark upon what might be done with a Beowulf cluster of such devices).

  • To go along with the ice printer, Z corp [zcorp.com] has a corn starch based 3D printer [zcorp.com] that uses a standard inkjet nozzle that squirts water onto a layer of "dough". For each pass, a new layer of dough is rolled out over the top of the previous.

    Oh, and this unit can also print in color, so say goodbye to handmaking those christmas sugar cookies.
  • Give me a candidate who speaks out against the war on drugs.

    At the risk of being moderated offtopic, I'll give you two. I will do so because I believe that this is the most important issue and the mainstream candidates simply won't discuss it. Small tax cuts and boosts to social security just do not impress me when Bush and Gore will continue to have peaceful Americans thrown in jail for doing nothing wrong while others are forced to live in fear. They mean nothing to me when the first and fourth amendment are being stripped and property can be seized at will. So I cannot vote for any candidate who supports the war on drugs.

    If you care, you can vote for:

    Hopefully, this will help you (and others) make a truly informed vote, one to protect our freedom.

    Care about freedom?
  • As much as bashing the "liberal" media may be fun, I would say that the real reasons Nader gets more attention is that firstly, he is already something of a celebrity and secondly, he actually has people voting for him, unlike Browne, who is expected to get about 1% of the vote (which would be more than he got last time).

    Just because he is a getting a small portion of the vote doesn't mean that the libertarian party is politically irrelevent though; of all of the "third parties" in the US, they have managed to get the most people elected. They just tend to have success in local elections in various places, rather than in the federal government. However, I will not vote for Browne because he is just too extreme. For example, he honestly tries to explain why it is critical that assault rifles be legal and we get rid of laws requiring gun registration, child safety locks on guns, etc. While I support people's second amendment right to have guns, I feel that this is going too far. Furthermore, his desire to remove all laws stopping companies from polluting is ridiculous. He says they still wouldn't because there's a natural economic incentive to keep the land you own healthy, but this totally disregards the "tragedy of the commons" type effct, whereby companies will pollute the air since it affects everyone equally, rather than just hurting them stronlgy. By the way, for anyone whose interesed, they also have the Great Libertarian Offer video in realvideo format on Browne's webiste [harrybrowne.org] if you don't feel like purchasing it.

    By the way, I've realized how the war on drugs will end, and it won't really be through us electing the right politicians. The war on drugs is just too deeply entrenched in the United States. What's going to happen is every other country (by which I obviously mean Europe and Canada) is going to have to legalize first. Then, after a few years (maybe as much as 5-10), the US will look pretty stupid for being the only country left with drug laws, other than Singapore and Afghanistan. No one will be able to talk about the damage legalization will do to society with a straight face anymore, and people will start to wonder why the US isn't keeping up with the rest of the world, and our politicians will reluctantly give in and follow suit. This is not and issue where we will ever be leading.

    Care about freedom?

  • ... we won't have to settle for grainy two-dimensional reproductions of our asses. Nope - we'll have our asses in glorious 3D.

    Well, it might make a nice conversation piece...
  • So far I've heard 2 applications:
    1) popsicles
    2) MRI scan models (presumably colored with different flavors of popsicle base)

    I read down about 80-100 posts and didn't see anyone else mention this, so I'm back to address it for you.

    The biggest use for such technology (which is mentioned in the article, btw) would be something along the following:

    You need to build a cast of something for mass reproduction. Currently, you create some sort of solid prototype shape and then cast it and then find a way to cut your cast apart which can alter and distort the way the mold works. By having your original prototypical shape created out of ice, you can create your cast and then just wait a couple of hours for the ice to melt and have your flawless, non-distorted cast.


    -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
  • Umm, how about automotive parts? Short runs of components for proof-of-concept? Repair or restorative parts, especially ones for which the molds have been lost?

    Perhaps an actual production scenario will help.

    Picture making a window crank handle for a prototype car. Make an ice sculpture, and let the designer see it. He doesn't like it, so you drop it in the sink while he goes back and changes his design. You make another ice sculpture, and he likes it. Take the ice version and pack it in plaster (or some other molding compound.) The block of plaster is then warmed slightly and the water drained out. Now, you have a hole in a block of plaster the exact shape of the original window crank. Fill this block of plaster with molten plastic to make a more durable duplicate of your original window handle. Hand the plastic crank to your designer, who then approves it. So far, you've spent about $100 dollars, and your designer has seen the finished part already.

    OK, you're with me so far, right?

    Now, make another copy of your window crank, only this time make it out of metal. Slice it in two and nail both halves to the opposite sides of a board. Put the board in a box and pack both top and bottom with plaster. Lift off the top, remove the board, and carefully place the top back over the bottom. Fill the cavity with your production plastic. Repeat this step thousands of times and you can make thousands of duplicate parts.

    You just made a temporary production mold (probably good for about 10,000 parts or so) for a total cost of maybe $500. A tool-and-die shop would charge about $20,000 for a real mold to do the same thing. And you did it in about two days, instead of two months.

    I've seen this done with a 3D stereo lithography machine, and it was used to make a temporary mold for a plastic fan shroud. (The original design didn't fit in the car.) They were able to run 5000 parts from the temporary mold before the production mold was returned from the tool and die shop. The novel part of this equipment is their use of water and ice, instead of a tank of toxic plastic resins and UV lasers.

    There is real value to this research. It's worth a LOT of money in the manufacturing world.

    John

  • Some time before, as one can remember, another technology was proposed. It employed liquid polymer that can be made solid by laser light. But it was impossible to create dangling parts with it (something like several connected chain rings), because some parts of such things have to 'float' during layer-by-layer creation process. In liquid, they sank. In powder, they're firm

    These machines are now in fairly common use. The "dangling" problem was easily resolved by building everything on a common sprue, and cutting it free after the piece was cured.

    John

  • It's pretty hard to boycott polluting companies since we won't know who they are without government inspections. What are they supposed to just volunteer the fact that they pollute? And the firepower of citizens must match that of the government? Rather than assault rifles, that would give people tanks, nuclear bombs and attack helicopters.

    Care about freedom?
  • Come on dude..

    It's pretty hard to boycott polluting companies since we won't know who they are without government inspections.

    Just like we would be oblivious to the fact that GAP uses sweatshop labor, Firestone makes crappy tires, and tobacco kills???

  • This breakthrough will finally enable us to realize our childhood dreams of being fully outfitted as....the ICEMAN!! One of these babies strapped to your hands and you'll be out building ice bridges and flying around with Firestar (and spiderman, but he's gotta come up with his own tech, natch) in no time! I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the potential this has for space travel....I can see one of these things being used on spacecraft in order to build tools and equipment needed during long flights. The guys on the ground design a replacement part and beam it up to the ship to be built by this thing (first: out of ice. second: make a mold around it out of clay, or something stiff but maleable. third: fill the mold with something more permenant.) Then, if the replacement parts don't work, send the guys some Frozen Margarita's, they're gonna need 'em.
  • Actually, Discover also ran an article about something kind of similar a few months ago... it was a 3-D printer that used melted plastic beads, instead of water, so that the objects might be useful and not melt. Sure, you couldn't eat it, but... seems to be a similar concept, just a different approach. Still... it would be pretty expensive.

  • Rapid prototyping is nothing new (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This general idea has been around for years. Before I ever started college (at UMR), there were similar things COMMERCIALLY availible. The hobbyist name was "Santa Claus" machines, because you could make whatever. The two most prevalent versions used a mill (dremel tool welded to an old plotter) method, and a glued layer method, where each slice of a 3-d solid was cut into a 2-d piece of paper (with a high-voltage arc between a dot matrix platen and the roller), and then glued to the top of the preceding layer.
    The obvious follow-up (with this too) is to make a mold from latex, wax, plaster, or the other molding materials used in your manufacturing process.

    There was a guy (I don't know what ever happened to him), named Don Lancaster, that worked for the old Electronics Now magazine, and did a number of books on this (8+ years ago) and even sold kits with postcript source, to make your own by welding, etc. a dremel or an old dentists burr to an obsolete plotter.

    Now, we just need some cool stuff to prototype/cast! UMR Rulez!!! - nimitz

  • Seriously, guys, what's the point? That we can make models of things? Or that we can make popsicles?

    I'd rather have a popsicle than a model any day. Besides, most models might as well be popsicles, since they're cold and frosty and get you all sticky when you lick them.

  • the http://www.google.com/search?q=strawberry+banana link on "strawberry banana"... Very funny...

  • Expansion problems? (Score:3)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:09PM (#698100) Homepage
    The creators claim it's faster than other methods because an exterior shell can be formed in ice, then filled with water, which then freezes. Wouldn't the freezing water expand and crack the exterior?

    Very cool stuff though. How long 'till I can order an ice klein bottle?

    Kevin Fox
  • now expensive restaurants can make ice cubes in the shape of their restaraunt logo. Oh boy.

    Maybe his would be good for top-secret documents that melt after they've been around for an hour or so? Good for evil companies who write incriminating internal memos :-) Or would they get nailed for "destruction of evidence"?
  • I'm finally one step closer to being able to download a pizza! Hmmm... hungry now....
  • Ahh.. It's not that bad

    <shameless ad>
    Really, the town of Rolla sucks beyond having a Waffle House, ethernet, and St. Pat's.

    It's 1.5 hours from St. Louis, the lake, and Springfield (read women).

    The town and classes suck. The college experience, the good stuff, and about 98.72% of your education comes from the people here. Honestly, the people are great, I've made many friends who are dear for life (as in I had none at HS), and THOSE are the people you learn stuff from. As in most colleges I imagine.
    </shameless ad>

    Unfortunately, I learned too much, set up linux and an FTP server, and got my account shut off for a while because of a stupid little agreement between the school and the RIAA, and the fact I had too much traffic. Sigh again. But never, ever, will I put up with B^HMS again.

  • 3D Printers (Score:4)

    by andyh1978 ( 173377 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:53PM (#698104) Homepage
    This kind of thing's been around for a while, except using plastic.

    Lasers are beamed into a special plastic whilst it's liquid, and the affected volume solidifies, giving you a solid 3D plastic model of whatever it was you 'printed'.

    A bit more permanent than making an ice model...

    Engineer turns up to presentation to demonstrate his new Miracle Widget, with a big wet patch in his pocket... "Um, hi. I did have a model, but it kinda melted. Honest."

    :-P

    Anyway, a quick link [nbc17.com] to the 3D laser printer.
  • stereolithography [sglinc.com]. A lot of job shops offer this technology (we got unit at work, too). The technology is not new...your basic CNC application. The freezing is novel, though. Rapid prototyping in useful materials, like elastomers or high-strength polymers is where the actions at. flame-bait: you software engineers sure are easy to impress. TGL
  • Here's a better one: Z Corporations [zcorp.com] Z402 3D printer. It's been available for a few years and costs about $50,000. At 1-2 inches per hour (vertical) it's quick for a 3D printer. Does color printing and the model is a bit easier to handle than a block of ice. Looks like they're offering to print a free sample at the moment, too.
  • Prototype your engine parts or design prototype and then eat them when you're done.
  • As much as bashing the "liberal" media may be fun, I would say that the real reasons Nader gets more attention is that firstly, he is already something of a celebrity and secondly, he actually has people voting for him, unlike Browne, who is expected to get about 1% of the vote (which would be more than he got last time).

    I didn't bash the liberal media. I said I suspect that there may be ultra-liberal elements involved in the media that are giving Nader attention. I didn't say whether I thought that was negative or positive per se. I only offered that as one explanation of Nader's media exposure, which is totally unwarranted, based on polls.

    In the 1996 election, (If I counted right) Browne beat Nader in 16 of the 37 states where Nader was on the ballot. Browne was on the ballot in all 50 states also. Nader got .71% at large, and Browne got .50% Now you tell me if Nader deserves so much more attention than Browne after reading these numbers.

    1996 election results. [fec.gov]

    Totals [fec.gov]
    -

  • The problem here is just distinguishing cause from effect. To what extent does Nader get coverage because he has more support than Browne (even if he didn't in the last election) and to what extent does Nader have more support because people have actually heard of him thanks to newspaper coverage?

    Care about freedom?
  • Not only has this technology been around a while with plastics, it is now quite mature. Here [zcorp.com] is a site from Z Corp, demonstrating their technology that uses polymer powder and ink-jet technology to build 3D models at a lower cost and greater coonvenience than laser-sintered or liquid-resin technologies. Although being able to make things out of ice without a chainsaw or a mold is cool.
  • There's some resort out there which is made entirely of ice; it melts during the summer months and they recarve it come winter. Right now it's pretty expensive; maybe they could make it cheaper with one of these?

    The resort seems pretty neat (I'm avoiding the use of "cool" here); it's all hand-carved and extremely intricate.
  • This came up in new scientist [newscientist.com] a while back - the article mentioned a company,
    toybuilders [toybuilders.com], who do this kind of thing to create "custom toys" (action figures that look like you, etc..)

  • Cheap home version? (Score:3)

    by jonathanclark ( 29656 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:18PM (#698113) Homepage
    I wonder if this could lead to the first home solid printers. All the other systems require expensive parts & chemicals to create a model. Water is about the cheapest thing you can buy. A refregeration unit with 3 motors, a microcontroller, and some tubing - $400 or so for a home unit.

    If nothing else, you could have fanastic looking ice scupltures for every meal... :) Heck, you could make ice-plates, forks, knives, and spoons. Not that they would be good for real use, but at least doing the dishes can be reduced to placing them in the sink and waiting a few hours. A lazy man's dream!

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