The last few days many people have been talking about the USC’s contour printer. It’s a device that prints concrete outlines with the hopes of eventually printing entire houses. Caterpillar has decided to back the initiative.

It reminded us of a project we came across at Maker Faire. [Leif Ames], [Matthew Bowman], [Marides Athanasiadis], and [Terrell Edwards] built a 3D Mineral Printer as their senior engineering design project at UC Santa Cruz. The printer works by first laying down a layer of dry concrete powder. It then selectively wets the powder where it wants a solid form. The reaction doesn’t require air to dry, so the next layer can be applied immediately. The printer only creates contours and the team imagines this being used to create temporary casting molds. The build envelop is nearly a cubic meter. When we talked to them, they were experimenting with many different types of material mixes. A video of the first test is after the break. Continue reading “3D Mineral Printer” →