Research: Functional Freeform Fabrication

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A Technology for Inventing Technologies...

Solid-Freeform Fabrication (SFF) – also known as Rapid Prototyping (RP) – technology allows 3D-printing of arbitrarily shaped structures, directly from computer-aided design (CAD) data.  SFF has traditionally been used to produce only passive mechanical parts.  We are developing compact, automatic SFF systems, or “fabbers” which can build almost any kind of object – not merely passive mechanical parts, but complete devices, ready to use right out of the machine.

With our research systems, we have demonstrated freeform fabrication of:

· Thermoplastic and elastomer structures and flexures

· Conductive wiring embedded in structural materials

· Elastomer strain gages

· Complete zinc-air batteries

· “Artificial muscle” actuators

· Electromechanical relays

· Polymer transistors

· Inductors and electromagnets

· Living replacement cartilage structures based on medical imaging data

And Democratizing Innovation At Home...

The true potential of this technology is more than the new space of products and engineering solutions it opens up. A consumer-oriented fabber, coupled with the networked educational and technical resources already available today, empowers individuals with much of the innovative facility that would otherwise require an entire R&D laboratory. This could potentially lead to economic innovations such as neo-cottage industry manufacturing, an “eBay of designs” where individuals can market unique product designs as digital instructions and material recipes for others to execute on their own fabbers, and millions of people inventing technology rather than merely consuming it. To accelerate the transfer of this technology from the laboratory and into personal fabbers, we have developed the Fab@Home project and the Fab@Home Model 1 personal desktop fabricator kit. The Fab@Home project includes a user-editable “wiki” website which provides open-source, free software, parts lists, designs, and assembly and operational instructions for a simple open-architecture, desktop fabber simple enough for anyone with simple hobbyist tools and skills to build for themselves, but which essentially all of the capabilities of our research fabber. The open source nature of Fab@Home allows anyone to explore new materials, modify the software and hardware, for personal or commercial purposes, and we believe this approach will most rapidly advance the technology and realize the vision of powerful personal fabbers. Since the launch of the project in November of 2006, the Fab@Home website has had more than 500,000 unique visitors, Fab@Home Model 1 kits and fully assembled machines are available retail, and more than 100 individuals in more than a dozen countries have their own Model 1 fabber. The Fab@Home Project is a Popular Mechanics 2007 Innovation Award winner, and a Model 1 has been added to the permanent collection of the London Science Museum.

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Publications

Journal Articles

• Malone, E., Berry, M., Lipson, H., (2008), “Freeform Fabrication and Characterization of Zinc-air Batteries”, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Accepted.
• Malone E., Lipson H., (2007) “Fab@Home: The Personal Desktop Fabricator Kit”, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp.245-255.
• Malone E., Lipson H., (2006) “Freeform Fabrication of Ionomeric Polymer-Metal Composite Actuators”, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp.244-253.
• Cohen D. L., Malone E., Lipson H., Bonassar L., (2006) "3D direct printing of heterogeneous tissue implants", Tissue Engineering, Vol. 12, No. 5: 1325-1335
• Malone E., Rasa K., Cohen D. L., Isaacson T., Lashley H., Lipson H., (2004) “Freeform fabrication of 3D zinc-air batteries and functional electro-mechanical assemblies”, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 58-69.
• Lipson H. (2005) "Homemade: The future of Functional Rapid Prototyping", IEEE Spectrum, feature article, May 2005, pp. 24-31

Book Chapters

• Vilbrandt, T., Malone, E., Lipson H., Pasko, A., (2008) “Universal Desktop Fabrication”, in Heterogeneous Objects Modelling and Applications, pp. 259-284. Requires access to SpringerLink

Conference Proceedings

• Malone E., Lipson H., (2007) “The Factory in your Kitchen”, Proceedings of Mass Customization and Personalization (MCPC) 2007, Cambridge, MA, October 2007.
• Havener R., Boyea J., Malone E., Bernards D., DeFranco J., Malliaras G., Lipson H., (2007) “Freeform Fabrication of Organic Electrochemical Transistors”, Proceedings of the 18th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2007.
• Malone E., Lipson H., (2007) “Freeform Fabrication of a Complete Electromechanical Relay”, Proceedings of the 18th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2007.
• Periard D., Malone E., Lipson H., (2007) “Printing Embedded Circuits”, Proceedings of the 18th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2007.
• Periard D., Malone E., Lipson H., (2007) “Printing Food”, Proceedings of the 18th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2007.
• Malone E., Lipson H., (2006) “Freeform Fabrication of Complete Devices: Compact Manufacturing for Human and Robotic Exploration”, AIAA Space 2006, San Jose, CA, 19-21 Sept 2006, AIAA 2006-7406.
• Malone E. (2006) “Faxing Artifacts: The promise of three-dimensional scanning and rapid prototyping of archaeological materials”, International Council of Archaeo-Zoologists - ICAZ 2006, Mexico City, Mexico, 23-28 Aug 2006, poster.
• Malone E., Lipson H., (2006) “Fab@Home: The Personal Desktop Fabricator Kit”, Proceedings of the 17th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2006, Voted Outstanding Paper.
• Malone E., Lipson H., (2005) “Freeform Fabrication of Ionomeric Polymer-Metal Composite Actuators”, Proceedings of the 16^th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2005, pp. 484-502, Voted Outstanding Paper.
• Berry M., Malone E., Lipson H., (2005) “Freeform Fabrication of Zinc-Air Batteries with Tailored Geometry and Performance”, Proceedings of the 16^th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2005, pp.295-307.
• Malone, E. and Lipson, H., 2004, “Solid Freeform Fabrication for Autonomous Manufacturing of Complete Robots”, Proceedings of Robosphere 2004, November 2004, NASA Ames Research Center, CA USA.
• Cohen D.L., Malone E., Lipson H., Bonassar L.J, (2004) “Multi-Tissue Direct Freeform Fabrication of Spatially Heterogeneous Biological Implants”, Proceedings of the 15th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2004, pp.720-731.
• Malone E., Purwin, O., Lipson H., (2004) “Application of Machine Learning Methods to the Open-Loop Control of a Freeform Fabrication System”, Proceedings of the 15th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2004, pp.377-388.
• Malone E., Lipson H., (2004) “Freeform Fabrication of Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Electromechanical Devices”, Proceedings of the 15th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2004, pp.697-708.
• Evan Malone and Hod Lipson, (2004) “Functional Freeform Fabrication for Physical Artificial Life”, Ninth Int. Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE IX), Proceedings of the Ninth Int. Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE IX), pp.100-105.
• Malone E., Rasa K., Cohen D. L., Isaacson T., Lashley H., Lipson H., (2003) “Freeform fabrication of 3D zinc-air batteries and functional electro-mechanical assemblies”, Proceedings of the 14th Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, Austin TX, Aug 2003, pp.363-374.
• E. Malone, H. Lipson, 2002, “Solid Free-Form Fabrication For Self-Sustained Robot Ecologies”, Proceedings of Robosphere 2002, pp. 93-98, NASA Ames Research Center, CA USA.

Patents

• Lipson, H., Bonassar, L., Cohen, D., Malone, E., (2005) MODULAR FABRICATION SYSTEMS AND METHODS, pending.

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Last Updated: 12/22/2007