openMaterials

If you haven’t yet, check out this great blog post on recycling of 3D printing materials by i.materialise’s Joris Peels: Last week in a comment, Paul asked me, “When will more eco and sustainable materials be available for use in these printers? Something like hemp plastic or other biodegradable materials? What are the technical limitations and [...]

Tito Ingenieri, from Quilmes - Argentina, built his house out of six million empty bottles over a period of 19 years. His main motivation was the accessibility of scrap materials: “I didn’t have any other way to make my house and this was easy enough to do… Scrap iron and the remnants of other materials [...]

Refarm the city (aka re:farm) is a collective project started and led by Hernani Dias with the purpose of developing open source software and hardware tools for urban farmers. In its creators’ words, the project is a cross between a good meal (the crop, the seeds, the friends), hardware (the urban farm, the composter, the [...]

This solar clothes washer was made by 2nd year art students from the École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence (France). The challenge was to make a DIY washing machine using only materials available in the sahara. The prototype shown above uses bicycle parts (the tires and wheel), bamboo, and a solar panel connected directly to a recycled [...]

bionic yarn is a ‘new fabric made of recycled plastic bottles’ (PET). I’m loving the great ‘process’ section on the website, explaining the extrusion process and how the fibers are spun together to make the yarn.

Just announced on the RepRap blog: The Foresight Institute has announced its Kartik M. Gada Humanitarian Innovation Prize to design and build a better RepRap. There is an interim prize of $20,000, and a grand prize of $80,000. I am particularly excited about these specific aims of the contest: :: Print at least three different materials, including [...]