3D Printed Snowboard Bindings Pass Stress Test on the Slopes

3D Printed Snowboard Bindings Pass Stress Test on the Slopes

Early last year the Swiss brand NOW 3D printed by SLS a set of generatively designed bindings that were put through a simulated testing environment (and passed). A new collaboration between Stratasys and Slicelab + Fequalsf (Aaron Porterfield), just produced a new set of 3D printed snowboard bindings that were produced using the Stratasys Origin One high-speed photopolymerization 3D printer using the Loctite 3172 material. The printed bindings were functionally tested with a weekend of boarding at Breckenridge, Colorado and performed perfectly.

Where Open Source 3D Printing and Sim Racing Collide

Where Open Source 3D Printing and Sim Racing Collide

3DRap is a startup based in a small town on the hills of Irpinia, in Southern Italy, in the medieval town of Capocastello. As the name implies the company was founded around the idea of RepRap 3D printing: they created an open-source system, leveraged the Arduino platform for a number of projects and built a digital production facility. But the sweet spot where their open-source 3D printers began to truly make business sense is sim racing: 3DRap is now a manufacturer of custom 3D printed mods for sim racing peripherals, hitching a ride on one of today’s key technology trends to reach people all over the world.

A Cobbler in the Machine: Voxeljet’s Coral Runner

A Cobbler in the Machine: Voxeljet’s Coral Runner

In 1827, The Book of English Trades summarized the cobbler’s profession: “There are few trades more useful than that of a shoe-maker, and, perhaps, not many that are more profitable, when it is carried on to a considerable extent.” We have largely forgotten this profession as, two hundred years on, the cobbler has been replaced by mass production. Additive manufacturing, however, promises a return in some ways to the personalized shoe of earlier extraction. Such a return, as with many things relating to AM, makes mechanisms and their operators artisans.